Belgian candi syrup vs sugar

It won't taste the same as dark syrup, but it won't taste bad.

 

I have never bothered to use the rocks. The darker syrups have enough flavor to carry a beer. With the rocks, you may need to rely more on specialty malts, as they are rumored to be less flavorful.

 

The candi syrup has already been inverted for you to whatever degree the darkness implies, and if you want to do it to the rock sugar and have a little fun, and have the extra time: do it yourself and up the flavor of what the rock sugar doesn't have. Do it. There are plenty of different kinds of sugars out there, and they all have different things to add to your brewing and ferment out at different rates.

 

I don't get what you mean here. Are you asserting that darkness implies something about inversion.

Is the value of inversion overestimated, as far as beer is concerned? Yeasts are capable of converting sucrose to its monomer components, and do not seem to be especially taxed by the task.

 

Pretty much, yes. The darker it is implies that it's been heated for longer. For regular inverted sugars i.e. cane. that's 1 - 4 from lightest to darkest, for the belgian candi's it's related to the srm level.

No. It's not. Using inverted sugars whether in England or in Belgium is rather common for many brewers and has been used as a malt substitute, or to boost abv's while hiding the booziness and forgoing the extra body of using grain, and to sidestep the issue of forcing yeast to do the extra work that they by providing them something supremely easy to chew on, and poop out and that they can ferment out in the +90% range with rapidity.

 

To clarify, you are saying darker makes it more inverted because it is heated longer?
And non-inverted sugars makes a fermentation boozier while inverted sugar hides the booziness?

I have no opinion here, but would welcome more details.

 

No, sugars in general whether inverted or not, will give a lighter and drier beer when used as a malt substitute, or in its own right because you are giving the yeast simple sugars to break down as opposed to a grain with its more complex chains which can include things they aren't into and won't party on. i.e. sugar in general can turn a high abv beer into something eerily drinkable if its done well, and also depending on the sugar used, a wicked hangover. Think Lagunitas Brown Shugga for one example of dangerously drinkable beer which uses sugar that can knock you on your ass if you forget it's nearly 10% abv.
With the inversion process being lengthened, you're mostly just going after the color it ends up at.

If you want to wake your yeast up, or give them a second wind or send them charging into what you gave them. Feed them sugar.
Oh, here's some words from the true experts on the matter http://www.candisyrup.com/faq.html

 

This is the part I found most interesting:

What does directly fermentable mean?
We prefer to characterize sugars in the context of brewing as either directly fermentable or indirectly fermentable. For instance, sucrose is not directly fermentable in ale. Also, since sucrose only inverts slightly upon boiling in wort, it must later be broken down by the yeast in a separate metabolic process before it can be consumed. This takes time and energy away from your yeast's limited capacity and lifespan. In high gravity ales time and energy are critical to achieving target gravity. Too high a percentage of complex sugars can be counter-productive to reaching target FG.

I would be interested in seeing this impact quantified by empirical study.

It says nothing about wicked hangovers, which I typically attribute to fusel alcohols and hot, rapid fermentations. Do you have evidence that sugar type can cause wicked hangovers?

 

That science minded part is where i fall apart cos I'm coming at brewing from the creative mind. I can see from having the FG get down there and from the numerous recipes I have examined from a host of different places, authors and so forth that keeping it under 10% is where its at.
On the hangover.
I have direct evidence from a certain beer I drank a lot of and got them from that corn sugar does it. One of the brewers of said beer confirmed it. I can handle having that amount of beer abv wise from other brewers. But this one, while supremely drinkable, had a tendency of sitting with me the day after in ways the others would not and did not.

 

You can go 20% sugar in a Tripel with no problems. I have used Raw beet sung in the past. I am more likely to think the hangovers were from poor fermentation so, temperature, yeast health, letting the yeast clean up acetaldehyde will give a beer not prone to hangovers. That is, unless you drink too much 9+% beer.

 

I'd like to suggest to you and anyone that cares to listen that science and creativity are not mutually exclusive, and in fact, that science is a fundamentally creative endeavor, requiring people to anticipate the unknown by synthesizing what is known in ways that no one else has considered. Even a groovy creative dude like you is probably more scientific than you realize or care to admit.

 

Thanks!