So I've decided to brew my first tripel, but I had a question to ask you guys. I decided I'm going to whip up some homemade candi sugar instead of just tossing some sugar in with the wort. Just giving myself something extra to do. What I was wondering, is what should I estimate the extract potential to be of the syrup? Will it be the same as the potential of the sugar I use, or does the process of creating the syrup change the numbers?
I can't give you a number, but I can tell you that technically it will depend on how much of the sugar is converted to melanoidins, which are not fermentable. But in any event, a very large percentage of your sugar will still be sugar.
It's like Vikeman says. So much of your sugar will be sugar that you should not notice the difference. Your batch to batch variation in extract efficiency from grains will be a bigger source of error. I guess what you could do is look up the points per pound from the Belgian candi syrups - I'm pretty sure Northern Brewer lists this info on their website - and use that.
Thanks VikeMan. I was just curious if it would still be relatively close and I got my answer. Now lets see how this syrup turns out
Amber Belgian candy syrup sold through Midwest has a yield of 6.4 points in a 5 gallon batch. So, if you make a Belgian candy syrup, I'd use "6 points" per pound as the approximation. As Vikeman said, there's no way to know exactly how much...but this might give you at least some idea.
This could be a reasonable rule of thumb for OPs finished syrup (assuming roughly the same ratio of liquid to sugar as the one Midwest sells). But really, OP will already know how much sugar went into it, so I'd start the estimate from there. I think he he can assume something very close to 46 PPG for just the sugar portion. The melanoidins should be a very small fraction. Probably typically around 5% of the original sugar (I'm guessing). So maybe 43-44 PPG for the original sugar (only) weight? OP... let's say for the sake of argument that maillard reactions will convert enough sugars to melanoidins to bring your sugar (only) contribution down to 43 PPG based on the original sugar weight. So you could either use the original sugar weight (not the syrup weight) at an assumed 43 PPG in your recipe, or you could compute an estimated PPG for your syrup (and use the syrup weight and PPG in the recipe)... 43 PPG X (Original Sugar Weight / Final Syrup Weight) Of course, unless you're going to use a large amount of syrup, this might all be overkill. The important thing is to realize that the PPG you use should correspond to the weight of the form (solid sugar or syrup) that the PPG applies to.
Gotcha, always fun to experiment. Tripels seem to be one of the hardest styles to brew well. Good luck.
If you have syrup, the amount water will drop the ppppg down, these are all 1.032. http://www.candisyrup.com/products.html
