Not a food scientist but I thought this is the place in Reddit to ask about this. So I found this invert sugar recipe that I think I can make at home coz it use cream of tartar instead of citric acid. https://youtu.be/CW_cJrRUIW8 My questions are:

1. How would I know if I have successfully "split" the sugar? I saw a comment in the vid saying that it was not cooked long enough, that it need to simmer for 20 minutes more after it reaches the required temperature.
2. How long would invert sugar keep in the fridge?
3. Can I store invert sugar in the freezer or would that cause crystallization?
4. When using invert sugar in place of granulated sugar, what would be the conversion? Can I use it to completely replace all the granulated sugar in the recipe?

Hi /r/firewater, I am still learning about this hobby. Something I've learned is about inverting sugar, that (for example) if you use white sugar, it's a molecule where sucrose and fructose are connected, and apparently if you break them apart it's easier for the yeast to digest them into alcohol.

Is this something commonly done, when starting with sugar (white or brown)?

Citric acid is recommended, 1/2 tsp per kg of white sugar I saw on one website, would lemon juice be OK?

edit: should I call it a 'sugar wash' since there are no other components?

edit: thanks everyone for the information. For me, if furfural is a possibility, then I won't try adding citric acid or lemon juice to the wash, to speed things up a small bit.

Hello everyone, I have 2 books: "Ice cream without secrets " from Corvitto and "Ice cream" from Hoff. The invert sugar relative sweetness and freezing point depression are very different in these 2 books. Corvitto says the sweetness is about 1.3 times sucrose and freezing point depression is 1.9 which is equivalent to dextrose or fructose. On the other hand, Hoff provides 0.95 and 1.12 respectively for invert sugar relative sweetness and freezing point depression. Those differences are very large and I had to do a melting test to determine which one is right.

Sucrose sample: 100g succrose + 200g water.

Invert sugar: 100g invert sugar syrup + 200g water.

HFCS 55%: 100g HFCS 55% + 200g water.

The 3 samples were kept 24 hours in a -26 degree Celsius freezer and then removed to see the melting rate.

Result:

1. The sucrose melted completely first and HFCS closely follow.

2. The invert sugar sample completely melted after very long time compared to the other 2 samples.

At first, I thought the HFCS and invert sugar solutions had higher freezing point depression which meant those 2 samples would turn into liquid before the sucrose solution did but I was wrong. What surprised me most was the invert sugar even took a very long time to completely melt which means its freezing point was very high and much higher compared to the other 2.

I'm very confused with the result of the test and I decided to make another test with dextrose to clarify. Any idea?

Hi all,

I'm aware that people say to invert sucrose prior to brewing to save the yeast a job.

Does this have any advantage over using pure glucose or fructose as the fermentable?

I'm lucky enough to live near a Wilko, so buying neat glucose is pretty straightforward. Was wondering if I'm missing out anything by not going the invert route!

I'm going to be making ice cream soon and I've heard using invert sugar leads to a better texture. But, I'm having trouble finding ratios or guides of how to incorporate them into a recipe. Any tips?

tl;dr: Invert your sugar to avoid slime

(Recipe at end of post)

Problem: ginger bug soda becomes slimy
Solution: Use a different sugar!

If you brew ginger beer or other wild-fermented drinks frequently, you've probably encountered tHe sLiME. Doing some research, it seems like this slime is dextran (a starch) and that a variety of microbial culprits are responsible. Now, this post claims that dextran can be produced from sucrose, but not from its components, glucose and fructose. Unfortunately the article cited by that source is no longer accessible. But, the theory is simple enough: don't add sucrose, don't get slimed.

So there is a choice of what sugar to use instead. One could, of course, use honey (expensive, and antimicrobial so may slow fermentation) or corn syrup, but for my experiment (uncontrolled and highly unscientific), I've chosen to use invert syrup. Invert syrup is just sucrose that's been broken up by exposure to water, heat, and optionally acid. Now there is another major benefit to using invert sugar: it doesn't stress the yeast as much since they don't have to break down the sucrose themselves. Finally, there's anecdotal evidence that invert syrup can lead to a lighter mouthfeel and a clearer brew.

An unexpected benefit: Faster ginger bug maturation

I'll post more as this experiment progresses, but I wanted to take a moment to extol the benefits of invert syrup in cultivating a ginger bug. I added a little homemade invert syrup to some water and crushed ginger yesterday... and less than 12hrs later, with temps never rising above 75F, today I have a bubbly ginger bug!

As a comparison, usually it takes me 24-48 hours to achieve this level of activity under these conditions. So if your ginger bugs are slow or weak, maybe try switching up your sweetener!

Invert syrup recipe

I followed the procedure outlined on Wikipedia. You can scale this recipe up to make larger batches.

• 100g sugar
• 50g water
• 2g lemon juice (strained)

Combine sugar, water, and lemon juice in a pot and heat slowly, without stirring, until a candy thermometer reads 237F/114C. The mixture should be thick, slightly golden and have a faint, honey-like smell. Jar it and put it in the fridge until you want to use it.

I've been brewing for me and my spouse for a year now during covid. But now that vaccines are out and I am making July 4th plans, I wanna brew a crowd pleaser (*sigh* most agreeable beer for a grill): American Light Lager.

As I was adding flaked rice or corn onto my shopping list, I thought, why not instead use invert sugar? It is WAY cheaper when you make it at home (boil table sugar with citric acid). And it is supposed to avoid imparting yeast stress or color or flavor. (or soul)

Has anyone tried using invert sugar for lager before? Is this a bad idea?

to explain: invert sugar is made from glucose (and fructose, but that's not important right now), which is also called dextrose. the root of which is the word "dexter", from the latin for "right". the latin for "left" is "sinister". thus, "sinistrose"

Wanna use invert sugar for next batch so What would be correct way of making enough for 1Liter of water and 250 grams of sugar?

Invert sugar when you take a disaccharide and split it into two monosaccharides correct? Since allulose is already a monosaccharide, can I assume that I can use it in the same applications I would use invert sugar?

I am taking a shot at keto candy-making.

Sugar is one of the most important parts of every recipe.
In this post I explain how you can make the invert sugar, a sugar naturally contained in honey.
The invert sugar has high antifreeze point, so works perfectly with all your ice cream to hard to scoop. Try to add 50 grams/kg in your mix.
https://icegelato.wordpress.com/2020/03/27/invert-golden-syrup/

Wanted to follow up with the results to my earlier post about getting a dry kombucha. First off, honorable mentions, and thank yous for the participation/advice of u/LuckyPoire and u/jobst

I have seen recipes that call for as much as 120g/sugar per Liter, and the official recipe here calls for 70g/L, with this number I got a very sweet kombucha at 10 days, sour and still very sweet by 15 days. I was looking for dry and sour by 15 days - this was achieved by using 40g/L. Also, using invert syrup instead of table sugar, on the principle that this is skipping a step (saving the yeasts having to produce invertases), making much more food available immediately, and thus accelerating the fermentation.

I haven't tested sugar vs invert syrup side by side but anecdotally I see more vigorous activity with 40g/L equivalent invert syrup than I did with 70g/L sucrose. There's some bubbling and yeast development/floculation within 1 day, and vigorous carbonation days 3-7, by day 10 it's flat again, and starting to get sour, with still significant residual sweetness, by day 15 it's mostly dry and significantly acidic. At this point, bottling and priming produces a very nice balanced, well carbonated brew - i give it a further 10 days of 2f. (I know some people do a 2f with champagne yeast for this purpose, and then a bottled 3f, but it's more work than I'm willing to put in).

In future I will take it down to 35g/L equivalent as I would like even less residual sweetness. Hopefully that will do it.

Everywhere I've read has said that invert sugar is good to replace honey, but not too sure if the opposite is true.

I think that honey flavor will be fine (complementary, really) for what I'm baking, but wanted to ask here for any additional information I may have missed. Also, I read that invert sugar is more hygroscopic, which is part of its usefulness, and want to make sure that it would be the same for honey.

Trying to minimise residual sugars and get a really dry brew. Doing some digging around the literature on yeast metabolism, I'm supposing that invertase may be a bottleneck initially, and in the later stages (I am no microbiologist and may be very wrong - just putting that up front). Boiled up my own invert syrup, used the equivalent of about 25g sucrose/liter (vs 2.5% vs 7% recommended in the master recipe). Fermentation finished quickly, the brew is really dry, no discernible sugar to taste, though not nearly as sour or otherwise flavourful as a two-three week standard recipe fermentation.

Question: has anyone tried this? How much sucrose-equivalent invert did you use? What other sugar reducing methods look promising?

Addenda: Sucrose and Saccharomyces cerevisiae: a relationship most sweet https://academic.oup.com/femsyr/article/16/1/fov107/2467713 Also see the Crabtree effect for the source of some of my thinking here

Through my reading of this sub I've seen references to sugars in wight and volume, and I was wondering how y'all calculate the addition on invert sugars to your juice. The measurements of invert sugars I've seen measured in weight, but wasn't clear on if that includes the weight of the water or the just the sugar before adding water or how to calculate the extra volume.

Sorry if the question is a little unclear. I'm drinking box wine like a pleb and my head is swimming with probably unnecessary calculations.

I've seen several recipes and videos all with different directions on the heating of invert sugar. They all say to get it to soft ball, but one says to get it there with high heat, another says to do lowest possible temp after it starts to boil, another says to boil it all the way at medium, another says to only let it get right before it boils and then reduce to simmer. I just read another that instructed you to heat in stages (leave sugar and water at 85c for 5 minutes, take off and add citric acid then leave for 12 hours at room temp. Bring mixture to 60c and then add baking soda.)

Do these different speeds of getting to temp change the final ratio of water to sugar in the syrup? Is there a generally accepted traditional method? Does it depend on whether you're doing lemon juice, citric acid, or cream of tartar?

The cider that I’m making has been fermenting for over a week and I’ve gotten consistent gravity readings over 3 days (1.019). It’s still very sweet, and I was expecting it to be much drier (1.019 seems like a really high FG, especially considering I used Nottingham which normally attenuates much better).

To add some gravity and flavor I added some invert sugar which I prepared myself. I used demarara sugar and lemon juice as an acid (from what I understand, the acid is necessary in the process and also helps prevent the sugar from crystallizing on the pan). I’ve never done this before and don’t know much about it, so I’m wondering if I somehow fucked the process up and rendered the sugar unfermentable. Is it possible to screw this up by adding too much acid or heating the sugar for too long?

It’s been fermenting at a constant 64-65 degrees, so I took it into my basement where it’s about 70 and gave it a swirl. I’m thinking maybe that will rouse the yeast a bit if they stalled. Otherwise I can’t think of why this happened.

EDIT: It’s bubbling away again after a vigorous swirl and relocation to a warmer spot. Thanks everyone for your help!

Does anybody have any experience substituting invert sugar for white sugar in a recipe? For example an ice cream recipe that calls for 22oz white sugar can i substitute 22oz of trimoline?

Heya! Just wondering why I need to add syrup/invert sugar to my sucrose mixture? Doesn't sucrose + water become invert syrup anyway? And doesn't all of the water boil off in the hard crack stage?

Furthermore, could adding too much syrup be the reason my "hard" candy is chewy?

Hello, I want to put pieces of homemade baked french toast in one of my ice cream flavors. When I tested it last week, the french toast pieces got pretty hard and chewy when frozen. Would you recommend I use invert sugar as part of the egg/dairy/sugar mixture I pour over the bread cubes before baking. Have you used invert sugar in baking? What was the result? Thank you in advance!

Have been reading Shut Up About Barclay Perkins posts about invert sugar and how important the darker invert sugars are for a proper English mild.

I thought that sounded interesting so I looked up some recipes for dark invert sugar. Now making regular invert sugar is dead easy but also kind of pointless as I don't think that splitting the sucrose into glucose and fructose is going to have any real effect on the flavor of the beer.

Then I came across this: http://www.unholymess.com/blog/beer-brewing-info/making-brewers-invert

Basically to make dark invert sugar (where apparently lots of the flavor/color of English milds comes from) you invert the sugar and then cook it for a really long time until it turns dark kind of like molasses. The temperatures seem a good bit lower than what you need to make caramel like Belgian candi sugar.

So I tried that. Following the recipe except I stuck it in the oven because I don't have a candy thermometer. And cooked it for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours. Didn't notice any color change at all.

So I got bored and cranked up the heat and the sugar turned into caramel and I threw that in the wort. The beer came out great, the best beer I've made since the hoppy porter I brewed in October. But it left me scratching my head.

If dark invert sugar isn't the same thing as caramel and it's important in certain styles of beer then how the hell do I make it? Cooking the sugar at low temperatures didn't seem to do much of anything while cranking up the heat turned the sugar into caramel (delicious caramel, kind of like Belgian candi sugar but not what I was going for).

Anyone had any success with this?

Maybe my shitty oven wasn't as hot as it claimed to be and I need to find a sweet spot between "nothing happens" and "turns into caramel" so maybe I could experiment more. The caramel I made was delicious just incredibly annoying to deal with since it stuck like glue to everything.

I tried a bag of pretty good chocolate chips cookies from Trader Joe's ("with a hint of molasses") and was looking over the ingredients to compare with my homemade ones. I was pleased to see nearly all standard cookie ingredients; the one exception was invert sugar. It was not listed as part of the makeup of the chocolate chips, but part of the cookie itself.

Since it's not typically part of a home pantry, I was musing on what role invert sugar could play in baked goods, and thought I'd ask the brilliant hivemind here. Does anyone here use it to their advantage?

I want to make a cinnamon ice cream with a brown sugar/cinnamon swirl. What I have read so far discusses using invert sugar sources like corn or agave syrup to keep the swirl from hardening. Does this imply that a brown sugar swirl will harden too much? Would a component of corn syrup with the brown sugar help it stay softer?

I homebrew my own root beer, using actual roots & herbs rather than anything from a kit or using root beer extract.

My most expensive ingredient is sugar. I use regular C&H white sugar. (8 cups to every 5 gallons of root beer.)

I've been considering making some invert sugar instead (http://www.chefeddy.com/2009/11/invert-sugar/) and seeing how it affects the taste & texture. I already add a bit of maltodextrin for a smoother texture- my thought is that by using invert sugar, I could use less regular sugar and eliminate the malto.

Any thoughts? What kind of ratio should I start with? Would 4 cups of invert sugar be similar in sweetness to 8 cups of table sugar?

Obviously some trial & experimentation will be needed to determine how best to incorporate this in my recipe, but I thought perhaps the good folks of /r/cooking might have some insight.

Thanks!

Hello, I want to put pieces of homemade baked french toast in one of my ice cream flavors. When I tested it last week, the french toast pieces got pretty hard and chewy when frozen. Would you recommend I use invert sugar as part of the egg/dairy/sugar mixture I pour over the bread cubes before baking. Have you used invert sugar in baking? What was the result? Thank you in advance!