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Homemade Amber Belgian Candy

Scott Ickes

Grandmaster Brewer
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I posted in the All grain section about the Belgian Dubbel our club made 68 gallons of for a Malbec Barrel.  We put 18 pounds of homemade Amber Belgian Candy in it.  Here is the recipe and photos of me making more of the Candy. 

What you're doing with this recipe is inverting Sucrose, into Fructose and Glucose.  Yeast have to work hard to create the enzymes necessary to do this, if you add table sugar to your beer.  By inverting the sugar with this process, you can make it in syrup form or hard tack candy form and..........at the same time, leave the yeast to not have to work as hard so that they can concentrate on fermentation, instead of inverting sugar!  I prefer to make hard tack candy, so that I can store it in freezer bags for long periods of time.  I've seen 2 year old candy used, that tasted just as good as the day it was made.  The Cream of Tartar combined with holding the boiling sugar between 260F and 275F will cause this inversion to occur.


Recipe is for 5 pounds of candy:
  (Scales up or down easily)
Ingredients:
5 pounds of table sugar
2-1/2 cups of water
5/8 teaspoons of Cream of Tarter
Candy thermometer
Spoon that won't melt in the molten sugar. 
Two cookie sheets lined with Aluminum Foil or Parchment Paper.  I used Parchment Paper, because the candy comes off of it easier.
Extra water to add to the boiling candy to hold temperature between 260 F and 275 F.  I had a pyrex 4 cup measuring cup full of cold water handy next to the boiling sugar water.

  • The process involves mixing the water and sugar together in the boil pot to dissolve it.  It will be very thick, but don't let that worry you.
  • Start heating it up.  At about 150 F, add the cream of tartar and continue to heat is up, breaking up any clumped cream of tartar.
  • Adjust the burner on the range so that you get a temperature between 260F and 275F.  Don't go under or over.  I just throw in a few tablespoons of cold water when it gets to about 270F and gently stir.  This usually drops it down to about 260F again.
  • Once you get the burner adjusted just right, it tends to take about 10 minutes to slowly get back up to about 270F.  Just keep it at this temperature for as long as it takes to get your desired color.  The actual inversion of the sugar happens in about the first 30 minutes.
  • When you reach your desired color and flavor (it does create toffee, rum, caramel flavors as it darkens), you then turn the heat on the burner up slightly and bring the sugar to 300F.  I usually take it to about 310F, to make sure it's at the hard crack stage.
  • Pour it onto your parchment lined cookies sheets and let it cool.  When it's cool break it up with a wooden mallet or rolling pin into small pieces.  You can then store it for long periods of time in freezer bags, until you're ready to use it.
  • When it is in the bag, putting a dusting of powdered sugar with it and seal it.  Then shake it and move the candy around (it's quite tacky at this stage and sticks together.  The powdered sugar will keep you from having a large hard stuck together lump when it's time to use it.






In the photos. 
The first one is about 1 hour into the process, when I first noticed that the color was changing.  A very light straw color. 
The second photo is at about 1 hour 15 minutes.  Starting to darken some.
The third is at about 1 hour 30 minutes.


 
This is when I stopped adding tablespoons of water and started heating it up to the hard crack stage.





The top photo is at 275F and the bottom photo is at about 310F and ready to pour onto the lined cookie sheets.
 






The two sheets of Amber Belgian Candy in the top photo.
Individual photos are:
Middle Photo, the pan on the right in the top photo.  I poured more into that one, so it looks darker, but only because it's deeper.
Bottom Photo, is the pan on the left in the top photo.

5 pounds of Amber Belgian Candy!  Time to brew up more Belgians.  Dubbels, Tripels?  The sky's the limit.
 
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