Cane sugar

[Moonshineminedistillery]

Greetings all,

Im looking for a source where I can buy drums or totes of crystal clear cane sugar liquid syrup for our liqueurs. Does anyone have a source as to where to buy or explain how I can make my own crystal clear sugar syrup limiting the tan color?

thanks in advance,

Mike

[indyspirits]

What brix are you looking for? Simple syrup like you make for your bar is 50% (ish) and it's trivial to make -- 1 unit sugar, 1 unit water. Perfectly clear.

[Silk City Distillers]

Like Indy says, 1:1 ratio.

Don’t boil it, you are caramelizing the sugars.  Bring water to a simmer, take off heat, add sugar.  It will take a little longer to dissolve.  Give it an occasional stir.

[Moonshineminedistillery]

Thanks for the reply’s..... yea 50/50 I did try it and just can’t get rid of the tan straw color, I found a few companies that sale low non colored cane sugar syrup maybe that’s the direction I’m looking for? It’s for my liqueurs and would like it to be colorless. 

[Dehner Distillery]

Make it your self. Why buy a bunch of water.

Go to sam's club or costco, buy cane sugar, and mix it your self. We do tens of thousands of pounds all the time with never a problem.

[jrfalcon]

Looking for help with my sugar wash, doing 100 gals-250 lbs sugar-200 gms distilax SR-380 gms DAP. only getting 13-15 ABV, when I distill get 140 proof at first, than drop to 40 proof than down to 20 proof, only getting 2-3 gals before it hits 20 proof, any thoughts, maybe a different yeast, thanks guys

[bluefish_dist]

34 minutes ago, jrfalcon said:

Looking for help with my sugar wash, doing 100 gals-250 lbs sugar-200 gms distilax SR-380 gms DAP. only getting 13-15 ABV, when I distill get 140 proof at first, than drop to 40 proof than down to 20 proof, only getting 2-3 gals before it hits 20 proof, any thoughts, maybe a different yeast, thanks guys

First off, cut the amount of sugar.  Try 200 lbs.  unless you are making fuel you will get a better tasting spirit with less sugar and possibly a better conversion.    What is you starting and ending gravity?  Ph at pitch?, ph at 24, 48 hrs?   

[indyspirits]

Whoa there killer!!  250 lbs of sugar in 100 gallons of water???  You're talking about an OG of 1.115 with potential alcohol of nearly 14%. If you could find a yeast (SR certainly isnt it) that can handle it.  For starters, back the sugar WAY down. Say... 150 lbs. And you need nutrients in addition to DAP. Maybe some mag sulphate, dead yeast hulls, somethign for cell wall health. I would consider dosing twice. Say once at first and then when 1/2 sugar gone  I havent looked at a brick of of SR in ages but that sounds like the right amount. Work on that ferment and then the distilling will fall into place. 

[Dehner Distillery]

My thought is that if it has a slight color to it, it will not by the time it is added to the final product. Your not selling sugar water.

[jenschmunk@gmail.com]

On 12/14/2017 at 7:26 AM, Dehner Distillery said:

Make it your self. Why buy a bunch of water.

Go to sam's club or costco, buy cane sugar, and mix it your self. We do tens of thousands of pounds all the time with never a problem.

Hi! Following this topic. Do you have problems with sugar crystallizing around the tops of your bottles using this method? I've had someone recommended liquid invert sugar to prevent this, but this is a costly way of doing things. Thanks! 

[meerkat]

Jen, unless you have very high sugar loading or very high proof, there should not be a problem with crystallization.  Invert sugar is more soluble than sucrose, so that would help if you are aiming for very sweet products.

When making up a 1:1 (or any other ratio, for that matter) sucrose syrup it is important to measure the parts by weight rather than by volume.  It is very hard to get consistent quantities of granular sugar when measuring volumetrically because the bulk density will vary from bag to bag and from batch to batch. If you want consistent taste and proofing it helps enormously to have consistent quality syrup.

[jenschmunk@gmail.com]

2 hours ago, meerkat said:

Jen, unless you have very high sugar loading or very high proof, there should not be a problem with crystallization.  Invert sugar is more soluble than sucrose, so that would help if you are aiming for very sweet products.

When making up a 1:1 (or any other ratio, for that matter) sucrose syrup it is important to measure the parts by weight rather than by volume.  It is very hard to get consistent quantities of granular sugar when measuring volumetrically because the bulk density will vary from bag to bag and from batch to batch. If you want consistent taste and proofing it helps enormously to have consistent quality syrup.

Hi Meerkat! Thanks so much for your response. Just to be clear, what do you mean exactly by high sugar loading or high proof? Do you mean it will crystallize when bottled at high proof? Sorry if that sounds dumb, but I've somehow become confused. Lol 

 

Good point on the measuring by weight rather than volume ?

[meerkat]

11 hours ago, jenschmunk@gmail.com said:

 Just to be clear, what do you mean exactly by high sugar loading or high proof?   Do you mean it will crystallize when bottled at high proof?

Yes, the solubility of sucrose decreases as the alcohol content increases.  At 20°C the saturation solubility of sucrose in pure water is about 65 mass% or 855 gram per liter of syrup.  If you are making a 100 proof liqueur the solubility limit of sucrose drops to 28 mass% or 285 gram/liter.  In the cold winter temperatures of Canada the solubility will be a bit less.  I don't have the experience to say whether crystallization will occur in the neck or base of the bottle,  but I suppose either would be unacceptable.

[indyspirits]

16 hours ago, jenschmunk@gmail.com said:

I've had someone recommended liquid invert sugar to prevent this, but this is a costly way of doing things. Thanks! 

We have experimented with invert because it greatly simplifies the process but, as you've noticed, it's not a money saver.  We've never had crystallization issues even with home-rolled sucrose solutions up to 400 g/liter (when testing sugar loads for liqueurs. FYI: 400 g/l is cloyingly sweet!) .  @meerkat is the man when it comes to solubility questions.

 

 

 

[jenschmunk@gmail.com]

15 hours ago, indyspirits said:

We have experimented with invert because it greatly simplifies the process but, as you've noticed, it's not a money saver.  We've never had crystallization issues even with home-rolled sucrose solutions up to 400 g/liter (when testing sugar loads for liqueurs. FYI: 400 g/l is cloyingly sweet!) .  @meerkat is the man when it comes to solubility questions.

 

 

 

A big thanks to both yourself and Meerkat! I appreciate the explanations! 

[jenschmunk@gmail.com]

15 hours ago, indyspirits said:

We have experimented with invert because it greatly simplifies the process but, as you've noticed, it's not a money saver.  We've never had crystallization issues even with home-rolled sucrose solutions up to 400 g/liter (when testing sugar loads for liqueurs. FYI: 400 g/l is cloyingly sweet!) .  @meerkat is the man when it comes to solubility questions.

 

 

 

Have you found at what proof you must keep your sweetened liqueur before crystalization occurs? Also, by 400g/L...is that 400g sugar for 1 L water? Forgive me if that is a silly question. 

[meerkat]

The convention for expressing concentrations in mass per volume terms is to use the mass of the solute (in this case, sugar) and the volume of the solution.  The solution is the mixture of the solute (sugar) and the solvent (water or spirit).  That is why I stated the concentration as "855 gram per liter of syrup".  Note that a concentration given in mass/vol terms must always include a reference temperature because the volume changes with temperature, although of course the mass does not.

I have seen data where the concentration is expressed as grams of solute per liter of solvent, but this is rare and would always be specifically stated as such because of the general acceptance of the convention described above.

So, to make up a syrup of 400 gram per liter at 20°C you would put 400 grams of sugar in a 1 liter container and then add water until the combined volume reaches 1 liter, all the while carefully maintaining the temperature at 20°C.  An easier and more accurate way to get to 400 gram per liter at 20°C would be to use a conversion table (or even better, AlcoDens LQ?) to determine that this concentration is equivalent to 34.8 mass % and simply weigh out the 749.4 grams (= (400 / 34.8) x 65.2) of water and add it to the 400 grams of sugar.  In this way you do not have to worry about the temperature.

[indyspirits]

8 hours ago, jenschmunk@gmail.com said:

Have you found at what proof you must keep your sweetened liqueur before crystalization occurs?

We've tested our product from 25 to 35% ABV and anywhere from 190 to 350g/L and never experience crystallization.  As for figuring this all out, I would strongly advise using AlcoDens LQ -- it's greatly streamlined our process. 

[jenschmunk@gmail.com]

Fantastic! Thank you for all of the info. I will check that out!