Irish Candy Sugar

[Will_D]

And so the autumn arrives. The season of mists and mellow fruitfullnes and raising two fingers to the EU.

The first in recent time (maybe?) Irish sugar beet crop is about to be harvested!

In a lonely outpost of beet heaven (Ok its Malahide) some wacky Taffy has grown his sugar beet.

The first little baby one was lifted(took some effort) and after "topping and tailing" it weighed in at 320 gms.

This was a little one!.

Anyways, brought home to the labe, cleaned it , scrapped a bit, test slice cut off!

With the help of a Mole wrench it yielded a drop of its juice for the "refractometer fom hell test"

Result: "22 effing percent sucrose"! Woo Hoo! We are off to Candy land!

@mods: Please can you put this into a new "Ingredients" thread as I believe we need one!

In a few days the harvest begins, and yes it involves a 13 ton press! Just as well I have one

There will be lots of photos and chemistry as I produce for the first time (?) Irish candy sugar (like wot the Belgys do)

With a bit of luck there will be some for anyone who wants it.

[Eoin]

Sounds cool Will, keep us abreast of your progress.

Sent using a complex system of semaphore and ninjas.

[Will_D]

First Beet Processing:

So some beet has been harvested so now is the time to test the process:

I took a beet and cleaned it and chopped it up then sliced it through the food processor.

Weight of beet 1.28 kg

Popped in saucepan and covered with a litre of boiling water and steeped for 20 mins on a slow simmer

[Photo ..65]

Poured off the liquid. Gravity 1.038
Repeated twice more and got gravities of 1.019 and 1.010

Finally a quick cold steep (to cool it down) and then pressed out the remaining juice.

Weight of dry pulp at end 0.75 kg

Now its chemistry time!

Prepared some "lime water" – this is a saturated solution of Calcium Hydroxide ( Lime ) in water. About a heaped tablespoon to about 4 litres of water. Shake and allow to stand over night

[Photo ..67]

Take about 2.5 litres of sugar, put on stir plate and slowly add 200 ml of the lime water.

Monitored the pH change:
   Started at 6.4 and rose to 8.6

Note the addition of 10% lime water is a guestimate, I have yet to find a definitive reference.

The lime helps precipitate out certain proteins and other non-sugars

Next we have to remove the lime. We do this by bubbling CO2 into the stirred solution and monitoring the pH again. Bubble the CO2 until the pH drops back to 6.4

[Photo ..74]

The CO2 cause the Calcium Hydroxide to precipitate out as Calcium Carbonate.

Next is to filter it and then reduce it down:

[Photo ..79]

Ended up with about 850 ml of syrup at a gravity of 1.095

Conclusion so far:

1280 grams of beet yielded approximately 220 gms of sugar


Tomorrow its time to candyfy it!

[Will_D]

So candy-faycation time.

So took my syrup and reduced it down to a thick toffee like mass. I added about a teaspoonfull of Calcium Hydroxide and you could certailnl smell the ammonia being release (This is desirable as it means the pH is high enough)

Must get an accurate sugar thermometer I think I jit about 140C. Any ways id was setting up on a cold plate.

Pored it out onto a non-stick parchment and it set up to very stiff toffee that would crack when cold but not as crystaline as the Belgian candy rocks we buy.

As for the flavour: Amazing! really chocolatey and rich, not too sweet or sickely, hints of caramel and not too burnt!

I ended up with 183 grams of the stuff.

Not bad from 1 sugar beet.

Am waiting on some FG Ca(OH)2 and then will start up a production run.

Next up is some home roasting of MCI malts and making some crystal malt from same

[Eoin]

Nice one Will, I've made my own candi by adding acid and reducing not from scratch though so kudos to you.

Sent using a complex system of semaphore and ninjas.

[nigel_c]

Brilliant. What do you reckon will be the harvest from all the crop?

[johnrm]

Cracking job Will, Great job!