The Belgian Inversion

No, this has nothing to do with the Beatles or the Stones.

If you've been following my blog for some time, you may recall:  http://stfrancisbrewery.blogspot.com/2010/06/saison-day.html

Yes, I'm brewing the Summer Night Saison again, and yes, I am still inverting the sugar myself.

But let's digress, shall we?

Many of you may never see me.  I tend to get to the Brewery early, get the job done, and leave.  However, my absence from the brewery does not necessarily mean I am not working.  For example, sometimes I am representing the St. Francis Brewery at local festivals:

This was from the World of Beer event put on by the Beer Barons of Milwaukee every year. 
Sometimes my workday is much more demure.  Tonight I was inverting sugar for my planned Saison.  To refresh your memories, Belgian beers often call for Belgian Candi Syrup.  This is a fancy way of describing inverted sugar. 

So what is inverted sugar?  Easy.  Table sugar is sucrose.  The Belgian monks found that yeast had an easier time eating a simpler form of sugar.  So, by taking simple table sugar, mixing it with a little water, bringing it to a boil, and adding a little acid (in my case, citric acid), you can break sucrose into two simpler sugars:  glucose and fructose.  Yeast has an easier time eating these simpler sugars.  You can see the steps here:

This is simply sugar mixed with water.

Once it boils and the acid is added, you can see how it clears up.

 



Last year's Saison was a learning experience for me.  Saisons call for bitter orange peel in the brew.  Last year, I tossed the orange peel into the brew kettle thinking they would whirlpool out nicely.  Unfortunately, they didn't.  I ended up clogging my heat exchanger with little pieces of orange peel.  This year, I'll pull about a gallon of wort and boil the orange peel separate from the main boil, strain it, and then reintroduce it to the main boil.