Dark Brown Sugar vs. D-45 Candi Syrup In A Belgian Dubbel

Imperial yeast has been up to some interesting things lately and they recently announced a product we are super excited about. If you're familiar with Imperial yeast you're likely aware of their classification system. A is for AL as an AO7 flagship, L is for Lager as an L17 harvest and so on. While they recently released the first strain in their eye series which stands for Imperialis and refers to non-GMO hybrids or derivative yeast strains developed by Imperial yeast that have been honed to exhibit the traits today's brewers most desire. The initial offering, i22 Capri is a hybrid of A38 juice and A43 Loki, two of Imperial's most popular strains for hop forward IPA. Whether you're into this style or just enjoy juicy your fermentation characteristics, you have got to try i22 Capri. Learn more about the Imperialis project in i22 Capri at imperial yeast.com Said to have originated at the West Mall monastery in the mid 19th century, double is a classic trappist ale that in addition to its unique Belgian fermentation character is defined by its relatively high strength and darker color. Now while the use of non-grain fermentables and beer isn't terribly unique, brewers of Belgian styles including double are known to rely on an invert sugar known as candy syrup which comes in a variety of colors that contribute different characteristics to beer. But what would happen if you used something other than candy sugar? This is the Brulacife podcast. I'm your host, Marshall Shodd and today I'm joined by contributor Will Lovell, the chat about using regular old brown sugar in place of candy syrup when making Belgian double. I have to say that Belgian double is one of my favorite beer styles out there. Maybe behind dark strong for sure, but it is one of those great fantastic beers and I am really excited to talk about what alternative sugars we might use to create a decent tasting Belgian double. I like Belgian double quite a bit. I remember when I first started brewing in the early 2000s, all of the, it was like so many brewers got into it to make Belgian style beers and I think the argument was that we just have such poor access to it over here in the States that hey, why don't I make my own? Now obviously it seems that hoppy styles have taken over as the most popular styles of beer's bird today. But either way, I've made plenty and I've used various types of sugar when brewing over the years, not even just for double, but perhaps surprisingly brown sugar has never been one of them. I've never used it for a beer and there are reasons for that that I'll get into later. However, I know quite a few brewers who have used brown sugar in a variety of different styles, including Belgian double and I look forward to talking with you about your experience doing just that will as well as the results of a fascinating experiment you performed on the topic. Alright, if you're a fan of this show and you'd like to receive a reward for your support, please consider becoming a patron of Brulossi over at patreon.com/brulossi where you make a small pledge and receive rewards like access to unpublished contributor recipes, unique discounts at YakimaValleyHops.com and an invite to a monthly live Q&A session with somebody in the brewing world. Coming up in June of 2024, one of the brew clubs founding members who currently serves in a leadership role with the brew club, Haven Shultz will be hanging out with patrons. Understandably, people tend to think myself and the rest of the brew loss of the crew are what's fully behind the brew club, but the truth is, while some contributors do help out like Will and Alex, they're really kind of their own thing, which is pretty badass and Haven is a big part of the reason for the brew club's success. On top of all that, he's got a ton of brewing experience and is just a really cool dude. If you have any questions about the brew club and want to be a part of this session, be sure to make your pledge of just $3 or more by Friday, June 28th, 2024, as Haven's going to be taking questions that Saturday the 29th. All past sessions are stored on our private Facebook and Patreon pages so you can go back and watch them whenever you like. Again, that's patreon.com/brulacafee. Another really easy way to support us is by using the links found at brewlosafee.com/support when you're shopping online. Your experience doesn't change at all and we get a tiny little commission for the referral. All right, feedback is brought to you by Clawhammer Supply who offer brewers various options for high quality, reasonably priced electric brewing rigs and various voltages and sizes. I've used their 120 volt system for five gallon batches as well as their 240 volt 10 gallon setup and both are really awesome. Clawhammer Supply puts the effort into ensuring their systems do exactly as they're intended to do and is efficient away as possible. If you're not ready to make the jump to electric, they also sell 10 and 20 gallon brew in a bag home brewing starter kits. Whatever it is you're looking for, do yourself a favor and visit clawhammersupply.com. We're confident you're going to love their stuff just as much as we do. So a couple weeks ago we dropped an episode where my buddies and I reviewed a handful of Kentucky comments brewed by members of the brew club. In that episode I went over all of the parameters for the specific average brew and well I made a pretty dumb mistake as was pointed out by numerous people. I want to sincerely thank Haven Schultz from the brew club, David DeVieres and Trevor Mac as well as all of the other people who pointed this out that Lao Brew Nova Logger yeast is not in fact a kovike strain. What's even more lame is that this was apparently the second time I made this stupid mistake. Truth be told not only do I very rarely use dry yeast but I don't really use much yeast outside of what I can get from imperial yeast these days. So that's what I'm blaming for my ignorance and I take full responsibility for being so uninformed. Honestly I should have been tipped off that Nova Logger isn't kovike when recording that episode because none of those beers that we reviewed were or the ones that were fermented with Nova Logger didn't have that weird flavor that I tend to associate with kovike. Then again I could also be completely imagining that weird flavor as well. I mean I'll fall on my sword and say that I'm just as biased as everyone else and it could just be that I'm holding on to that. Regardless my bad I do apologize if my air misled anyone and you went out and bought Nova Logger in the last couple weeks and fermented it at 100 degrees that really is my bad I apologize. So despite being a true bottom fermenting logger yeast strain, Nova Logger is said to be able to ferment well at warmer temperatures but it's not kovike temps it's more like ale temperatures. So again my bad will I'm sure you've got something to say about this. Oh man. Yeah so we actually you know for the brew club it's pretty exciting to send beers in and have you guys review them. So we kind of do a little side discord channel usually when these episodes drops so people can talk about it in a spot where they don't spoil it for the rest of the people that want to listen to the podcast and this was brought up pretty quick and you know your bias might have been showing there a little bit Marshall I'm just saying you weren't under sleep proudly that day but but you know Nova Logger is a pretty cool product it is actually a novel yeast because it's a it's a hybrid between a sac my C's pasteronis and a sac's servicie strain and so it's actually a hybrid novel yeast strain and yeah I definitely wouldn't push it to kovike I think if you read the specs on it it's 50 to 68 f is the temperature range that's 10 to 20 c and so I definitely would not go up to those kovike ranges you you'd probably wind up with an extra nasty mess but it is a pretty clean from it I've used it once or twice the brew club is really fortunate to get some of it you know almost as soon as I hit American soil and play with it a little bit and I really like it in hoppy loggers just for people out there wondering but I do get it we mostly use imperial here velocity they're great sponsor and so it's kind of hard to keep up with what everybody else is doing when we have a great sponsor this doing so many fun things like with their imperialist line so I do get it but I'm not going to defend you too much because I don't want to get thrown under the bus. Well I'll tell you when haven reached out to me and was like he you message me on the side was like hey just a heads up man you've said it twice now in in two average brew episodes Nova Logger is not kovike and in my head I'm like what the hell I'm convinced it was well what I was I was mixing it up with Lutra which I've also never used but I've had quite a few beers actually fermented with Lutra which is a kovike strain that you've ferment at you know 90 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit and it purportedly produces logger like characteristics so that is my bad now I understand at least the way I listen to podcasts is if I like to start at the oldest show episodes and then catch up you know and I that's just the way I do it so for all of those people who are like me and listen to this show that way if you are email if you emailed me you know a couple weeks ago from the time you're listening this to correct me on that I just want to say I'm not ignoring you it's just that I suspect I'm going to get a lot more emails until people get to this episode and realize that we're correcting ourselves so anyways again I apologize Nova Logger fermented at ale temperatures not kovike temperatures and you should be good to go being made to look like fools yeah for sure you kid Jersey yeah so thanks for the feedback everybody who shot us those emails if you have show feedback or a correction for something that I've said you could send it to feedback at brulosfeed.com or drop us a note on social media all right please if you haven't already go check out our kind of new-ish youtube channel the brulosfi show martin has put so much time and effort into this project and he's got some really cool stuff in store for the future that we're confident everyone listening to this podcast is going to love you can find it by going to youtube.com/atvulosfishow or simply searching youtube for brulosfi make sure you subscribe so you're notified when new episodes drop when we're back from this break our focus will be on the use of brown sugar when making Belgian double chilling work can be a chore especially after a long bruday but not with the accelerator counterflow chiller which can chill a five gallon or 19 liter batch of work in five minutes or less leading to a strong cold break and clear work in the fermenter brulosfies matte del fiacco uses the accelerator max and absolutely loves it in addition to improve chilling efficiency every accelerator comes with a five-year warranty that covers the entire chiller for manufacturer defects if you're looking to up your chilling game and a cfc is right for you head over to xchillerator.com today as every brurinose the best beer requires the best hops, which Yakima Valley hops provides fresh from the source to brewers around the world, carrying everything from classic slight cascade to modern favorites like galaxy and mosaic as well as other ingredients and gear. Yakima Valley hops has it all. And don't forget to check out their new podcast, The Late Edition, where the YVH crew goes into depth on our favorite plant with industry experts. Head over to YakimaValleyHops.com now to see all they have to offer and subscribe to the late edition wherever it is you listen to podcasts. From unsolved mysteries to unexplained phenomena, from comedy goal to relationship fails, Amazon Music's got the most ad-free top podcasts included with Prime because the only thing that should interrupt your listening is, well nothing. Download the Amazon Music app today. Legendary doesn't happen by chance. It happens because it's what BEDMGM does. Sign up for BEDMGM and receive up to $1,500 back in bonus bets if you don't win your first bet. Get into hockey, basketball and more of your favorite sports with same game parlays, live betting and more. BEDMGM. Make it legendary. BEDMGM in games since remind you to play responsibly. See BEDMGM.com for terms. 21+ only. This specific promotional offer is not available in Michigan. Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico or West Virginia. Gamling problem call 1-800-Gamler or 1-800-MyReset available in the US. For New York, call 877-8-HOPE-NY or TECHT-HOPE-NY-467-369. For Massachusetts, 1-800-327-5050. For Iowa, 1-800-BETS-OFF. For Puerto Rico, 1-800-9100-023, first bet offer for new customers only. Subject eligibility requirements. Rewards are non-letra-allable bonus bets that expire in seven days. In partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel. I think it's safe to say that views on the use of non-mult-based sugar in beer have, well, they've softened a bit over the years, I guess, is how I'll put it. Go back a couple decades, though, and many home brewers held this insanely strong opinion against the use of sugars like that. In fact, I've known multiple people who got into craft beer and home brewing in part because of their negative views of big beers' use of things like corn sugar or even sucrose in their products. What's interesting is that Belgian brewers have pretty much always used some form or off form of sugar to make the delicious classic styles they're known for. Yeah, it really is, you know, and I am kind of a purist myself. I used to turn my nose up at people using table sugar instead of, you know, maybe a nice invert sugar like a candy syrup. So I am, it put me in the camp for a long time of the purists don't you put corn syrup or anything in my beer, but needless to say, I have kind of changed around here a little bit. So brief history of Belgian beer. I guess the evidence indicates beer was being brewed in Belgium as far back as the third century AD. Way back when it was grute made with herbs, spices, until the fourth-seed century, and that's when hops became a standard ingredient in most beers throughout Europe. And now many Belgian towns had their own breweries where they made such styles as Whitbeer and various notable sour styles like Femish Red and Oud Bruun. You know, the thing about beer that I love is the regionality of it. You know, every region is kind of known for, you know, a specific style that kind of developed right from that region. And whatever it was about Belgium at the time beer was being developed in these different styles, you know, the yeast is very characteristic. You know, when we think of Belgian ale, even Whitbeer, the non-trappist Belgian ale. We tend to kind of associate it with a very particular fermentation character. But let's we forget the sour beer movement really was huge in the Flanders region of Belgium as well, which I believe is kind of like a, you'd know this better than I do will, but on the border of France and Belgium is that Flemish region. And yet, so all of these different areas in Belgium had their own beers. And this was before, you know, the monastic or the the, you know, trappist monks were ever brewing their own beer or what they were doing from what I've read, is they were brewing beer just to serve the visitors to the monasteries. It's not like what it is today. In fact, historically speaking, the trappist ale that we are, you know, so used to today and that we love are are a relatively new development by my reading. Right. So, you know, monasteries have been brewing brewing beer for a long time. Like the trappist monastery in the Netherlands and they've been brewing since the 1600s. So it's not like brewing in monasteries is new, but the actual trappist mark on the beer, that's something that was invented more of a marketing thing. I think it was like 1997. So, so that's kind of a fun little thing. But yeah, you're right. So West Flanders is, it's over there kind of on the border of Belgium and France. And it's actually the largest hot producing region in Belgium. And it's where the, some people will say West Velletron because that's how it's spelled, but it's the V is an F in Flemish I think. So it's West Flandern. 12 is brewed over there at the Abbeyton Sixtus. And so it's a pretty cool region to check out if you're ever over there. But yeah, so they, you know, West Flandern's obviously really popular, really hard to get to was rated like one of the most best beers in the world for a long time. But they do have that trappist mark on there, which does come with some strings attached, right? Because you have to have you know, a monk on the grounds overseeing your brewery operation. The brewery has to be within the the Abbey itself. And you know, a sad loss to the stamp anyways was Ackle lost its trappist exonation, I think in 2021 because apparently they only had one monk left overseeing it and he was wanting to go live with his other brothers. And so I think he moved over to West Mall. And so while the beer is still produced in the same way, it's just not on the supervision of the monks itself. And so they, they lost their stamp. That's really interesting because there, there is a very, I don't know what the term is that they use, but they, there was like a legal thing that occurred where you couldn't call your beer a trappist beer unless it was brewed at a monastery. And so nowadays, if you see something like Abbey Beer or Abbey Ale, that is from from what, again, this is just from what I've been told and what I've read. If you see that, it's basically a trappist style beer that's made by non monks, made outside of a monastery. So, so one and the same in my book, I would guess Will, I mean, is it thought about differently if you're over in that area? So, I'll just say this there, there's something cool about going to a trappist monastery. In fact, I had the pleasure of going to Acoa. I still had it stamp and it's like really cool to like walk up the street and look at the monastery and go to this place that that has, you know, beer on tap that is trappist designation. A lot of times like for West Fondarin, there's a cafe across the street from the Abbey. And so you go over there to get your, your Westie 12 before you go pick it up in the car line. But, you know, so there is like a cool thing about it, but there's a lot of really good trappist style beers, trappist style ails like doubles triples quadruples or bells and dark strongs. Have you want to call that? That are made by non trappist breweries. And so I don't know that their view is lesser beers because some of them are actually better than some of the trappist brewed beers. But it is a very cool thing. And I think the only trappist monastery we didn't make it to while we were over there. We didn't make it to the trap, which was kind of a tragic oversight on our part. We just couldn't quite make the trip into the Netherlands to go over to the trap. But, we hit the other ones that are all in Belgium. So that was pretty cool. Oh, I'm jealous of you. That is definitely high on my travel list to do. Thankfully for us who enjoy these styles of beers, trappist ails or Abbey beers, whatever they might be referred to are widely available nowadays. Well, I say that they once were far more widely available, you know, 10 years ago than they are. Today it seems unfortunately, but and these include styles. You already mentioned a few of them like ankle or what is also called potters beer or a single then double triple quadruple Belgian dark strong stuff like that. And what I always found interesting about the the you know, the moniker's given to these beers is that single and triple are known to be pale and then double and quadruple or quad are known to be dark. I'm I would love to have known the thinking behind that, but I'm glad that they ended up the way they did because I love all four of those styles. Now the one thing all of these beers haven't stopped the common. I would say more so double triple and quad than then ankle, but I've definitely made potters beer with candy syrup. They all tend to use sugar and and in Belgium, the the form that sugar tends to come in is this invert syrup called candy syrup. Right. So, um, if you read Boulac Amonc by Stan Heranemus, like, um, he he kind of leads you to believe that most of these beers have sugar and really like a lot of the flavor and character from the beer mostly comes from the yeast and the sugar. So, uh, like a double and, uh, you know, and just so people know quadruple and dark strong are kind of interchangeable. Um, quad is just easier to say than Belgian dark strong. So, and BDS sounds like a stomach problem. So we're just going to go with quad. So, because I think that's easier to say. So, so don't don't send me hate mail. I know they're the same thing, but, but, but you know, a double and a quad, you know, they get a lot of the color and flavor from the sugar itself. And so according to Stan, a lot of the recipes we use in America may be a little bit over complicated because really you just need some pills or malt, some really good, um, sugar, uh, candy syrup, if you will, and then just let the yeast do its thing. Hell yeah. I mean, that the what you want from, uh, to me at least a good, trapeistile beer is that yeast character with the expected malt, uh, that malt richness, particularly we're going to focus a little bit more on double in this episode, of course. So for that style, for me, what I'm hoping for is a little bit of that dark, you know, dried fruit character. with maybe a little bit of caramel or toffee flavor. With that, to me, it's like that is the bread, that's your pumper nickel, if you will. And then you're spreading that beautiful, you know, Belgian fermentation character on the top. The hops don't really play much of a star role. They just provide that balancing bitterness, but oh, it's such a delicious style. Now, back to Belgian candy syrup. This stuff is really interesting. It's produced through an inversion process, which just means that it's, I think it's boiled with acid or something like that, which ultimately leads to the breaking down of the bond between the glucose and the fructose. Now, this is if we're starting with sucrose, which is a die-saccharide made of glucose and a fructose molecule. So this inversion process breaks those two apart, and then it results in a thicker, kind of sweet liquid that you can then pour into whatever it is. And it's highly fermentable, very similar to regular sugar. I would love to know again, the thought process behind whoever it was who developed this process, at least for Belgian beer, but it is very common. And then the color of the candy syrup is determined wholly by how long it's boiled, with darker versions, contributing stronger, taffy, caramel, and flavors like that. - So there is a candy syrup brand, and it's candy syrup, candy with an eye and not a eye at the end. And they have the D45, and they make a whole line of these syrup. Anything I think simplistic is kind of their lighter one that has like a, basically very little to any color contribution, then they have golden, 'cause it's their 24 karat gold look. All the way up to like D240, which is super dark. And I think it's interesting, I think it's worth noting. All of these, all of their candy serups are made with beet sugar. And so that's where definitely worth noting, 'cause beet sugar is something, usually associated with like Belgian candies and things like that. And a lot of times, that's what we think of, but they also have their D180, as an aside, which also uses date sugar as well. And so I haven't done an experiment or anything, but I do think the date sugar adds a little bit of something with that D180, but it's kind of hard to tell without going through a whole process to do an experiment on it. But they do make a really nice product. Like you said, it's super easy to use. You could invert your own sugar and do all that stuff, but this stuff's in a package. It's sanitary, you can add it into the boil, you can add it into the fermenter, wherever it's convenient, you just squeeze it out, let it go, and now you have wonderful sugar and a very consistent product from this company. - Yeah, I will say, for those who have not used candy syrup in their own brewing, who are maybe unfamiliar with Belgian beer styles, when we say things like D45 or D180, that is a designation that's ascribed to the candy syrup based on its color. So the bigger the number, the darker the candy syrup, and that number is supposed to correspond with the amount of SRM, basically, the color it contributes. So D45 is going to contribute about 45 SRM. D180 is going to contribute about 180 SRM when used in specific proportions, which I think is like five to 10% something like that. So the beauty of candy syrup is that it's really easy to use. It does contribute, just like regular sugar, it contributes strength, but it also contributes a little bit more ostensibly, more flavor because of that color, because of the boiling, right? With minimal impact on other beer characteristics, like mouthfeel, which is a big one, or that body of that beer. So it's a really unique product, sugar product that does, unlike other, you know, like I said, unlike other sugars, have an impact on flavor, which I think is pretty cool. I guess the only real downside is that it is more expensive than table sugar. - Yeah, I want to say it's about $8 for a pound. It's weird to say it's a pound, 'cause it's actually a liquid syrup format, but it's about $8 for a pound liquid bag, and it's, if you go to morebeard.com. So it is a little bit cost prohibitive, but again, there is an ease of use, and if you're really die hard, like I have been in the past, you have to buy this stuff, at least in your mind, because you know, this is the right way to brew it, 'cause again, the sugar is where a lot of this character and flavor comes from, and it's part of what helps that yeast do, it's magic, and you get to experience that through the thinning of the body of the beer through the sugar fermenting out. So it really is kind of a great product, even though it is a little bit more expensive. - Yeah, absolutely. I've used, I would say that, let's see, with the exception of a, I made a dark, not a dark, I'm sorry, a strong, what's the, is it Belgian golden strong or something like that? I forget what the name is of it, but I made one of those with table sugar one time. Everything else that I've brewed, particularly the darker trapah style beers, I've always used candy syrup in it, because that's just what you're supposed to do. Now, you had this question at one point, I don't know where it came from, but you know, brown sugar has a, dark brown sugar in particular, has kind of a similar color as D45, it's still sugar, it's not invert, of course, but what, you know, does it, I wonder what impact that has now. The interesting thing about brown sugar is, it cannot be made from beet sugar, or sugarbeats. It has to be made from sugar cane, because that brown color is molasses. When sugar cane is initially processed, it is brown, and then the molasses is removed, and that's how we get refined white sugar, white table sugar. So brown sugar, whether you're going light or dark, that's just the amount of molasses that was removed, the more molasses that's removed, the lighter the color of that sugar is gonna be. So it has to be, and I think this is interesting, it has to be from sugar cane. So that leads me to the question of, does beet sugar and sugar cane, or sugar cane sugar, do those produce different characteristics? I have the, I'm not sure I'm gonna call it the rare fortune, perhaps misfortune is the better word, of spending a couple of years in Nampa Idaho. So for all of my Idaho listeners out there, cheers guys, and they have a sugar beet factory in that town, and I'm telling you the smell of that thing, when it's running is god awful. So it's like burnt peanuts. But we got a lot of, you know, beet sugar, and so I got really familiar with that, I've done comparisons with sugar cane, and as far as table sugar goes, I can't really tell the difference. But, you know, the sucrose, and when used in beer, the sucrose differ from say, I mean, beet sugar differ from sugar cane, I don't know. The question here though is brown sugar, which I think is interesting. - So what's kind of interesting, so brown sugar actually has a couple of different formats. So there's like naturally formed brown sugar, like turbinado, that's like again, so much molasses has been removed, but it's still kind of a natural brown sugar. But when you go to the store and buy like light or dark brown sugar, my understanding of that process anyways, is that they're actually taking white cane sugar and adding molasses back into it. So there are some naturally occurring, like brown sugars, like turbinado and some of those. But like when you go by like dark brown sugar from your local Walmart or HB for me, you Costco whatever, like light brown sugar has like a 3.3% molasses added, you know, content, added back into it, and where dark by understanding is about 6.6% molasses added back into it. So brown sugar has, at least from my understanding, has a couple of different layers there. So there are naturally occurring brown sugars. And so that would be kind of a foam into test, maybe turbinado versus like a light brown sugar where they add molasses back. But you know, that's, it's super interesting how they do all this when you start diving into it. - Yeah, that is, 'cause the website that I landed on, which they're not a sponsor, but I sure take 'em on. I think it was C&H, and they're known for being cane sugar centric. So I think maybe that's where I got that information from, is that they were saying, you know, because it comes from molasses, you're just gonna brown sugar is a sugar cane product. But it makes sense to me that you could take beet sugar mix in some molasses and you've got brown sugar there as well. - I think it's cane sugar regardless, though. I think either one of these, whether it's the one where they add molasses back or whatever, it's cane sugar regardless to my understanding. - Okay, cool. Yeah, yeah, so either way, what we're interested in is the impact or the comparison between brown sugar, which again, dark brown sugar, not terribly different in color than D45 candy syrup. And if you look at what people who use brown sugar and they're brewing, how they describe it, they're saying that it contributes dark fruit, caramel, toffee, and rum-like flavor to beer. Now, I have used so many different types of sugar, I've never used brown sugar, I'm sorry, I've used a lot of table sugar in so many different types of styles. And I've never picked up a lot of the things that people claim is gonna, you know, that it's gonna do. The beers that I've had that have been made with brown sugar that friends of mine have made, I've never tasted rum in it. I can't help but wonder if that's, people just describe it that way because they know that rum is a sugar product. Who knows, you know, but regardless, those descriptors aren't terribly different from what you read about D45, dark fruit, raisin, caramel, toffee, stuff like that. It sounds to me like they are going, at least descriptively speaking, they are going to lend similar characteristics to beer. - Right, so I'm with you. I think that, you know, part of the story behind the reason I had this question. It's once upon a time, and I think it was 2021, we had a big snow storm come through San Antonio, and I have usually added sugar into the fermenter when I brew like a Belgian quad, just 'cause it limits the amount of, you know, puking out of the blowoff tube for me. So I basically, you know, had this beer fermenting, the power went out for four or five days. I had no idea what temperature was in my firm chamber for that time, like I was just of the opinion that fermentation pretty much all but stop 'cause it only been in there for 24 or so hours before it got really cold in that garage where it was sitting in the firm chamber. And so, you know, I didn't want to like waste my $8 for a pouch, you know, candy syrup. And so I was like, you know, I've read about people using brown sugar, I've never done it. It doesn't sound like a good idea to me, but at that point in time, I didn't want to waste really nice product on something that I didn't know if it was going to work out. And so that's actually my first introduction to using this product in a Belgian. So, You know, pretty, pretty fun story, pretty, pretty comparable, you know, a pretty, pretty good flavor from it Not maybe not the same, but you know different and tasty. Yeah. Well, here's the thing You know, I remember what 10, 15 years ago The when somebody would talk about using sugar in a beer. I mean, again, it got it got pued on pretty pretty much Pretty heavily will say but if it came up people would say well if the very last thing you want to do is use any sucrose Don't use table sugar or don't you you know, you want to use dextrose corn sugar because it's otherwise You're gonna get this like green apple or cider like character in your beer. I think that has been You pretty much proven to be completely false. I don't know who started that rumor But I have used table sugar in place of dextrose. I mean probably a hundred plus times at this point in styles like you know double IPA Or you know, and it doesn't I don't taste cider at all. So I think you're safe to use either or dextrose or sucrose But you know, I could see how somebody who kind of came up in that era when when you know sucrose was being poop hooded so so wildly that brown sugar again now you're like well There's even more stuff in there. So now I'm gonna have this carmaly, you know caramel apple flavor maybe Well, and and adding molasses to beers kind of a taboo thing for certain styles as well So that's a really fun one to tackle on so not just the cane sugar But also molasses are two fun things to tackle in a lot of home-bring circles Yeah, I'd be really interested actually to first determine like what the D number would be for molasses and then compare that to something like a D 180 or whatever I'd be fascinating as well But brown sugar no less Again, not too far off similar specs as as candy syrup in terms of the contribution to your your you know specific gravity the fermentability It's highly fermentable almost a hundred percent in the same way that that D or that candy syrup is now the argument when it comes to things like brown sugar and and candy serps is that the flavor of that darker material So whether it's molasses or the you know the cooked part of the sugar That's going to remain that it's going to contribute this flavor as well as color So we got to keep that in mind because you know when we talk about using sugar and other styles most of the time What we're looking for is a boost in ABV without any flavor aroma mouth-fill contribution otherwise So now let's focus just a little bit on double just so we kind of have a baseline of what we're looking for here The BJCP describes this style as a deep reddish copper moderately strong multi complex Belgian L with rich multi flavors dark or dried fruit esters and light alcohol blended together in a presentation that still finishes fairly dry now You know if you look at a bunch of double recipes You're going to see that it's typically made with anywhere between five to ten percent of a medium to dark Belgian candy syrup I averaged out I went and looked at like six random recipes I found online and the average percentage for use of candy syrup in a five gallon batch is about eight percent so You know, you're not using that much which I you know That's fascinating to me that you would there. There's this expectation that you're going to get this flavor contribution from you know five to five to ten percent candy syrup Well, and I wonder to just just kind of anecdotally how much of that is just like The sugar interplaying with the yeast because that's kind of like you know Jet fuel for those yeast to come in there and start chewing on so yeah I kind of wonder how much of that that interplay with the yeast care to the sugar getting is coming from eating like this kind of sugar going on at it and again a double is kind of a For lack of a better comparison. It's kind of a less strong Quad right so it's it's it's you know You know funny story like I think most of us Belgians we we prefer quad to double typically but But to be honest with you doubles nice because you can have two or three of them versus a quad one or two So um, so but yeah, so it's kind of a lesser strength quad So it would make sense that you'd use less sugar than you might in like a quad yeah No doubt and you're I mean you're gonna use less of almost everything I think in a double than you would a quad But well like I said earlier I've never personally brewed with brown sugar though I've had many beers made with it My friends of mine. I've actually had one at a local brewery that made a really neat brown sugar kind of a sweeter beer And in all of those you know, I struggled to pick up a specific flavor impact Even knowing that it was used in the brewing process now I've definitely used Belgian candy syrup many times and I've done so in the batches of double that I brewed every batch of double I've ever made has used Belgian candy syrup Which I you know, I feel like that did contribute a noticeable flavor compared to the you know brown sugar beers I've had was I fooling myself will you recently performed an experiment comparing brown sugar to candy syrup and a Belgian double Results from that when we are back from this break There's no denying that stainless steel is the best material for brewing equipment and Delta brewing systems Offers some of the lowest prices on high quality stainless gear like the firm tank Which in addition to holding eight gallons or 30 liters of work comes with a don't lid to even further reduce the chances of a messy blowoff Plus it can hold up to four psi of pressure for closed transfers Delta brewing systems also has their own line of brew kettles as well as one of the lowest priced all-in-one electric brewing systems out there And their prices are shockingly low If you're in the market for legit stainless gear that won't break the bank Do yourself a favor and head over to delta brewing systems.com today After a long brude the last thing I want to do is waste more time chilling work I've tried so many different options and ultimately I settled on the super efficient immersion chillers made by jaded brewing With the king cobra and hydra I'm able to chill my entire batch of work from boiling to just a few degrees above ground water temperature In as little as six minutes If an immersion chiller is right for your brewery then do yourself a favor and check out all of the rad options Jaded brewing has to offer at jaded brewing.com and be sure to let them know brew loss of essential Legendary doesn't happen by chance It happens because it's what bed MGM does Sign up for bed MGM and receive up to $1,500 back in bonus bets If you don't win your first bet get into hockey basketball and more of your favorite sports with same game parlay's Live betting and more bed MGM make it legendary Bed MGM in games since remind you to play responsibly see bed MGM.com for terms 21 plus only This specific promotional offer is not available in Michigan Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, or West Virginia Gambling problem call 1-800 gambler or 1-800 my reset available in the US For New York call 877-8 hope and why or text hope and why 467-369 For Massachusetts 1-800-327-5050 For Iowa 1-800 bets off for Puerto Rico 1-800-1-0023 First bet offer for new customers only subject to eligibility requirements Rewards are non-letra-lable bonus bets that expire in seven days In partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel It's not surprising that folks who regularly rely on certain ingredients or methods claim that they have a perceptible impact that's just basic human psychology We tend to believe that what we're doing matters right when it comes to certain historical things Which I consider Belgian candy syrup to be I kind of struggle to accept that it doesn't impart some unique flavor largely because if it didn't well, I mean why is it so often used? How did it become the thing that it is today? What's interesting is when you compare the descriptions of D45 candy syrup To those of Brown sugar when used in beer they're really not that different Well, will you were curious about this and design and experiment to test it out? Yep, so to test this out I kind of went to a recipe that I designed a pretty long time ago actually And you know modified made a few modifications to kind of what I had on hand So I did two five gallon batches of Belgian double using 81% text malt monopilzer malt 5% aromatic malt, 3.5% caramunic, 3.5% special B And the variable 7% D45 candy syrup or 7% dark brown sugar which for my recipe That was about a pound of each Yeah, well, and that's the thing is that you've got 7% which falls right, you know, right there in the middle of that 5 to 10% range I actually only saw one recipe in all of my research that that used upwards of 10% I to me that makes sense. I don't see why you wouldn't do that if that if you just want to slightly thinner beer But 7% seems spot on. It's that one pound of D45 candy syrup or one pound of dark brown sugar used in a five gallon batch I think that's fairly common Yeah, I think a pound in a in a double, you know, maybe if we were doing a dark strong or you know quad whatever you want to call them You know, maybe you would would use a significantly more but for this one since we're doing kind of the double thing I wanted to keep it kind of there on the lower end of average Right in the middle of the averages just to kind of get a good baseline comparison So from there I mashed both these batches at 149 Fahrenheit or 66 Celsius for 60 minutes This is it's pretty common to mash it around 149 because it's right there in that nice beta amylase range You know, I've even been known to take it down to 146 Fahrenheit from time to time But that's a pretty good mash temperature especially for Belgians You'll see a lot of them down there lower to drive that attenuation and make it drier And when the mash was complete remove the grains and proceed to boil the words for 60 minutes 60 minutes pretty normal The beautiful thing about Belgian beers is they're not necessarily a region known for overly convoluted or complicated brewing processes It's kind of like you know, I think when I think of like British beers it's the same thing Just do your 60 minute mash do your 60 minute boil get it out of the way But during the boil you didn't add too many hops I'm looking here you've got 12 grams of northern brewer at the start of the the boil and then 25 grams of willamette at 15 minutes. But more importantly, it was during the boil that you actually introduced the Belgian candy syrup or the dark brown sugar you put them in with 10 minutes left in the boil. What's the reasoning for doing it at that point? Was there one? - So I just wanted to make sure it could have been 10, it could have been five. The main reason I wanted to do it towards the end of the boils, I didn't want it to have too much caramelization if that was gonna happen, but I definitely wanted to get it in there with enough time that it could fully dissolve and incorporate into the actual word itself. I didn't, you know, sometimes the candy syrup, like I said, I've been known to add just the candy syrup straight into the firmener, but again, just to make things simple, since one was kind of a dry sugar product versus a syrup, I wanted to make sure they were both equally incorporated into the word. So 10 minutes left in the boil seemed like a pretty good spot for that. - Yeah, yeah, for sure. That's what I do it as well. 10 minutes left is when I add any sugar additions to the boil. Now one thing, just a little tip for those, if you've never brewed with sugar and you're brewing on a propane type of rig or you've got direct heat, you know, coming in from the bottom of your kettle, turn that heat off before you add your sugar and stir it in. I've had numerous times when I was brewing on propane where I'd add the sugar in and I kind of forget to stir it really well, and you get that really hard, caramelized sugar at the bottom of the kettle. With your using an electric system, which you were, I believe, using your delta brewing systems all in ones, then you don't have to worry too much about it. It tends not to latch onto the elements or anything like that. Yeah, and I don't tend to run my whirlpool arm during boils, but sometimes when you're adding sugar and stuff like that, it's kind of fun just to crank it on for a few minutes just to kind of make sure it gets really incorporated, but that's kind of an aside. So, yep, but after the boil, I chilled both words down to, words down and then transferred them over into my sanitized keg minors. I wound up with an OG for the dark brown sugar. It was about 1061 original gravity and for the D45, it was about 1058. So, I'm looking at that going, yeah, a three-specific gravity point difference isn't that big of a deal. I mean, we've had past experiments where the original gravities and the finishing gravities were way more different than that and people still couldn't tell them apart, but it is kind of a curious observation. It made me wonder, does the inversion process is that responsible for the slightly less fermentable or contribution to the strength? I don't think that would be it. Chances are it's just more the differences between the sugars used. Maybe it's that dark brown sugar, not only has sugar, but it also has molasses, which is sweet so it boosted that up, the gravity contribution a little bit. I really don't know. I do think it's an interesting observation though. - I did kind of expect it. When I plugged all this into brew father, there was about a two to three point disparity between them in the calculation. So, this was not like a big surprise to me. Part of me wonders, 'cause the candy syrup is water plus beat sugar. So I wonder if whatever they're using to dissolve it, if that takes away a little bit of the gravity as well. So just the dry product, you had like a full pound of sugar, whereas the pound of your syrup pouch, there's a little bit of water in there. So maybe that just hint of dilution kind of gets it down. I'm not sure, but this wasn't a totally big surprise. So after all this, I pitched a single pouch of Imperial yeast B48 triple double, which I believe is the West Mall strain. And that is to me, my go to strain for all things trappist. So definitely a great one. And then I ferment them in my temperature chamber and control them to about 72 F for a week before taking hydrometer measurements that showed a slight difference in FG, not terribly much. - Yeah, yeah, a very small difference. 72 F, that's 22 degrees Celsius for those who prefer that measurement. Yeah, the difference in FG was less, you know, the delta was smaller than it was in the OG. So you had the dark brown sugar at 1007, the D45 candy syrup batch was at 1006. So looking at ABV, the one made with brown sugar was at 7.1%, the one made with the candy syrup was at 6.8%. That's nothing that I'm concerned about in terms of people being able to taste. I know there are people listening going, "I could taste that, I would bet thousands of dollars "you couldn't." So I'm not too worried about that, but again, it does, that is a function of the fact that the dark brown sugar did contribute more specific gravity points than the D45. - Yep, and honestly, again, not a terrible surprise. There was a little bit of delta on the OG. It's kind of cool that they have so much a small delta on the FG though. That's a really cool kind of thing. It just shows kind of how much that yeast can work through there and get through all that sugar. So that's pretty awesome. But what was the quick question just to kind of butt in here real quick? You fermented this one at 72 degrees Fahrenheit, 22C for a few weeks or whatever, a week at least, it says, was your reasoning for that, people who are into making Belgian beers, it's commonly talked about that you can ferment them or you should ferment them a little bit warmer. What's your reason for doing that? - So my typical fermentation process would have been to start it out a little cooler, probably about 65, and then just kind of ramp it up throughout time. And this is for a couple of reasons. One is you can get a really messy play date if you start off too warm and let it go. But because I am doing this for an experiment and I don't want to try to introduce too many variables by ramping up temperatures and whatever, whatever, I just decided that I'm gonna start, stay at it kind of warm. Again, trying to coax as much flavor out of that yeast as possible. And to me, that West Mall strain does kick off some really nice flavors kind of the warmer you fermented. So I would have probably started it off if I was gonna do this just for me, I would have probably started off cooler and ramped up over time. But just for the simplicity of an article, I decided that let's keep it at the same and leave it around 72. And I was 90% certain I was gonna get a really good product out of it. - Yeah, no, I like it. So the classic, I guess, understanding of fermentation temperature is that warmer temps are going to encourage the production of fruity esters, whereas cooler temps are either gonna suppress that or if you go a little too cool, you can actually stress the yeast out to the point where they're gonna start kicking off 4VG, 4 vinyl gwai-call, which is that more clovey characteristic. So it's just something that you gotta keep in mind. Now, there are absolutely Belgian strains that will produce similar amounts of both of those, when fermented at your typical 68 or 20C fermentation temperature. But I would go on a double like this, made the looking at the recipe that you used out of fermented probably between 70 and 74 degrees Fahrenheit as well. So that 22C is perfect. - Right, and like I said, normally I would ramp it up. But again, there's something to be said about the super simplicity, especially in June experiments 'cause it kinda takes some variables out of it. But yeah, these beers, they were pretty much an appearance, identical dark amber boarding on brown with tan head, excellent clarity. They were just really beautiful beers. I think I allowed them to condition for about a month before I went to evaluation. And I have to say, they were pretty awesome looking whenever we started pouring them. - Well, I'm telling you, I'm looking at the photos right now of these two beers, and you know what they look like to me, Will? - Deliciousness. - They look like excellent versions of Belgian double that I want to be drinking right now. And it's like 10 o'clock in the morning while we're recording this. That just love a good Belgian double. They're so incredibly good. And these two, I just hit the spot in terms of the way they look perfect. So now before we go and collect data from a blind set of tasters, we tend to go through or we always go through and perform a series of five semi-blind triangle tests by which we just mean, yes, we know the variable, but we are gonna have somebody else serve us the triangle test. So we don't know which beers the odd one out. So you did this again five times. And out of those five semi-blind triangle tests that you performed, how many times were you able to identify the unique sample? - Oh, the shame of it all. One out of five times did I identify the unique sample. And so that can be, that's almost less than random guessing there. I'm just saying, I probably would have been picking them without tasting them. I would have expected to get like a molasses character or something from the brown sugar. I would have expected some of that to hang around. But instead, I got two beautiful toasty malt with some of that toffee and dark fruit character that usually is what you expect from a nice Belgian double with that nice Belgian fermentation character. These beers were really good. - Dude, the fact that you knew everything about these beers and you weren't able to tell them apart, I was fully convinced that a dude who has actually spent time in Belgium lived in Europe for a while, drank a ton of Belgian double and quad, also made with darker Belgian candy syrups. I was convinced you'd be able to tell these beers apart. I think, I mean, maybe you can answer this for me, but my presumption was that you expected you'd be able to tell these beers apart as well. - So I would have thought I would have. I did that kind of my own little anecdotal thing with brown sugar way back in 2021, which is kind of what brought me onto this thought press. And I could have sworn that I would have gotten maybe like a hint of molasses, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just a hint of molasses. The hint of that character you get from molasses. And I searched and searched, I could not tell these apart. So I was pretty floored that there was not a difference. That is just crazy to me. Now, you did serve these to 25 blind tasteers. Good number for us to determine with a little bit more confidence, whether or not brown sugar and D45 Belgian candy syrup contribute different characteristics. Out of those 25 blind participants, 13 would have had to identify the unique sample in order for us to say, again, with just, you know, a little bit more confidence that yeah, it really does seem there's a meaningful difference. between these two ingredients. In the end, how many people actually, out of those 25, how many people actually picked the odd beer out? - So again, we needed 13 and we got 10, which is just right around 40%, just slightly above line guessing. So it's not significant. Tasters are not able to reliably tell these beers apart. - This to me, these are the kinds of findings where people read it and then they get mad at us for testing it out because they think that our intention was to prove that this age-old ingredient or process by using candy syrup is moot and you don't need to do that and you can go spend less money at the grocery store and get away with the same thing. Yeah, this is fascinating to me. I fully expected the candy syrup. Just the inversion process alone. I figured that that had some contribution to the characteristics of a beer like a Belgian double, which is known to be brewed with this stuff. The fact that a cheap dark brown sugar that you got at the grocery store produced a beer that tasted, for all intents and purposes, identical to the D45 candy syrup batch, that blows my mind. I did not expect that. - So what's even more fun is I submitted this beer, the brown sugar beer to a competition. So Operation Firmitation, it's put on by the Cain Island alers over in Houston area. And so I actually put in the brown sugar beer and it got a bronze. It scored low 40s, low to mid 40s and got a bronze medal with their competition. So obviously you can still stay perfectly within style and still use something that cost about 250 for two pounds at HV versus an $8 packet of D45 candy syrup. So, to me this is good news. I can get away with something. It's a little lighter on the wallet. So maybe for the darker stuff, maybe you have to go invest some money in the darker stuff for your dark strong. But if you wanna get in some layers or complex to eat in some sugar, you can save some money at 250 for two pounds. That's quite a cost savings there. - I do not wanna take away customers from our sponsors and those online home brew shops, or even the local home brew shops. So here's how I'll say it. If ever you're in a pit, pinch, and you can't make it to the home brew shop to get D45 candy syrup in time, when you're making your Belgian double because these results only apply to Belgian double with D45 candy syrup, then you know what, you can probably get away with going to the grocery store, grabbing a pound of very cheap dark brown sugar and adding that in its place. And you'll get a, I mean, based on these results, you're probably gonna get a couple extra points of OG as well. So I think it's fascinating. Now, my question for you will is, when making Belgian double in the future, are you gonna use D45 candy syrup? Or are you now a dark brown sugar convert? - So I'm all about layering flavors. And so I think I would have no problem using dark brown sugar in place of D45. But you know, I would kinda like to throw it in there with maybe some of the darker ones, like the D180 that uses both the beat and the date sugar, just to kinda get some layers of flavor in there with some complexity. In fact, I just recently opened up a Belgian dark strong that I brewed several months ago that I did something somewhere I used brown sugar on the low end and put in some D180 and some darker sugars on the other side of it too. So I have no problem with it. Sugar's sugar and if it's, again, from an economic standpoint, it seems like a no-brainer to me. But again, I'm not taking anything away from the candy syrup people or home-breach shops. It's a great product. But, you know, again, hard to argue with some of these results. - Yeah, it's just fascinating to me. Now what I would love to see based on these results now, right, is something like a beer that's made with 10% either light brown sugar or dark brown sugar. I mean, do those contribute different characteristics used in the ratios that are typical, you know, for a brewer and a five gallon batch, something like seven to 10%. You know, but do it in something like a blonde nail. 'Cause I wanna see, I really want those flavors to shine. I wanna see that difference. And then there's just so many other interesting things you could do, like you said, terminato versus light brown sugar. All these different sugar comparisons. The truth of the matter is, with the rise in things like, you know, fermented water or hard seltzer, people are getting more and more comfortable fermenting simple sugars. And I think this could be a fun line of that, you know, sugared beers and the different flavor impacts it seems to have. I mean, what would happen also if you made a hard seltzer with a brown sugar? Maybe that's the next big thing. Who knows? But I do think these results are fascinating and have some really curious implications. And I'd be curious to hear from our listeners what they make of results like this and how it might influence, you know, their brewing of a Belgian double or Belgian beers in general. Now we did get some reader comments. The first one comes from Daniel who said, "Did you taste the beer side by side before or was this your first taste of them?" I'm asking because I think you could potentially train yourself to detect some minor differences, which you would not pick up uninitiated. Oh, trust me, I tasted them plenty side by side. I'm drinking these beers. You know, again, as I said, these beers were delicious. So my wife and I were hitting these beers before I had all my data collected, I promise. But kind of what happens, at least with my experience, is that I will get something in my head where my bias comes into play and says, "Sure, I'm tasting molasses in this 'cause I think that's what happened here in my head. I tasted molasses one and not in the other." And it turns out that because you have bias, you know, it's a double-edged sword. So I sometimes think I would do better if I didn't try the beers ahead of time and maybe I didn't have all that bias walking into it. But when you're sitting there in your blind triangle test and you're looking for that one characteristic that you thought you would train yourself to identify and you can't identify it anymore, it's a very humbling experience. (laughing) That's a good word to use. The only time that I found that, well, not anybody, but most people can relate with what we're talking about about that humbling experience is when they actually try these things out for themselves. Now, understandably, Daniel is kind of deferring to the very common argument that, well, if you're cited and you're trained on what the difference is, then you can hone in more specifically on what the differences are so that all of the, you know, all of the other noise, if you're blind, you're looking for any differences, right? Well, what Daniel's saying is that, well, if you know that the difference is in these sugars and you're well aware of that and then you go into your evaluations, then you're probably more apt to picking the odd beer out. What we found, Daniel, over and over, is that that's just not the case. And I feel like this topic has come up a few times in the last couple of months. You know, the citedness I presumed might help as well and our data just does not support that. Now, we've got some ideas that we're kind of, you know, rolling around in our heads, spitballing right now about introducing a cited experiment series, but for now, I mean, the industry standard is to serve these to blind tasteers for a reason and you were very well acquainted with these beers will and you could not tell them apart, even knowing fully what the difference was. So I think that speaks volumes. Now, the next comment comes from Max. He says, interesting result because unfermented, the two products definitely taste different. So it sounds like Max, like, you know, has tasted can't D45 candy syrup and then dark brown sugar side by side or something, but he's noting that they do taste different, which I trust. He says, I wonder if the specialty grains aren't masking the subtleties. It'd be interesting to test this again with just pills or malt and the different sugars. I don't disagree. I think that'd be a fascinating comparison as well. I think it's a good comparison. Like, I mean, this is a good recipe. It's tried and true and, you know, especially grains, could they mask it potentially? I mean, there's always that, you know, shadow of a doubt in there. It's also possible that Belgian yeast, just the character you get from Belgian yeast could possibly mask something because it is a very expressive yeast. And that's why they're so delicious. It's because you have this great yeast character that comes with all these Belgian beers. So it's possible. Yeah. If you said earlier, it's just earlier, maybe if we do a blonde ale with just, like, you know, some pale malt and some brown sugar in light at rip, with something cleaner, like, you know, and either a clean English strain or maybe a clean, you know, you know, not USO5, but flagship or something like that. Maybe it would turn out a little different. But, you know, who knows? Yeah, who knows? I do love the idea, though, of, I mean, this is kind of classic prulosophy, but going with a super, super simple style. So that nothing, even if it's kind of, you know, less conventional for the variable being tested, but sticking with that pale, simple, crisp, clean style, so that the any differences are a little bit more readily, I guess, noticeable when you're comparing them. So doing things like, I mean, I would, I think it'd be cool to do like a warm fermented pills, or with global, which we know doesn't throw off all of these esters that people are so afraid of, when fermented warm, do something like that. And just all pills are malt, clean yeast, and then the different sugars. I'd definitely be fascinated to see how those results as well. So now, final comment comes from Brian P, who said, the fact the OG was higher for the brown sugar beer makes sense since the brown sugar must have a lower water content than the syrup. This is what you were mentioning earlier, Will. Brian says it doesn't have the inversion of the sucrose, or doesn't the inversion of the sucrose produce some undesirable byproducts? If so, then we simply can't detect those undesirable byproducts at the concentrations in the resulting beer. I'm not familiar with these byproducts that Brian's referring to with the inverted candy syrup. Is that something you're familiar with? So I don't know about negative byproducts, but it's only negative if it puts a flavor in there that you don't like, I guess. But I do know that supposedly when you do regular table show to go when you do the invert process where either you add like a cream of tartar or citric acid. There is an inversion of the sucrose where it now has sucrose and fructose kind of playing in harmony with one another. At least that's my understanding of it. So supposedly that produces something different, something unique, something more desirable as usually. But again, it's only an undesirable byproduct if you don't want it there. And obviously if you can't taste it, it's not undesirable. - Yeah, I follow this subreddit called, what's this plant? - I don't know why, but I'm fascinated by it. And people are always getting on there saying, "Oh, is this a weed or should I let it grow?" And the common response from the more experienced green thumbs in that group is, it's only a weed if you don't want it there. And I feel like that about so much stuff with beer as well. It's only an off-labor if you think it's an off-labor, if you don't like it. If you actually like a clovey pale ale or you like ester-y pilsner, then go more power to you and make them that way and enjoy what you're making. But regardless, that does bring us to the end of this episode. Any last words on brewing Belgian double with either candy syrup or brown sugar will? - If anyone can just give me an excuse to do another Belgian double experiment, I'm all in. - I guarantee if you go to our Broulosophy crew chat and say that, you're gonna get plenty of good excuses to brew some more Belgian double. All right, don't forget to check out our newest podcast, The Broulab, where Host K. Job takes you into the lab with real brewing scientists to discuss the fascinating research they've done on our favorite beverage. And as always, you can read more about the experiment we discussed by clicking the link to the article on Broulosophy.com in the description of this episode. The Broulosophy podcast is made possible by the generous support of our sponsors as well as all of our rad listeners. We seriously could not do this without you. Cheers to everyone who has subscribed and left a review of our show. It makes a huge difference. If you haven't yet, please consider doing so. Head over to Broulosophy.com/support to view a list of ways you can easily help us to continue producing this podcast. If you want a reward for your support, visit patreon.com/broulosophy. Thanks again for listening. We'll be back next week with another episode of the Broulosophy podcast. Until then, think beer. (upbeat music)