Today we will prepare invert syrup - this is a replacement for glucose, corn syrup and honey, if for some reason you cannot use it. This is an excellent substitute for molasses, which is needed in the manufacture of many confectionery products to give the dough a golden hue, and most importantly, to increase shelf life.
Invert syrup is very easy to prepare at home, so that you can then add it to various fillings and creams, thereby preventing sugaring (especially important in products with a large number sugar, such as marshmallows).
Take a saucepan with a thick bottom and a tight-fitting lid without a hole for steam to escape. Pour water (150 ml) into a saucepan, add sugar (350 g), and over medium heat, without covering and stirring, wait until the sugar dissolves.
Add citric acid (2 g.)
As soon as the syrup boils, reduce the heat to low, cover tightly with a lid and cook the syrup to a temperature of 108 C-110 C.
If you don't have a thermometer, use the cooking time as a guide; the process will take about 20 minutes. During this time, it is better not to lift the lid. The color of the finished syrup, depending on the intensity of the fire, can range from light yellow to amber.
Add soda to the slightly cooled syrup to neutralize the citric acid in the syrup. An active reaction will occur, you will see foam that will settle after 20 minutes.
During this time, you need to stir the syrup several times so that the foam disperses faster.
If the foam has not completely gone away after half an hour, add 1 tablespoon of water and heat the syrup over the fire again. Perhaps the citric acid was too strong, so this amount of baking soda was not enough to neutralize the acid.
When the reaction is complete and the foam has subsided, the syrup can be poured into a jar for storage.
From this amount of ingredients, approximately 400 grams of finished syrup is obtained. It should be stored in a hermetically sealed jar. room temperature. Shelf life is about a month. The hot syrup is quite liquid, but after it cools completely it becomes thick and has a consistency similar to honey.
Invert syrup is used to prepare some culinary dishes. This product is obtained as a result of the hydrolysis of sucrose.
As a result of hydrolysis, sucrose molecules break down into several monosaccharides - fructose and sucrose. This process is called “inversion”, and the resulting product is invert syrup.
To obtain it, an acid must be added to an aqueous concentrated solution of sucrose. After this, the mixture needs to be heated. This process continues until the reaction is complete.
As for acids, to obtain invert syrup of normal quality in a confectionery production or bakery, you can use organic weak raw materials: lactic, acetic or citric acid.
But it is better to use the latter, since, unlike the others, it is odorless and enters production in a crystalline, fairly stable state. Dairy and acetic acid Available only in liquid form.
Compared to sugar, invert syrup has many advantages:
This product is quite stable during storage. It is easy to use and dose. The syrup dissolves perfectly in water. In this case, the temperature of the liquid can be any. Invert syrup can be mixed with almost any product that is part of the dough.
When heated, the product may become darker, since with increasing temperature the monosaccharide is destroyed and a coloring substance is formed. In an alkaline environment, this process occurs more intensively.
In order for the product to retain its color, it is necessary to properly neutralize the acids at the end of the sugar inversion process. To do this, you need to cool the syrup to 70˚C and add a soda solution. It should be added to the product in small portions with vigorous stirring. At the same time, neutralization should not be completed to the end. In relation to soda, the acid in the final product should be in excess. This is an important condition. Usually 85 to 90% of the total acid is neutralized in syrup.
To prepare invert sugar syrup Experts do not recommend using aluminum cookware, since this material dissolves in an acidic environment. As a result, the final product is contaminated with toxic compounds. It is better to use glass containers or dishes coated with special non-oxidizing enamel.
To prepare invert syrup with citric acid required:
To prepare invert syrup with lactic acid, you need:
You can heat the product with lactic acid for 40 to 50 minutes. The moisture content of the finished syrup is only 30%.
So, how to make invert syrup? Recipe of this product simple enough.
You need to take a tank of appropriate volume and pour water into it. The dishes should be placed on the fire and the contents should be heated.
You need to add sugar to the water and bring it until completely dissolved. In this case, the contents of the tank must be constantly stirred.
The sugar solution should be brought to a boil and citric acid should be added. The contents of the tank must be thoroughly mixed.
You need to cook the syrup over low heat. At the same time, it needs to be constantly stirred. This process takes 20 to 25 minutes. The product can be considered completely ready when its temperature reaches 108˚C. You can check this with a special thermometer. Glass should not be used.
Once ready, the invert syrup should be cooled to 70˚C, and then add 10% baking soda. The main thing is to correctly calculate the amount of sodium bicarbonate. You need to add the solution in small portions, while mixing thoroughly. In this case, a large amount of carbon dioxide is released. The product may foam heavily.
When preparing invert syrup, it is necessary to observe the ratio of products. For 100 parts of regular sugar, only 44 parts of pure water are required. As for the amount of soda and acid, this indicator can vary within certain limits.
Store invert syrup, the recipe for which is very simple, in a tightly closed container at a temperature of 16 to 20˚C for no more than 30 days.
What is invert syrup? This is a sugar syrup in which, when heated and reacted with acid, sucrose is broken down into fructose and glucose. A sugar solution is necessary for the preparation of certain types of confectionery products with a high sugar content. It has anti-crystallization, moisture-binding properties, and extends the shelf life of products without changing taste. In some types of creams, sweet fondants, marshmallows, glazes, etc. Invert syrup is definitely included. This syrup, of course, can be replaced with more expensive and similar in properties syrups - corn or maple. But invert is much easier to prepare and costs less. It contains sugar, water and citric acid.
Place sugar in a small saucepan or saucepan with a thick bottom.
Heat the water in microwave oven, it should be hot, and pour boiling water over the sugar.
Place the saucepan on the stove, stir the syrup and bring to a boil over low heat.
Add citric acid to the hot syrup and stir.
Continue to simmer the solution over low heat for 30 - 35 minutes. During cooking, do not forget to stir the syrup periodically.
Our task is to boil the syrup to the consistency of a “thick thread”. If your pan or saucepan is wide, the syrup will boil down a little earlier and vice versa. My saucepan is not wide, rather deep and it took 35 minutes to cook.
To make sure it is ready, scoop a little syrup into a dry spoon and transfer it to a saucer. Blow a little, dip the back of the spoon into the solution and pull.
If you have a thick thread, then the syrup is ready. You can also check the readiness of the syrup using two fingers, grab a little syrup and try to squeeze and unclench them. A thick thread will also appear between your fingers.Invert syrup should be light yellow in color and have the consistency of liquid honey.
Pour the finished syrup while it is hot into a small container. Do not forget that after cooling it will be even thicker and will need to be removed from this container.
As a result, from the proposed amount of products, we got 320 g of invert syrup, prepared at home.
The shelf life of invert syrup is about a month at room temperature, and in the refrigerator up to 3 months. Add syrup to confectionery and enjoy the taste.
No strain of yeast can process beet or cane sugar in its pure form. First, yeast spends time breaking down (hydrolyzing) sugar molecules into simpler substances - saccharides, and only then decompose the resulting substances into the alcohol and carbon dioxide we need. A moonshiner can perform hydrolysis artificially, thereby obtaining a number of advantages. The technique is similar to making regular syrup.
Inverting sugar- the process of splitting one molecule of sucrose in beet or cane sugar into two molecules of fructose and glucose. At home, this is done under the influence of citric acid, which acts as a reaction catalyst, and high temperature (above 80°C). The composition of inverted syrup is close to natural honey.
Benefits of sugar inversion:
1. Fermentation proceeds faster; as a result, the mash accumulates fewer harmful impurities, which are a by-product of the work of yeast. All other things being equal, moonshine can be obtained a couple of days earlier.
2. Invert sugar does not deteriorate the organoleptic properties (taste and aroma) of grain and fruit brews as much as regular sugar. Its use in a mixture with any fruit (berry) and starch-containing raw materials is preferable.
3. High temperature kills microorganisms on the surface of the sugar, as a result, the risk of contaminating the mash with pathogenic fungi is sharply reduced.
4. When using classic distillers (moonshine stills), the quality of the finished product is slightly higher due to the initially smaller amount of impurities in the mash. For distillation columns it doesn't matter.
Disadvantages of invert sugar:
1. Spent extra time for making mash. You need to create a high temperature.
2. During inversion, furfural appears - a toxic liquid with an odor rye bread or almonds, which in high concentrations causes irritation of mucous membranes and skin. But this substance is released only during the hydrolysis of hemicellulose, a polysaccharide contained in plant cells, of which there is little in pure sugar.
In any homemade jam the furfural content is much higher than with the right technology inversions, so the harm of inverted sugar is greatly exaggerated. Caramelizing berries and fruits is much more dangerous than making syrup.
3. The yield of moonshine with invert sugar is a couple of percent lower.
Inversion is accompanied by active foam release, so it is important to choose the right container. After mixing water and sugar, it is desirable that at least a third of the volume remains free.
Proportions: to invert 1 kg of sugar, 0.5 liters of water and 3-4 grams of citric acid are required. The amount of acid only affects the reaction speed (time to prepare the syrup) and does not affect the quality of the moonshine.
Ingredients:
Cooking technology:
1. Heat water in a large saucepan to 70-80°C.
2. Slowly add sugar, stirring constantly.
3. Bring the mixture to a boil, simmer for 10 minutes, skimming off the white foam. You should get sugar syrup of a homogeneous consistency.
4. Reduce heating power to a minimum. Slowly (very important) add citric acid. Mix.
When acid is added, the syrup immediately begins to foam. If you pour in too quickly, the contents of the container will splash out!
5. Close the pan with a lid and increase the heating intensity. Boil the syrup for 60 minutes at a temperature not lower than 80°C. You can maintain boiling water, this is a guarantee of a positive result.
6. Cool the finished invert sugar to 30°C, then pour into a fermentation container.
7. Add 4 liters of water and 100 grams of pressed (20 grams of dry) yeast per 1 kg of regular sugar (before inversion).
8. Install a water seal (preferably), maintain the fermentation temperature at 18-31°C (optimal – 26-30°C).
9. Distill the finished mash.
The video shows a slightly different method of inverting sugar, in which a minimal amount of furfural is released.
Have you ever come across recipes in which molasses is one of the ingredients? For sure. And what did you do in such cases? Have you closed a recipe you liked (for example, a classic English Christmas cake), because it’s impossible to find this very treacle?
If you stock up on invert syrup, you can cook any dish that contains molasses or corn syrup (and this, by the way, includes not only baked goods, but even Bloody Marys and Caesar dressing). Making a substitute for capricious sweet ingredients - invert syrup - at home is quite simple.
Note
Do not cook the syrup for too long as it will change color from light to dark and take on a caramel flavor.
If, after adding soda, foam remains on the surface of the syrup for a long time (longer than 15 minutes), taste the syrup. If it is sour, it means that not all citric acid has been neutralized. Add some water and heat it up.
Boil the syrup in a heavy-bottomed saucepan with a tight-fitting lid to minimize evaporation.
Store the finished syrup in a well-tightened glass jar at room temperature.
Did you know that:
Invert syrup is used not only as a substitute for molasses in homemade baking. Many manufacturers of cakes, pastries, and bread use it in production, as indicated in the ingredients.
A little chemistry. Invert syrup is obtained by hydrolytic splitting of sucrose into fructose and glucose. In other words, as a result of the slow boiling of sugar syrup with citric acid (inversion), sucrose is split into glucose and fructose in equal quantities.
