Well, it turns out that's quite a lot harder than I expected. I had a few variables to play around with:
- How long to boil the sugar for.
How hot to boil, and what peak temperature would be obtained.
What catalysts would be added.
When the brew day came around, I sampled the commercial candy sugar. It was much more complex than my own goop, tasting of raisons, plums, caramel, and maybe a hint of chocolate. I demoted my own candy sugar to the bin and went ahead with the brew...
The Mash:
- 70% Dingemans belgain pils
6% crystal
3% special B
2% aromatic malt.
1% chocolate
Mashed at 68C for 1hr
- 12% dark candy sugar (the commercial stuff)
6% light candy sugar
- Total boil time: 2hrs
50g Styrian Golding for 60m
50g Hallertau for 10m
- White Labs WLP-530 fermented at near-constant 20C. No temperature ramping.
Yeast tended to trap itself atop the krausen, daily shaking was necessary to keep fermentation moving.
Heavy acetaldehyde flavor for first two weeks of fermentation, which mostly cleared thereafter, leaving behind a nice raisin and plum flavor.
By bottling time (3 weeks after pitching), an interesting off-flavor emerged. I can describe it as a cross between being lightstruck and general oxidization. Hopefully it clears up over time.
- OG: 1.085
FG: 1.016
ABV: 9.43%
Brew length: 19.5L