Mixing the sugar for backsweetening

[Ajmassa]

Very cool. They say 1:1 simple sugar would keep for 1 month. And 2:1 would keep for 6 months refrigerated. I’d imagine the shelf life of 4:1 inverted would keep for a very long time.
Im feeling an inverted brown syrup tweak for Christmas cookies this year!

 

[Scooter68]

The problem with a syrup of greater than 2-1 concentration is that measuring becomes very hard to do. Thick as honey at least plus the time to make. By the way if you leave your simple syrup in the fridge too long it will become that old "Rock Candy" Until you re-heat it. Got that surprise in my first year of wine making.

 

[Ajmassa]

I’ve been making and using syrup a lot lately. I guess if I were to make a few 1qt mason jars of a 4:1 equivalent id have to make the 1st one just 4cps sugar and 1 cp water and measure out 25% of the total. Then label the rest of the jars 1cup=x mL.
I dont refrigerate my syrup until it’s been opened. For unopened jars (the 2 part lid that vacuum seals as it cools) I keep at room temp. I’ve got 1 qt left from a batch made a yr ago.

 

[skyfire322]

I was going to type what essentially sour_grapes already said about making a syrup with a touch of lemon juice (or citric acid) to break apart that chemical bond. The term is making "invert sugar". Here is video that explains it a bit more



H

This is actually a huge help! I wasn't planning on backsweetening, but right now my big issue is that the TA is on point (7.5) but the pH is a bit low (2.8) so I think this might be the way to go.

 

[CUZN_J]

Am I the only one that uses a 4 to 1 ratio for simple sugar. Used to use 2-1, but figured it diluted the wine more. So we slow boil 4-1 mix with a splash of lemon juice. Roy

NO I use the 4/1 ratio also, it takes a little longer stirring the boil, but I find it is easier to judge amount needed,

 

[Scooter68]

Never had a wine dilution problem but then I plan for that back-sweetening at the beginning. Time to prep that heavy a concentrate is more than I want to invest at this point. Sounds like a way to go for larger batches though. I'd have a tough time measuring small enough quantities for bench trials. Normally I end up with 1/4 oz for 1 cup of wine in bench trials.

 

[iridium]

Question on timing. Is there a time limit between adding sorbate and back sweetening? I added sorbet about a month ago but life happened and I didn’t get to back sweeten.

 

[Scooter68]

Unlikely that you will have any problem. Some folks state that they add the sorbate early but I just remember reading that the effectiveness of sorbate tails off after "a while." I think a month delay isn't going to be any sort of problem. I try to do the final sorbate and k-Meta treatment about a week ahead to let them both be at full effectiveness when I back-sweeten.

Wouldn't worry about it at all.


(Unless your really added 'sorbet' instead. - sorry I just couldn't resist. I didn't even notice the spelling until I did a final read before posting.)

 

[iridium]

Yes I have heard you have to very careful when adding sorbet[emoji12]

 

[Julie]

I have added sorbate and backsweeten all in the same day and never had any issues.