Dissolving sugars when flavouring

by **ozthink** » Sun Sep 09, 2012 3:12 pm

Hi all
When mixing the spirits, essence and flavour, I find it hard to dissolve the sugar, even after much shaking of the mix. If I just leave it, it seems to form hard clumps on the bottom of the bottle. Any tips on how to dissolve the sugar better when mixing liqueurs.
Thanks in advance.

by **googe** » Sun Sep 09, 2012 3:27 pm

Couldnt you just make a sugar syrup?. 1 cup sugar to 1 cup water and desolve it on the stove.

by **MacStill** » Sun Sep 09, 2012 3:47 pm

googe wrote:Couldnt you just make a sugar syrup?. 1 cup sugar to 1 cup water and desolve it on the stove.

That's what I do :handgestures-thumbupleft:

by **googe** » Sun Sep 09, 2012 4:20 pm

McStill wrote:
googe wrote:Couldnt you just make a sugar syrup?. 1 cup sugar to 1 cup water and desolve it on the stove.

That's what I do :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Me too :handgestures-thumbupleft: dude at work buys this liqueur thickener, i said why not just make a sugar syrup with some Glycerine in it, im gueesing thats all they use, would save mega $ doing it at home, some people have no idea :roll:

by **BackyardBrewer** » Sun Sep 09, 2012 5:14 pm

Sugar syrup or liquid glucose. Problem solved.

by **ozthink** » Sun Sep 09, 2012 6:00 pm

Thanks all. Makes perfect sense now that you mention it. I'll give this a try.

BTW another question re working out the measurements. The SS essences typically ask for 180 ml sugar, and 100 ml glucose syrup. If converting this to solely glucose syrup, how many ml of sugar and how much water would you recommend to make it equivalent to the instructions in terms of sweetness. (I formally made one just with 280ml sugar but this seemed too sweet, so obviously 100ml of glucose does not contain 100 ml of sugar.)

Thanks

by **googe** » Sun Sep 09, 2012 6:34 pm

I think from memory its 1/8th ratio, 1kg sugar = 1.125 glucose. Could be wrong 8-}

by **Sam.** » Mon Sep 10, 2012 10:41 am

Mix up a coupl of different bottles and do it to taste mate

by **Talon** » Mon Sep 10, 2012 9:36 pm

Ask any barman

Sart with 500ml of water on the stove. Bring to the boil in a 2 or 3 litre sausepan. When boiling tun off the heat and add white sugar gradually while stiring. as the sugar disolves add more while stiring until you cant dsolve any more.

What you end up with is a saturated sugar syrup. when fully cooled the resulting syrup is decanted into a bottle for later use. dont worry about any cristals left. The sugar should not recrystalise at room temp and can be stored fo years if necessary. Any recrystalisation can be dealt with by sitting the bottle of syrup in some warm water.

by **djfrestyla** » Wed Nov 21, 2012 2:41 pm

I usually put my liquer in a 5l jar, add the sugar, seal it, then let it sit in the sink, surrounded by hot water, shake every now and again untill sugar is disolved.

by **invisigoth** » Sat Dec 01, 2012 8:28 pm

the syrup idea sounds like the way to go, but you still need to make sure that your alcohol content isn't too high or it could crash out of solution. sugar is insoluble in most pure alcohols. it surprised most people that came into the lab when they found out that we used methanol followed by isopropanol to remove the coating around raw sugar crystals when determining the particle size of raw sugar samples. :-B