Accidentally inverted sugar?

Sugar, and all about sugar washes. Where the primary ingredient is sugar, and other things are just used as nutrients.

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Badhairguy
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Accidentally inverted sugar?

Post by Badhairguy »

Has anyone experience sugar inverting due to a strong base instead of an acid?

I'm on my 7th sugar wash batch of my own recipe; the 6 before were total successes.

I keep very detailed notes on all of my fermentations and they have been almost identical up to this point:
- 5 gallons of spring water heated to 101F, add 8# of sugar to target 1.065 starting SG, 16 brix
- Hydrate 25g Lallemand Distillamax HT @ 100F for 20 minutes in 250mL spring water
- Pitch yeast after 20 minutes.
- After 1 hour, add .5g/L (half total dose) of both DAP and Lallemand Distillavite GN yeast nutrient.
- sample every 12 hours, add 2# of sugar when brix drops to 10, which happens twice for a total of 12# of sugar. Add 1tbps sodium bicarbonate when pH drops to below 4.0 to raise to 5.0;
- add the 2nd half of DAP & Distillavite GN @ 24 hours

These fermenters finish @ 96 hours, 11.5% EtoH, <.01% glucose verified via HPLC, brix of 8

Now, knowing that sodium can inhibit yeast, I decided to pick up some calcium hydroxide while I figure out exactly how I want to suspend the oyster shells in my fermenter. On this last fermenter, I added a single dose of around 2 teaspoons of calcium hydroxide when the pH dropped to below 4.0 to target a 5.0. The fermenter continued like normal, though a little slower. 96 hours came and went and the brix was still a 15 which is abnormal. I waited another 24 hours and pulled a sample and ran it on the HPLC... 9.5% ethanol, .5% glucose. Still lower and slower than I was used to, but the kicker here is that I noticed the fructose peak was extremely high. My HPLC doesn't log actual volume % of fructose, but I compared it to the other runs I had made and it was at least 3x as large, so that leaves me to my actual question:

Is it possible that calcium hydroxide, being a stronger base than sodium bicarbonate somehow inverted the sugar? There should not have been a large amount of fructose seeing as how I've been using sucrose unless it was created somehow. Has anyone else experienced this?
In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage
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Ben
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Re: Accidentally inverted sugar?

Post by Ben »

I think it requires an acid for the bond to break.
The-sugar-inversion-process.jpg
The-sugar-inversion-process.jpg (15.23 KiB) Viewed 1009 times
You can however get partial inversion just by heating. Perhaps your process had a small change?
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StillerBoy
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Re: Accidentally inverted sugar?

Post by StillerBoy »

Inversion of white sugar requires an acid and heat (boiling) for 20 min..
As to the calcium hydroxide creating a change, I would say not, as I been using such for many yrs now in maintaining Ph level in sugar washes, and never notice a difference between it and calcium carbonate..

Mars
" I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent. Curiosity, Obsession and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me to my knowledge and understanding "

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Badhairguy
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Re: Accidentally inverted sugar?

Post by Badhairguy »

Thanks for the responses. It’s a curiosity as to how the elevated fructose came to be. I use the same brand of sugar and water and use a sous vide circulator to heat my water before adding the sugar so the temperature is well regulated. The only change I made to the batch was upgrading from a plastic 6 gallon fermenter bucket to a 9 gallon beer buddy heated stainless ferm. (Besides for the obvious upgrade in quality, I wanted to move my fermentation to my basement which is cooler than the main floor so I wanted to be able to maintain temperature.)
In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage
StillerBoy
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Re: Accidentally inverted sugar?

Post by StillerBoy »

My take on your concern..

I would try calcium carbonate and see what result it gives;

If the behavior is similar is calcium hydroxide, then i would reverse back to using sodium bicarbonate, as there seem to not effect the fermentation and getting good results..

Mars
" I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent. Curiosity, Obsession and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me to my knowledge and understanding "

– Albert Einstein
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Salt Must Flow
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Re: Accidentally inverted sugar?

Post by Salt Must Flow »

If you start a sugar wash (inverted sugar or not), as long as you add Citric Acid to lower the ph to 5.2 - 5.6 and suspend a mesh sack of Crushed Oyster Shell (Calcium Carbonate) then it will buffer the ph well. Normally my sugar washes ferment out around 4.2 ph. Whenever I've done a sugar wash without Citric Acid & Calcium Carbonate, the ph crashes overnight.

Calcium Hydroxide instantly raises the ph, but doesn't buffer. I rarely ever need to use Calcium Hydroxide unless I made a mistake, but I always like to keep some on hand.
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