[Syrupmakers] Brix of Juice as Related to Syrup Yield

[F. Eugene Crouse, Jr.]

Richard -

I'll take this opportunity to pick on you for picking on Junior (all tongue
in cheek I hope).

First,  unless I missed soething, Junior did NOT state that we (I am the
Gene of "Gene and Richard" that he referred to) made anything form juice
starting out at 20 Brix.  He stated 17. That was a measure of the entire
batch of juice at approximately 80 degrees farenheit (already started to
heat).  That was our first "demonstration batch", cooked Friday.  This was a
mix of Blue Ribbon and Indian Girl (to answer another question, it is a
variety we get out of South Carolina and we have no idea of the origin of
the name).  We cooked this, using a variety of methods for determining when
it was finished.  We were low on temperature (224) but dead on our intended
Baume reading (37).  It turned out a little thinner than we like, but the
taste was the best we have ever made.  As Junior stated, it rained ALL day.
One of the locals said that his rain gauge showed a little over 5 inches of
rain over a 24 hour period.  We needed that!  Just not when we were
cooking... We cooked 92 gallons and ended up with 11 1/2 gallons and a half
pint.  That is around 8:1 reduction.  It probably would have been closer to
9:1 to get the proper thickness.

Our second "demonstration batch" was cooked yesterday.  The weather was
PERFECT for show attendees and for cooking.  This batch was all Indian Girl,
grown in Winston-Salem (where sugar cane probably shouldn't grow).  We think
the low Brix reading of 12 is due to the shorter growing season and the cane
not being completely ready.  We initially intended to use this cane in a few
weeks at a cooking in our kettle, but decided to take it to the show at
Denton to fill in for a lack of cane provided by other growers (dang lack of
rain...).  with a low brix reading, we decided to squeeze an additional 10
gallons of juice to add to the kettle to hopefully keep the level higher on
the finished product.  We cooked a total of 101 gallons of juice and ended
up with around 10 1/2 gallons.  The taste was good and the thickness was
better than Friday.

In response to the question about the Brix reading of 20 turing into 100 on
a 5:1 reduction, it isn't quite that easy.  Brix, by my understanding, is a
measure of percentage by weight.  So a brix reading of 20 would mean, by
weight, the solution is 20% solids (mostly sugars, we hope) and 80% liquids
(water, we hope).  There are significant impurities (skimmings) that muddy
the formulas.  But treating this math exercise as if we were only dealing
with the sugar content and the water content, and assuming no sugar loss due
to skimming and steam content, a 5:1 reduction in total volume would yield a
theoretical Brix reading of about 68 .  This is based on the assumption of
the density of sugars being around 1.57 g/ml and the water at 1.0 g/ml.

Since there are LOTS of other variables including sugar loss through steam
and skimmings, conversion of starches to sugars, etc.  The value could vary
dramaticaly based on style of cooking, accuracy of readings and other
things.

The Brix reading is not a measure of percentage of volume, but is instead a
measure of percentage of weight.  We theortically are only losing water and
maintaining sugar.  The density of the sugar is over 50% higher than water.
Losing 80% of the solution, but maintaining the same quantity of sugar,
still leaves a lot of water.  In the 92 gallon - 17 brix exercise, assuming
a 5:1 reduction as you stated, there would be around 10.62 gallons of sugars
and 7.78 gallons or water at the end.

I'm sure Bill (and others) can point out a huge list of errors in the
assumptions I have given, but this should help to explain that it isn't a
simple 1: relationship between reduction and final content percentages.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.usps2.soho.aussiehq.net.au/pipermail/syrupmakers/attachments/20071028/37314ae3/attachment-0001.html