[Syrupmakers] Brix of Juice as Related to Syrup Yield

[Richard Harrison]

Gene,
     Ooooops! I goofed. (again). I reread Junior's report and it WAS 17, not 20. (Don't know how i did that). Thanks for your response.That's what I was looking for. But didn't the 17 brix juice turn out about as much syrup as the 12 ? Elaborate, please.
     Also, could you describe the Indian Girl cane variety for me ? I might want to add it to the collection.
                                     Richard Harrison
  P.S. Tracy Baudoin makes syrup from 20-something brix from the sugar growers in LA. I think he says it cooks down about 4:1 .

"F. Eugene Crouse, Jr." <fecjr at triad.rr.com> wrote:
      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.



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