Fermentability question

[Beerbeque]

I boiled 2qts of unhopped wort down to ~ 8oz of caramelized brown malt syrup to use in an upcoming brew. Will this sugar be fermentable?

 

[coreygrado]

I don't see why it wouldn't be? Was it from an actual mash? What was the origin?


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[Beerbeque]

I made the wort by mashing 1lb of base malt. I thought the syrup might not be fermentable because the sugar was caramelized by boiling.

 

[brewfun]

Caramelization doesn't significantly reduce fermentability until very high temperatures are reached. Neither does the Maillard reaction. You simply get a lot of coloring power and associated flavors for a relatively low amount of weight. Yeast still has the ability to consume the sugars involved in both reactions.

 

[ajdelange]

The answer depends on how much sugar remains. Caramelization (and Maillard reactions) convert sugars (and, in the case of Maillard, amino acids) into a host of compounds which are not fermentable. But not all the sugar is, in either case, converted. Does the syrup taste sweet? If it does, then there is still a lot of potentially fermentable sugar in there.