The procedure seems quite straightforward. You just need to pick the right ingredients, have some patience and time.
The main ingredient is Cane sugar. I picked some up from the local health store. Demerara sugar also works. I picked some of that up from a local brewing supply store. I remember Demerara being readily available in the supermarket back in the UK. I couldn't find it anywhere here in Canada. Anyway, neither of these sugars are cheap. For my first attempt I used the raw cane sugar. Here's the full list of ingredients taken from the unholymess blog:
- Sugar in the Raw or other demerara cane sugar
- 1lb sugar to 1pt of water
- 1 tsp (5ml) liquid Lactic Acid @ 88% per 2.5lbs of sugar.
- 1/2 cup (4 fl oz) light corn sugar per 2.5lbs. (helps prevent crystals)
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| Ingredients: Cane Sugar, lactic acid, corn sugar & water |
Process:
- Heat the water to boiling
- Heat off, slowly add sugar & dissolve – goes quicker than dumping and stirring
- Add Lactic
- Put on Medium-high heat, set candy thermometer alarm for 230F
- reduce for your stove if you are heating more than 3F/minute
- Stir occasionally until simmering starts.
- Once @ 230F, set alarm for 240F, slowly reduce heat to keep temp stable
- easiest is to slowly ramp temp up to 240F. There is so much thermal mass, that once you go over it is very tough to get the temp down.
- As alarm goes off @ 240F, reduce heat to keep 240F. It is ok to hit 245F, but keep under 250F.
- low & slow will prevent any burning and associated flavors
