Talk:Inverted sugar syrup

(Old comments)
Why isn't there any explanation of what exactly is inverted sugar? Nothing about rotation of polarized light :P Filipalpg (talk) 16:30, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Why is there a lion with bees on the Tate and Lyle Golden Syrup tin. What has syrup to do with lions and bees? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.3.128.6 (talk) 17:47, 2005 January 29 (UTC)


 * Well, they're both golden. ^_^ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.49.220.19 (talk) 17:38, 2005 April 27 (UTC)


 * nice answer do you think many people read this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.38.167.98 (talk) 09:40, 2005 October 3 (UTC)


 * the answer is "Out of the strong shall come forth sweetness" GraemeLeggett 10:58, 3 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Ahhh a Samson reference. Nice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.122.208.51 (talk) 16:13, 2007 February 14 (UTC)

Merge w/ Invert Syrup
I created that page last night by request. I failed to find this page on a search before creating it - found it this morning when categorizing the other page. I think the two should be merged, don't have time right this minute. GRBerry 13:36, 1 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Merge accomplished. GRBerry 01:49, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Invert Syrup Maker
Can anybobdy provide a link or some information about the Invert Syrup Maker used in industries. email : hitecheng@hotmail.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.122.13.70 (talk) 13:54, 2006 July 5 (UTC)


 * in my experience you take a heated vat and some acid and wait. GraemeLeggett 14:25, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Article contradicts itself
At the beginning it says that invert sugar has about 85% the sweetness of sucrose. Later in the article it says "he most popular is a partially inverted sugar such as golden syrup or refiners syrup, a mixture of 44% sucrose to 56% invert. This type of invert sugar offers high sweetness value of around 20% greater than sucrose." If invert is less sweet than sucrose, how can a mixture of invert and sucrose be sweeter than sucrose? Unless there is something missing in the article, one of the statements has to be wrong.--66.102.196.32 06:31, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the issue is that you go from sucrose to invert sugar, you complete change the concentration. So, while a solution of sucrose may be sweeter than an equivalent solution of invert sugar, the conversion process radically alters concentration by doubling the number of sugar molecules and reducing the amount of water by an equivalent amount.  scot (talk) 17:23, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

"Compared with its precursor, sucrose, inverted sugar is sweeter" statement contradicts figure 2 in article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_syrup Ecstatist (talk) 22:36, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I have removed the statement that it's sweeter, since we're not sure, and there's no reference. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 07:58, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

I see that Gzuufy has put back the statement that invert sugar is sweeter, with two references. But I'm not sure that those references are very good. They're not scientific references. One of them says that invert sugar is sweeter because fructose is sweeter than sucrose. Yes, but glucose is less sweet! So the average of fructose and glucose may be less than sucrose. The article Sweetness doesn't help much because it gives a big range for fructose (between 1.17 and 1.75 times sweeter than sucrose). Eric Kvaalen (talk) 15:22, 13 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm reminded that verifiability rather than truth is one Wikipedia standard. It is possible the citations are wrong.  There are other charts on Wikipedia, such as the fructose article which has this image, which leads here with a notation that the information is not cited.  Their assertion is that invert sugar is 50% of the sweetness of sucrose.  That's also hard to understand.  Why would invert sugar, composed of 50% glucose and 50% fructose be either less sweet or sweeter than sucrose which is 50% glucose and 50% fructose(?), the only difference being the bond between them. That means there's now such a wide variety of estimates that it is essentially unknown. It may be preferable to delete and I would not object. In 1922, Sales and Skinner put invert sugar at 85 compared to sucrose, apparently because of a difference in weight that occurs from the inversion, though their actual study is behind a pay wall I can't access. It is interesting that the beginning of this section user 66.102.196.32 mentions 85 as the value, which is the same as Sales and Skinner. Gzuufy (talk) 16:29, 13 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I think it's understandable that a 50-50 mixture of fructose and glucose could have a sweetness quite different from that of sucrose, because taste has to do with how the molecule interacts with the "active site" of some receptor on your tongue. But actually I would think that two monosaccharide molecules would cause more of a reaction in the taste bud than a single disaccharide! But in any case, we know that the average sweetness of glucose and fructose is a lot more than 50% of that of sucrose, so the figure of 50 for invert sugar is hard to understand (unless maybe it's on a per mole basis instead of a per gram basis!). Your link to Oregon State does say that mixtures don't always have a sweetness equal to the average of the two, but for the fructose-glucose pair the value in the table on this says that should make the mixture (invert sugar) 11% sweeter than the average of fructose and glucose. So that wouldn't explain the low figure of 50. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 18:06, 17 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Instead of one sentence asserting a particular sweetness value, perhaps it would be better to create a section with a paragraph explaining the wide range of values that have been propagated over the years. It may help readers to understand why there are so many different ideas regarding how invert syrup substitutes for sugar or sucrose, i.e., how the amounts should be adjusted upward or downward.  When I made my substitution in a bread formula, I adjusted the sugar value upward, but only for the water amount and the coincident increased weight of the syrup (dry sugar versus wet syrup).  Since I made the syrup myself, I knew the percentage based on final temperature.  I made no adjustment for relative sweetness.  I couldn't discern that the baked product was any sweeter or less sweet, it seemed about the same, though there were other differences, such as a faster fermentation rate, and increased crust "burning" (Maillard reaction), which needed some additional tweaks to the process. It is alleged that there are preservation values in baked products, as well as moisture retaining properties, presumably due to the fructose. Gzuufy (talk) 16:19, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Everyone might be interested in a 1955 article called "The Role of Sugar in the Food Industry" by Cotton, Rebers, Maudru, and Rorabaugh. In the article the authors discuss the sweetness of invert sugar in detail. For a quick summary, depending on the concentration of the sugar solution, the relative sweetness of sugars vary. Below 10%, sucrose is sweeter. Above 10%, invert is sweeter. However, one caveat is that sucrose acts as a flavor enhancer for other sugars, meaning that adding sucrose to invert sugar (or even to glucose) will make it more sweet. Therefore, it is sort of dubious to say that one is sweeter than the other without any sort of classification. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.0.24.112 (talk) 23:09, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

This reference from sweetness gives the relative sweetnesses as molar concentration, not mass concentration. So it stands to reason that invert sugar having 2x as many molecules for the same mass of sucrose more than makes up for glucose being 0.74x as sweet. ZerglingChamp (talk) 07:21, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

The sweetness of invert sugars, especially fructose is temperature dependent, whereas the relative sweetness of sucrose is perceptually constant at any temperature. Glucose is generally considered about 75% as sweet as Sucrose, but Fructose ranges from 90% to 175% as sweet depending on temperature. As a rule of thumb fructose is generally referenced as 150% sweeter. By controlling or proportioning the amount of these "invert" sugars in a syrup you can obtain the desired level of sweetness for the application. Varying the invert sugars also gives various other properties for an application as well including humectant properties, texture, viscosity, "browning", mouthfeel, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.40.222.114 (talk) 18:18, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Introduction is too technical
The first paragraph of this article should be a summary of the important information a layman would want to know. It should answer the basic questions


 * 1) What is invert sugar?
 * 2) Who uses it and why?
 * 3) How is it different/similar to non-invert sugar?

I'd write up the introduction myself, but I do not know the answers, even after reading the whole article. Here are some more questions I'd love to see answered, if anyone knows them:


 * 1) What are the nutritional differences between invert sugar and "normal" sugar?
 * 2) In what "class" is invert sugar? That is, what are its peers? Is it something you would use instead of glucose/sucrose/fructose? Or is it something you'd use instead of white/dark/raw/granulated/confectioner's sugar? The article mentions something about a mix of glucose and fructose, so does that mean invert sugar is just the name for a certain ratio?
 * 3) Is invert sugar naturally occurring? The "examples" section hints yes, but lacks an expository sentence.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.22.171.85 (talk) 07:17, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

THANK YOU! I know I'm arriving here 14 years after the above comment was posted, but I had the same problem with the introduction to this article and I came to this talk page to mention it and/or see if anyone else did, too.

"'Inverted sugar syrup...is a syrup mixture of the monosaccharides glucose and fructose, that is made by hydrolytic saccharification of the disaccharide sucrose.'"

WTF?? Seriously? Who writes like that? Especially in the opening paragraph! This is an encyclopedia, not a technical journal. The only people who would understand the term "hydrolytic saccharification" are people who are already experts in the field and wouldn't be going to Wikipedia to learn about it. To whoever wrote that mess of techno-jargon, C'mon, man, get a clue. Captain Quirk (talk) 07:55, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Grammatical clearup
To address the issues of clarity and quality in this article, I'm going to do a bit of a re-write - I'm not changing any information or details, just hopefully making it a bit easier to understand (as well as a few grammar issues). I hope everyone's ok with this. Charliedare (talk) 12:48, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

What does this mean?
"The biological catalysts are sucrases (in animals) and invertases (in plants), glycoside hydrolase enzymes." - lots of long words, but hardly clear. 94.193.26.213 (talk) 23:37, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


 * This bit of confusion persists. Author - please clarify. Thank you, Wordreader (talk) 05:59, 22 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I don't see what the problem is. The sentence has been changed to "The biological catalysts that are added are called sucrases (in animals) and invertases (in plants). Sucrases and invertases are types of glycoside hydrolase enzymes." You can click on the links to know what the difference is. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 15:22, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Inverting sugar
The article says to add citric acid (or similar) to sugar and then boil for 20 minutes, but doesn't mention water! How much should be added? I presume it's not made by boiling pure melted sugar. Sparrer (talk) 11:40, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Surely some water is added. But (WP:NOTMANUAL) avoids serving as an instruction manual.--Smokefoot (talk) 12:05, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, water is necessary. The article now gives a couple examples mentioning water. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 15:22, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Too many examples
I would say that there are currently too many examples. Creme eggs may contain inverted sugar but that is a highly processed food. I think examples like honey are good. Alexbateman (talk) 13:44, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Injection?
Why would anyone inject invert sugar? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.248.136.169 (talk) 16:13, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

My guess would be medical purposes. For example, if a person has dangerously low blood sugar, and it needs to be increased faster than can be accomplished orally, or if a person cannot digest sugar properly, or if a person needs to receive all nutrition by injection, because of a digestive or vomiting problem.71.109.148.3 (talk) 22:42, 30 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Nonsense, sorry. In case of low blood sugar level, purified glucose solution is given intravenously (see also Parenteral nutrition), while in diabetes, glucagon injections are the emergency treatment of choice (see Glucagon rescue). Injecting fructose would be pointless, while injecting invert sugar syrup would most likely result in instant death (large syrup particles blocking blood vessels in the brain – stroke).  kashmiri 23:40, 30 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree with kashmiri . A sterile form of glucose is injected intravenously in the case of a dangerously low blood sugar. Invert sugar is for baking and candy-making. There is absolutely no medical use listed in the article, cited or uncited. That info box template was a poor choice for this article. Author - please correct the situation. Thank you, Wordreader (talk) 06:05, 22 December 2014 (UTC)


 * ✅  kashmiri TALK  17:13, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Unsure about the quantities
Many sources (as the article itself) claim to use 1 part water, 2 parts sugar. The article Making simple syrup is an exercise in chemical reactions in the reference section claims to boil equal parts of granulated sugar and water and some other sources do as well.

I want as less remaining water as possible and am uncertain what to use now. When remembering chemistry 5 years ago, the formula uses 1 mol of sucrose and 1 mol of water. The molar mass of sucrose is 342 g/mol and 18 g/mol for water, so why not use 19 parts sucrose and only 1 part water? For example 190 g sucrose and 10 g water.

--92.106.138.7 (talk) 12:14, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

If you add only 5% water, it would be mostly solid sucrose. You have to add enough water to make a liquid if you want the reaction to go at a reasonable speed. Also, theoretically the reaction equilibrium will not correspond to 100% completion. Adding extra water makes the reaction go further toward 100% conversion. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 07:58, 22 September 2014 (UTC)


 * 92.106.138.7 - For your own curiosity, here's a recipe for invert sugar by pastry chef, Eddy Van Damme: http://www.chefeddy.com/2009/11/invert-sugar/ . It cannot be used a WP reference, as I understand it, because a.) it's a blog, although by an expert and b.) it's a primary source. The comments may clarify some points for you, too. Thank you, Wordreader (talk) 06:17, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

External link is obsolete
External Link : Making sugar sweeter, an educational experiment in chemistry. No longer links to a topic related to invert sugar. It appears the page has been moved or removed.67.167.106.3 (talk) 22:30, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Removed, they were just external links of no importance to the article. Feel free to do it yourself next time. (Important links can be marked with template instead.)  kashmiri  22:58, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

1 g acid per kg sugar?
I make my own faux maple syrup, and I invert it, the boiling process takes about 1 hour using the tools I have available (a thermostatic electric burner attenuated to keep it below final temperature). Final temperature is 227 °F. I had been using acid as 1% of the sugar weight, but saw this 0.1% and thought, "Great, I don't need to worry about foaming as much when I neutralize the acid with soda!" I have not used the rotation of the light method, my standard test is whether the syrup stays liquid, or whether it develops crystals on the storage jar over the weeks or months that it takes to consume. So, I tried 0.1% of the sugar weight. Sorry, but it develops sugar crystals on the storage jar. When I make it with 1%, it does not develop any crystals even over months of storage time. I think that statement needs a citation. Gzuufy (talk) 03:55, 30 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree. A citation would be reasonable. Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 12:48, 30 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I found a citation which will suffice for a reference, but it's in true percentage instead of based on sugar weight, so I'll convert it to based on sugar weight, and rework a sentence or two. The relevant portion of the citation says, "Commercially, invert sugar is prepared as a syrup of about 70% soluble solids concentration. Invert sugar can be produced by holding a 65% sucrose solution containing 0.25% hydrochloric acid at 50°C (122°F) for one hour.  Sodium bicarbonate should then be added to neutralize the acid." Gzuufy (talk) 18:03, 30 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Hohoho, perfect! :D Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 19:58, 30 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I have put a "citation needed" tag on that recipe that says 1 gram acid per kilogram sugar. Anyway, it should depend on the equivalent weight of the acid! Eric Kvaalen (talk) 07:58, 22 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I cited it. When I added some citations, I left the amount at 0.1% because the various references used varying amounts. Eddy Van Damme (the cite author) used 0.1% of sugar weight or 1 g per kg, a low amount, presumably because his technique did not use a neutralizer. As cream of tartar percent is increased, it does taste a bit more like honey, just like The Sugar Beet asserted, so Damme was probably trying to keep it from tasting of too much acid. In my studies, it appeared the acid amount was variable (confectionary usage) and also dependent on time and temperature, or stated differently, as the acid was increased, the time needed to invert decreased. Only one citation stated an optimum pH existed, and that cite didn't take into account the flavor factor. I also read some citations I did not add to the article which suggested hydrochloric acid was the most efficient acid to use, but it was above my chemistry understanding level to competently write about it. Gzuufy (talk) 18:37, 9 October 2014 (UTC)


 * The reason HCl is the most efficient is that it's a "strong acid" and has a low equivalent weight (36.5 g/eq). "Strong acid" means it ionizes completely, whereas citric, ascorbic, and tartaric are weak acids that do not ionize completely. In fact, unless you add very little, most remains unionized. What you say about the length of time depending on the amount of acid and the temperature is correct. Reactions always go faster if there is more catalyst or if the temperature is higher. So that explains why it didn't work when you tried 1 gram per kg -- you needed to keep it hot longer. By the way, what did that source give for the optimum pH? And how does your thermostatic electric burner work? The temperature of the burner itself is kept at 227 °F? Eric Kvaalen (talk) 11:50, 10 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, "strong acid" was one of the phrases used. You should write something about that in the article!  The optimum pH for commercially prepared hydrochloric acid catalyzed syrups was reported as 2.15 by one source.   I use a Taylor 9842 stick thermometer to manually measure food temperatures. The dual hotplate used was purchased at WalMart some years ago, it looks exactly like this, "GE 1500 Watt 169214". The analog control, presumably a potentiometer, keeps a water bath at 80 °F, or even less, though room temperature is the floor temperature. Presumably a thermister is located in the steel hotplate itself, it turns on and off automatically, with a light indicating on.  At low temperature settings, once it has initially warmed its plate (it initially stays on for longer, a hint it is thermostatically controlled), there's an on-off ratio managed by the electronics relative to the dial setting. The larger plate provides a tighter temperature range of about  3-4 °F versus the small one when maintaining low temperatures. Setting the dial control can be difficult as it's an iterative process over time which requires minute adjustments. The sugar water (water at 57%, cream of tartar at 1%, both based on sugar weight) is heated in a pan on a typical kitchen natural-gas burner with a lowish-to-medium flame to a temperature between 214-220 °F, stirring as needed to initially dissolve the sugar, it is then moved to the hotplate for 1 hour. The syrup temperature is checked every 10-15 minutes and the heat setting adjusted if needed. After the hour has elapsed, the heat control is increased about 1/4 inch or so measured around the dial's circumference. The syrup takes about another 15 minutes to reach 227 °F, which corresponds to the viscosity I desire.  It is neutralized afterward, though the references for this article said a better process is to neutralize before performing the final concentration! I do not pre-dissolve the baking soda in water, I'm not sure what final concentration is needed before pre-dissolving the soda is required. The soda fully dissolves and the final syrup appears clear. I now believe a minimized amount of that particular acid is most likely somewhere between 0.15% and 1%. Trying to find the amount which adjusts pH to 2.15 makes sense, if tartaric acid will lower it that much, but I have found on other projects that measuring pH with either paper or a digital bulb-type meter leads to somewhat inconsistent results, and is somewhat frustrating. Gzuufy (talk) 15:43, 10 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Gzuufy. To get to a pH of 2.15 with tartaric acid, you would need about 27 grams per kilo of water. But you can also get there with just half a gram of HCl per kilo of water (0.05%). In moles per litre, that's 0.18 moles of tartaric, or 0.014 moles of HCl, so it would take only 1.2 grams of baking soda (per half gram of HCl) to neutralize it. Now you see why they call it a strong acid! Here in France you can buy HCl solution at the grocery store, but I don't know about where you live. Be careful with it though. If you boil it or even just let it evaporate at room temperature it can get dangerously concentrated.
 * I suppose that the "optimum" pH means the pH where the reaction is fairly rapid but it doesn't take much base to neutralize it. I don't think it's critical whether you use a bit more or a bit less than the half a gram per kilo of water that I mentioned.
 * I didn't know that they sell hotplates like what you describe. That could be a useful thing for just normal cooking – you could adjust it so as to keep a pot at 211°F. This would cook the food almost as fast as if it were boiling (212°F), but without wasting any heat on evaporating water, as happens when you boil something. (Of course, you would need to put a lid on it.) But I suppose that if you set it too high, like for 213°, then it would put out a lot of power as it tries vainly to get the water to that temperature, and the heat would just go to evaporating water. Maybe one could plug it into a socket controlled by a "simmerstat" to limit its power output.
 * If I understand right, the last stage of your process evaporates water, whereas the first hour does not. Is that right?
 * Eric Kvaalen (talk) 07:29, 16 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the calculations Eric Kvaalen! I wish that information could be added to the article, but the need to cite it is an issue. Is HCL acid customarily reported at 100% strength? I understand it is not available dry, nor near such strengths. I have never seen it sold at local, Southwest U.S. grocery stores, although it could be called something else. It is commonly sold at hardware stores as pool acid, often called "muriatic", but I never think of it as "food grade."


 * I'm not sure what you mean by "Is HCl acid customarily reported at 100% strength?". Some people might talk in terms of mass of HCl whereas others might talk about the quantity of a solution of a given concentration. 100% HCl is a gas. You wouldn't want that! And it's not available to ordinary people. I looked in our supermarket and couldn't find any HCl solution for sale, so I'm not really sure that it's available here. I don't think you should worry about the purity of pool acid. The way HCl is made, it should be pretty pure, and besides you'd only be using a tiny amount. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 15:22, 13 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I looked again at our supermarket, and they do have HCl. It's 1.55 euros for a litre of 23%. That's a bit beyond the azeotropic composition. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 18:06, 17 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Sorry I didn't follow up. It seems to me a 100% value would be useful for calculating neutralization values based on weight. I've noted some references mention hydrochloric acid, without citing its strength, one of them is a citation which exists on the article page regarding HCL strength used to invert sugar, "Commercially, invert sugar is prepared as a syrup of about 70% soluble solids concentration. Invert sugar can be produced by holding a 65% sucrose solution containing 0.25% hydrochloric acid at 50°C (122°F) for one hour. Sodium bicarbonate should then be added to neutralize the acid."  Typically the invert-sugar literature mentions neutralization in the context of measuring pH.  Myself, I've had nothing but problems measuring pH accurately, this includes the use of both paper and digital bulb type instruments.  The idea that HCL at 100% concentration (ignoring that it's a gas, I didn't know that) may be neutralized by X amount of soda is appealing (which would seem difficult when it's a gas).  The percentage of soda could simply be adjusted downward by the percentage amount, whatever that figure may be.  I have looked around for information of how much soda would be required to neutralize X amount of HCL, but can't find that information in a form I can understand it.  It would also be useful to know how to calculate neutralization of acids such as citric or ascorbic acids, even putting those values in the article if a reference could be found.  It's possible there is an article on Wikipedia somewhere about calculating that.  I keep a gallon of pool acid around, I find it useful for lowering the pH of rinse water, something which is mostly all drained away, given that our municipal water is typically about 8 pH. Alkaline water doesn't rinse away alkaline cleaners very well.  It also increases the sanitation usefulness of bleach when the water is around 5.0 pH (an approximate value from memory).  My usage is low enough that it is years between purchases, and I've noted that even with the same label purchased at the same hardware store, strength as reported on the label can vary a lot, the last time I purchased it was 1/2 the strength of the prior gallon. I'd be hesitant to use non-food grade acid in any food product that was to be consumed, even though it may be pure enough for the purpose. I recently made invert sugar with cream of tarter at 1.54% of the sugar weight and water at 57% of the sugar weight, and the mixture after the boil, both before and after neutralization was light yellow, reminiscent of honey while being a much lighter shade, it certainly was not colorless. It may be preferable to use a different acid, or an enzymatic method, if colorless invert sugar is desired. Gzuufy (talk) 22:28, 18 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi! Gzuufy, you said:
 * "It would also be useful to know how to calculate neutralization of acids such as citric or ascorbic acids, even putting those values in the article if a reference could be found."


 * Sorry, I'm not a Chemist, but for simple pH calculations, wouldn't some basic logarithmic calculations do? I remember to have computed some, and I can provide an example with the calculation if you needed. I am not sure if you mean this exactly though. :-) Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 01:00, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Jayaguru-Shishya. I'm not a chemist either, I doubt I'd be asking the questions. I think the logarithmic calculations might be useful for determining what pH is created when X amount of acid is added, since pH is a logarithmic scale, or what pH is created when X amount of neutralizer is added, though I had something simpler in mind. For example, from the current article references, Abraham Cressy wrote, "The best cream of tartar baking powder on the market contains about 28 per cent of bicarbonate of soda. To neutralize this quantity ... 62.6 per cent of cream of tartar is required. This quantity will leave in the food 70 per cent of anhydrous Rochelle Salts."  So, chemists knew how to calculate this back in 1904. If you have 100 grams of citric acid (ascorbic acid was deleted from the article), how many grams of baking soda is required to neutralize it?  I presume that it is possible to calculate from the chemical equation, though I don't know how to do it. Gzuufy (talk) 02:15, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * This may be a satisfactory answer for the article "3NaHCO3+ C6H8O7--->3 H2O+ Na3C6H5O7+ 3CO2, neutralization ... Here is the equation. Citric acid is a tri-protic acid. You need 3 moles of NaHCO3 for each mole of citric acid. A mole of NaHCO3 weighs 84g, a mole of citric acid weighs 192g, so you need about 252g of NaHCO3 for every 192 citrc acid."
 * 252/192=1.3125, so based on citric acid weight of 100%, you need 131.25% baking soda to neutralize, and it leaves trisodium citrate. At least it can be web cited. Gzuufy (talk) 17:24, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Gzuufy! What I had in mind goes as follows. Well... as we know, pH is the aH+ transformation of the H+ ion concentration (pH = log10aH+).
 * Let us assume two buckets: bucket 1 contains 1 liter of pH=6 solution, bucket 2 contains 1 liter of pH=4 solution. What will be the pH of the mixture? Let's see.
 * 1st bucket : pH1 = 6= -log10a1 = log10a1-1 <=> a1-1 = 106 <=> a1 = 10-6
 * 2nd bucket : pH2 = 4 = -log10a2 <=> a2 = 10-4
 * Now, let us mix the solutions: a = ((a1 + a2) / 2) = ((10-6 + 10-4) / 2)
 * -> pH1+2 = -log1010-4(10-2+1) = log102 - log1010-4 - log10(1+10-2)
 * = log102 + 4log1010 - log10(1.01) ~ 0.301 + 4 - 0.004 ~ 4.3
 * Therefore, the pH of adding 1 liter of pH 6 solution to 1 liter of pH 4 solutin, would yield to a mixture with pH of 4.3 !
 * OBS! log1010 = 1
 * I hope this helps! ;-) Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 21:50, 20 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Gzuufy, when they say 0.25% hydrochloric acid, they mean that there is 0.25 grams of hydrogen chloride per 100 grams of total solution. For instance, they might have used 1 gram of 25% HCl per 100 grams of total solution, or 1.25 grams of 20% HCl.
 * It's easy to calculate the amount of baking soda needed to neutralize different acids. (Note that "soda" actually means sodium carbonate whereas baking soda is sodium bicarbonate.) You take the mass of acid, divide by its molecular weight, multiply by the number of protons each molecule can donate, and multiply by the molecular weight of sodium bicarbonate. So to neutralize a gram of acid, you need the following amounts of sodium bicarbonate:
 * 2.30 g per g HCl
 * 1.31 g per g citric acid
 * 0.477 g per g ascorbic acid
 * 1.12 g per g tartaric acid
 * We don't need a reference to put something this elementary into the article, so go ahead.
 * I don't think your pool acid would impart any color to the invert sugar.
 * Eric Kvaalen (talk) 08:16, 4 February 2015 (UTC)


 * When the water is 50% of the sugar weight, 27 g tartaric acid per kg water converts to 1.35% of the sugar weight, and with water at 57% of the sugar weight, to 1.54% of the sugar weight. Thus there is another reason to minimize the water in the basic formula. Basing the acid amount on water weight or mass is simpler. When I first developed the above described process I incorrectly believed the sugar water needed to be boiling, which is why >= 214 °F and less than the final temperature during the inversion. I keep the lid off during the entire process, it's mostly an almost imperceptible boil, but keeping the lid on would recapture evaporation and conserve heat, and keeping it below 212 °F would seem to slow evaporation, both allowing the formula's water percent to be decreased.  There are three distinct phases, 1) the dissolving of the sugar and initial heating to the inversion temperature, 2) the inversion itself where the intent is to keep a constant temperature over time, and 3) the final concentration, raising the temperature to the final temperature.


 * Regarding the hotplate, I have not noted any major change in the on-off ratio at boiling. A circuit schematic was not supplied with it, and I've never disassembled it. If it has a thermistor then it's located internally somewhere, there is no external sensor that could be placed in the water being heated, for example. I have considered setting up an external digital thermostat based on a Johnson Controls A419, but its particular specifications indicate it only works for temperatures below 212 °F. The sensor tip appears as aluminum (I have one for another use), it is not described nor sold as safe for food contact. It would make setting the temperature accurately almost effortless and it would act as a redundant control. Gzuufy (talk) 04:52, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

It appears that industry has a fancy method not using acid or enzymes, instead cation-ion exchange beds and some kind of carbon filtration, to also create "liquid sugar." I'm certain I don't understand all the chemistry, but I do understand that it sort of invalidates a few phrases existing today:"All inverted sugar syrups are created from hydrolyzing sucrose to glucose (dextrose) and fructose (levulose) by heating a sucrose solution, then relying on time alone, with the catalytic properties of an acid or enzymes used to speed the reaction." I'm just putting the reference here for the time being, so I don't lose it. Maybe someday it can be incorporated into the article. Gzuufy (talk) 02:24, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

This is not the proper place for a treatise on how to make inverted sugar syrup. This is a talk page about the article. Come on folks. I know you want to "Show Whatcha Know", but this isn't the place to do it. 73.6.96.168 (talk) 09:39, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I have removed the offending sentence. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 07:58, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 19:03, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Tone
The tone with which the article is written (27 January 2018) deviates from that of similar articles on food and chemistry. This seems to be due to a lack of substance. In particular, it might be productive to borrow article structure and section headings from similar articles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.19.12.85 (talk) 05:34, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Health effects
Mention if any health effects. Jidanni (talk) 14:11, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Production
As of Jan 13 2019, the beginning of production section says, "Common sugar can be inverted quickly by mixing sugar and citric acid or cream of tartar at a ratio of about 1000:1 by weight and adding water. If lemon juice which is about five per cent citric acid by weight is used instead then the ratio becomes 1:75." That can't be right. Lemon juice is about 92% water. Consider sugar of 1000g and 1 gram citric acid versus 1000 g sugar and 75000 g lemon juice of which 69000 g is water. That seems more like lemonade, and it's going to take a long time to evaporate or boil away the water fraction. If lemon juice is 5% citric acid, then from 1000:1, 1/5%=20. Thus 1:75 must be a typo of some kind, shouldn't it be 1000:20 or 50:1? Gzuufy (talk) 09:07, 13 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Ratios are not needed and add nothing to the article. This is not a How To article.  It's just supposed to tell people what Inverted Sugar is, and frankly - isn't doing a very good job at it. 73.6.96.168 (talk) 09:42, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Something like this might be traceable to popular-press cookbooks (a standard ratio of a standard acidic ingredient identified in such a source, not hypothesizing what other acids might be used). That would demonstrate that it is worthwhile content even for lay audiences (overcoming (WP:NOTMANUAL). DMacks (talk) 09:55, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Checking calculation
In the section on Inverted sugar syrup, 108.7.206.116 wrote on the page: "I don't think the above analysis is correct. Specific optical rotation is based on grams/ml.  It is NOT based on the number of moles.  Therefore, when a mole of sucrose (342.3 g) hydrolyzes completely into fructose and glucose it will yield one mole of each.  However, as glucose and fructose have the same molecular formula (C6H12O6) their weight is 180.16 g each, for a total molecular weight of 360.3 g.  The added 18 g (compared to sucrose; 342.3 g) comes from addition of a water molecule during hydrolysis.

Thus 342.3 grams of sucrose yields 180.16g of glucose and fructose (each). Or 1 gram of sucrose will yield 0.526 of glucose and fructose (180.16/342.2 =0.526)

So if we assume we started with 1 g of sucrose and 'x' grams sucrose hydrolyze, this yields 0.526x grams of fructose and 0.526x grams of glucose. This suggests the correct equation for the inversion point (when plugging in the specific optical densities for sucrose, glucose, and fructose) is: (1-x)66.5 + 0.526x(52.7) + 0.526x(-92.0) = 0 Solving this equation, x = 0.76 So inversion happens when 76% of the sucrose is hydrolyzed.

However, I can not find confirmation of my calculation online (or for the previously offered one based on moles which results in 62.9%)." Perhaps someone with a little more chemistry than me could comment. Klbrain (talk) 20:32, 9 April 2020 (UTC)


 * I have a recent Bachelor's in Biochemistry. It depends on whether the experiment used to determine the reference angles used molarity or weight concentration. Weight concentration is much more likely, but not guaranteed. It's also possible that one of the reference angles is for weight concentration with the other being for molarity. You would need to find sources for the reference angles to determine the correct use. Most likely case by far is that both reference angles are derived from weight concentrations rather than molarity. Can anyone get a source for these reference angles? 50.123.65.168 (talk) 18:51, 28 May 2021 (UTC)


 * NO NO NO NO NO - we don't need any more chemistry lessons in this article. We need to know, very generally, what this stuff is, what it's used for, etc.  More than a couple of sentences on how it is made is Too Much!  Please folks - don't ruin an article by turning it into a highbrow textbook on the chemistry of invert sugar.  That makes it impossible for the casual reader to make sense of.  73.6.96.168 (talk) 09:44, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
 * WP is not just for casual readers...there can be different sections with substantial detail on different aspects. For example, "how it's made" is could be pretty interesting from an industrial-process perspective for those interested in our food supplies or what counts as "natural". We're an encyclopedia, so we should know quite specifically what this stuff is, what it's used for, etc. in addition to a simple/ultra-lay-accessible intro to those topics. But mathematical derivations and "why isn't my math making sense?" are not in-scope (WP articles are not for WP:OR). DMacks (talk) 09:51, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Simple syrup and bar syrup should be in a separate article
Simple syrup redirects here, but this page is about something else. Bar/Simple syrup is just sugar dissoved in water, there is no inversion. Most recipes call for a mixture of one to two parts sugar to one part water. When a 2:1 ratio is used it needs to be heated until dissolved, but that's it. Couple refs to back up what I'm saying 1 2, but seriously, this is common knowledge.

Or am I missing something? Is there a reference saying that simple syrup or bar syrup are the same as inverted sugar syrup? VdSV9• ♫ 00:30, 26 August 2023 (UTC)