Re Belgian Candi Sugar...Randy Mosher, etc...

http://www.franklinbrew.org/brewinfo/candi_sugar.html

Here is about all I know about invert sugar. Sucrose is a compound sugar composed of glucose and fructose. Invert sugar is sucrose that has been hydrolyzed. Honey is largely composed of invert sugar. Addition of an acid and elevated temperatures speed up the hydrolytic inversion. The fructose is "inverted" by the hydrolysis and refracts polarized light. Since yeast needs to excrete the enzyme invertase to absorb sucrose from solution, theoretically invert sugar is easier to ferment that sucrose. I say theoretically because there doesn't seem to have been a lot of research published about the subject. At the January club meeting, there was some discussion about inversion in a normal wort boil, and the best hypothesis goes to Steve Lefebvre that because wort is acidic, there must be some inversion of sucrose in the wort boil. Logically, that would seem to be the case, but I know of nothing in the literature to prove it. What I did find out is that inversion is neither instantaneous nor total. I found reference to a sucrose solution at pH 5.0 held at 175ºF inverting only 13% of the sucrose after 6 hours. Another reference gave four to six days for inversion without the addition of acid. The amount of inversion in a wort boil is probably negligible.