"heat it to the point where the mixture develops HMF."

When making sugar bricks there is no need to heat at all.  You can do the whole thing at room temp easy enough.  It just takes time.  All you do is take 25 pounds of sugar and add a pint of water and mix the hardly damp solids to distribute the water.  Put the damp mix in plastic shoe boxes and wait until it drys enough that when you invert the shoe box it stays in one hunk.  Or you can speed it up a lot by heating the filled shoe boxes in a hot box to 90 or 100 deg F.  Laurie's mix uses vinegar instead of water but works the same.  In either case the amount of inversion you get is someplace between none and not enough to make any difference.  She also throws in a little mineral mix which I also consider totally unneeded.  She used to be on here so perhaps she would care to comment? If so listen as I consider her an excellent bee keeper.

Dick

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