I was pondering of a cheap/easy way to add fruit flavoring to a wheat beer and came up with unsweetened Kool-Aid. When I get done with my lager sessions I will be hitting the wheat and wanted to see what opinions were out there regarding this concept.
Unsweetend cool aid would probably be way too sour. I know some people have used Splenda as a sweetner, since it's unfermentable with decent results.....at least that's what they say. It's not something I would do, personally. I have no idea what Cool Aid powder is actually made of.
The easiest route for fruit flavor, IMO, is to use an extract that it made to use in beer and/or wine. Not as cheap, but still cheap and easy.
__________________ May you go marching in three-measure time
Dressed up as asses, drunk to the nines
Swing from the rafters, shouting those songs
Gone unsung for far too long
My biggest concern was the ingredients and without having a package in front of me I did a search and came up with: citric acid, calcium phosphate, salt, maltodextrin, modified corn starch, artificial flavor, ascorbic acid, FD&C red 40 and FD&C blue 1. None of these appear to present any negative effects. Even the liquid flavorings offered for beer contain chemicals for stability purposes which is not required for a dried product such as Kool Aid.
In years past I have used fresh fruit but was a alot of work. One of them blew the airlock off, covering the wall and transerferring the beer off the pulp was at the cost of loosing a good percentage of the batch and even then it still needed more time for the solids to settle out but I bottled anyway. A couple years later a did use some of the extract flavorings. It did not compare to fresh fruit, but did well to adding a subtle flavor if used in limited quantities. This is my goal while also wanting something that would add a little color for appearance purposes. I have tried many things and some of them turning into such a mess, I pitched them out the back door into the grass. My latest idea seems conservative in retrospect.
My biggest concern was the ingredients and without having a package in front of me I did a search and came up with: citric acid, calcium phosphate, salt, maltodextrin, modified corn starch, artificial flavor, ascorbic acid, FD&C red 40 and FD&C blue 1. None of these appear to present any negative effects. Even the liquid flavorings offered for beer contain chemicals for stability purposes which is not required for a dried product such as Kool Aid.
In years past I have used fresh fruit but was a alot of work. One of them blew the airlock off, covering the wall and transerferring the beer off the pulp was at the cost of loosing a good percentage of the batch and even then it still needed more time for the solids to settle out but I bottled anyway. A couple years later a did use some of the extract flavorings. It did not compare to fresh fruit, but did well to adding a subtle flavor if used in limited quantities. This is my goal while also wanting something that would add a little color for appearance purposes. I have tried many things and some of them turning into such a mess, I pitched them out the back door into the grass. My latest idea seems conservative in retrospect.
If you want to try it, I say go for it. Experimentation is one of the things that makes homebrewing fun!
I still maintain that you'll have to add a lot of Splenda or some similar unfermentable sweetner to offset the bitterness (I said sour earlier) of the Cool Aid. I'm sure you've dipped your finger in Cool Aid powder before, and tasted it. It's pretty hideous stuff unsweetened.
__________________ May you go marching in three-measure time
Dressed up as asses, drunk to the nines
Swing from the rafters, shouting those songs
Gone unsung for far too long
Kool-Aid
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