rickfrothingham
Well-Known Member
I searched around and couldn't find anything about using caffeine in beer other than various coffee drinks, which is not what i'm going for. I want a beer to start off a big night with, giving a good caffeine boost to get things going.
The FDA is moving towards banning the use of caffeine in commercially produced alcoholic beverages, and several of the big brands (Sparks, Tilt) have already changed their recipes to remove caffeine. What i'm not looking for is responses about warnings for my health or admonishments, rather i'm looking for thoughts, ideas, or any suggestions from the community on how to pull this off. I never liked those alcoholic energy drinks because the flavor was atrocious and I haven't had one in years, but still love the idea of the alcohol/energy combination.
From what I've read, Red bull has 80mg of caffeine per 8.3oz can, a shot of espresso has around 100mg, and 7oz of coffee has anywhere from 65-150mg or so depending on the bean type and process. I'm looking to make a beer with 100mg or so of caffeine per 12oz, without affecting the flavor much. My current plan is to purify the caffeine in no-doz pills (200 mg each, here's one method -http://www.instructables.com/id/Extracting-almost-pure-Caffeine-from-Caffeine-Pi), dissolve that powder into a thin ethanol solution and pour that into my bottling bucket when I add the priming sugar.
I'm thinking I'll use an IPA, since I've heard caffeine at those concentrations has a mildly acidic/bitter taste that I'll need to deal with, so maybe a nice american IPA with the 3C's and some Simcoe. 7-8% abv, 80-90 IBU should do the trick
Any thoughts/suggestions/experience anyone has had with this kinda thing?
Thanks!!!
The FDA is moving towards banning the use of caffeine in commercially produced alcoholic beverages, and several of the big brands (Sparks, Tilt) have already changed their recipes to remove caffeine. What i'm not looking for is responses about warnings for my health or admonishments, rather i'm looking for thoughts, ideas, or any suggestions from the community on how to pull this off. I never liked those alcoholic energy drinks because the flavor was atrocious and I haven't had one in years, but still love the idea of the alcohol/energy combination.
From what I've read, Red bull has 80mg of caffeine per 8.3oz can, a shot of espresso has around 100mg, and 7oz of coffee has anywhere from 65-150mg or so depending on the bean type and process. I'm looking to make a beer with 100mg or so of caffeine per 12oz, without affecting the flavor much. My current plan is to purify the caffeine in no-doz pills (200 mg each, here's one method -http://www.instructables.com/id/Extracting-almost-pure-Caffeine-from-Caffeine-Pi), dissolve that powder into a thin ethanol solution and pour that into my bottling bucket when I add the priming sugar.
I'm thinking I'll use an IPA, since I've heard caffeine at those concentrations has a mildly acidic/bitter taste that I'll need to deal with, so maybe a nice american IPA with the 3C's and some Simcoe. 7-8% abv, 80-90 IBU should do the trick
Any thoughts/suggestions/experience anyone has had with this kinda thing?
Thanks!!!