SRM of Purple

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You would target the base beer. Not the final product. Beer color scales don't take into account color provided by ingredients other than grain.
 
cilestiok said:
Do you have a planned base beer? Or not yet?
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Yes I do. Similar to the Raspberry, Black Cherry and Cranberry sour I just bottled. The only difference will be my amount of dark candy sugar.

I honestly have no idea what SRM purple is though.
 
You misunderstand. SRM does not measure "color". It measures the ability of light to pass through beer. You could have a green beer read the exact same SRM as a purple beer. Put simply, SRM measure the shade of "brown" in beer. That's it.
 
Think of srm compared to % window tint. It's not the color of light that gets through but the amount.

Just those scales move in opposite directions.
 
imasickboy said:
There is no SRM for purple, period.
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Actually, SRM measures purple great. The real SRM test measures 430nm absorbance. 430 is purple. So, if SRM was measured on a purple beer it would measure VERY low, light lager low.

SRM made sense when beer was just barley and wheat. Those days are long, long gone. A different color standard would make a lot of sense now.
 
You guys are killing me. Obviously purple is not in the color gradient of beer. All of that color must come from the blueberries. The real question is how many pounds of fruit per gallon of wort will it take to get the color you're after? I'm thinking a pound per gallon is a good starting point. As far as the base beer, since you want to sour it, I would go with a very pale base, low srm and ibu. Let the fruit and bugs do the talking.
 
Well red and blue make purple.....so....15 srm for red add you blueberries....and *bam* purple beer.
You NEED a number 15.
It's 15
15:rockin:
 
Blueberries produce a purple color not blue. So you probably want a very light colored beer. That being said. You could do a darker srm beer to produce a darker purple. Really depends on amount of fruit and how dark of purple you want
 
JayDubWill said:
You guys are killing me. Obviously purple is not in the color gradient of beer. All of that color must come from the blueberries. The real question is how many pounds of fruit per gallon of wort will it take to get the color you're after? I'm thinking a pound per gallon is a good starting point. As far as the base beer, since you want to sour it, I would go with a very pale base, low srm and ibu. Let the fruit and bugs do the talking.
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I used a large 3# can of Oregon blueberry puree in 5g once. The puree is very thick and electric blue colored. The resulting beer had a very slight pinkish purple color. Also, I brought samples into my brew club. Even when asked what fruit they thought was in there, nobody guessed blueberries. So, you'll need a LOT more blueberries than I used, and/or assistance from artificial ingredients.

In fact, I think most blueberry beers don't have much color. There's one though, Wild Blue I think, that is crazy purple. I'm sure they use artificial color and flavor to get there.

blue.jpg
 
I'm shooting for a base beer with an SRM of 12. Then adding the 3 lbs of blueberry puree which should bring it up.
 
My logic is that if SRM 15 with grains approximates red and American brown ales begin at an SRM of 18; then with blueberries a purplish beer should be somewhere in the SRM range of 16-17.
 
IMO 12 is too high. Early on in my brewing days I made a blueberry pale ale. It was a very light SRM, maybe 5-6. IIRC, I steeped about 3# of blueberries in the wort at the end of the boil. The resulting beer was very purple, almost violet. I think you'd get a deeper purple around 8 SRM but I think above that the brown from the grains would start becoming more dominant.

This is ~15 year old experience so all the numbers might not be exact, but I think they are in the ballpark.

Also, IIRC I mashed the blueberries enough to break all the skins (but not pureed).
 
DaftCaskBC said:
My logic is that if SRM 15 with grains approximates red and American brown ales begin at an SRM of 18; then with blueberries a purplish beer should be somewhere in the SRM range of 16-17.
Click to expand...

I am guessing you could could have a very dark (20+ SRM) beer and it still be purple.

Maybe if you give us an idea of the shade of purple you want, we can nail down a number? Otherwise, it could be very light-purple and have an SRM of 5-6.

:confused:
 
JKoravos said:
IMO 12 is too high. Early on in my brewing days I made a blueberry pale ale. It was a very light SRM, maybe 5-6. IIRC, I steeped about 3# of blueberries in the wort at the end of the boil. The resulting beer was very purple, almost violet. I think you'd get a deeper purple around 8 SRM but I think above that the brown from the grains would start becoming more dominant.

This is ~15 year old experience so all the numbers might not be exact, but I think they are in the ballpark.

Also, IIRC I mashed the blueberries enough to break all the skins (but not pureed).
Click to expand...

Thanks. I think you are right. I was basing the 12 off of a raspberry sour I just brewed.
 

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