Bensiff
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- Mar 13, 2008
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I always hear about it. When it comes to Scottish/Scotch ales it seems almost doctrine that it will have kettle caramelization in its flavor profile. Greg Noonan says it's so in Scotch Ales. People go to great lengths to replicate this by boiling some of their first runnings down.
Here is my issue, most of the sugars present in wort don't caramelized until they hit well over 300f except for maybe fructose, but that only accounts for 2% of the sugars. Are Scottish boil kettles somehow capable of having a mass of liquid somehow reach well over the boiling point to create this so called caramel while the rest of the world apparently uses a completely different kettle that doesn't have this effect? Or perhaps kettle caramelization is a myth and the flavor is nothing more than a combination of the type of barley used, low hopping, yeast flavor characteristics, low fermentation temps, and low attenuation of the Scottish/Scotch style?
Here is my issue, most of the sugars present in wort don't caramelized until they hit well over 300f except for maybe fructose, but that only accounts for 2% of the sugars. Are Scottish boil kettles somehow capable of having a mass of liquid somehow reach well over the boiling point to create this so called caramel while the rest of the world apparently uses a completely different kettle that doesn't have this effect? Or perhaps kettle caramelization is a myth and the flavor is nothing more than a combination of the type of barley used, low hopping, yeast flavor characteristics, low fermentation temps, and low attenuation of the Scottish/Scotch style?