I think Saranac Caramel Porter is a mediocre and unsubtle beer, frankly, but it's my wife's favorite, so I'm thinking about trying to surprise her with an imitation of it. I don't care if it's exact, but I am seeking the really in-your-face caramel flavor that this particular beer has. It might be just from generous use of dark crystal malts, but it's so intense that I (and others, from my Googling) somewhat doubt it.
The most recent posts I found by Googling tended to be from as far back as 2006, none offered a Saranac clone, and a couple had BROKEN links to other caramel porter recipes. I did find one in North American Clone Brews and was able to take a look at it with the search feature in Amazon. Unless I find a direct clone, I will likely model my recipe after this one, which uses a full pound of dark crystal malt for a 5-gal batch.
For directly boosting caramel flavor (as opposed to just relying on the malts) I found three techniques:
1) Adding caramelized sugar at bottling time (far and away the most common; I'd be a little concerned about not getting full caramelization and leaving some extra fermentables in there...)
2) Adding caramelized sugar in the secondary
3) Only heard this mentioned once, but it piqued my interest: Reserving a portion of the wort, cooking it down into a caramel, and reintroducing it to the rest of the wort. I kinda like the sound of this one, although I wonder if there is a concern about CO2 carrying volatile flavors off. I don't think the any of the important compounds in caramelized sugar are particularly volatile, so I would expect not...
Thoughts? Anybody have experience with any of these techniques? Anyone familiar with Saranac Caramel Porter want to take a swag at guessing whether it's just the malts, or if they boost it?
Any tips would be appreciated. If I were to try it today, I would probably do the recipe from North American Clone Brews, reserve a cup or two of the wort sometime after the hot break, cook it down in a separate pan, and combine it back for the last 2-3 minutes of the boil just so it got well mixed. But maybe that's crazy...
The most recent posts I found by Googling tended to be from as far back as 2006, none offered a Saranac clone, and a couple had BROKEN links to other caramel porter recipes. I did find one in North American Clone Brews and was able to take a look at it with the search feature in Amazon. Unless I find a direct clone, I will likely model my recipe after this one, which uses a full pound of dark crystal malt for a 5-gal batch.
For directly boosting caramel flavor (as opposed to just relying on the malts) I found three techniques:
1) Adding caramelized sugar at bottling time (far and away the most common; I'd be a little concerned about not getting full caramelization and leaving some extra fermentables in there...)
2) Adding caramelized sugar in the secondary
3) Only heard this mentioned once, but it piqued my interest: Reserving a portion of the wort, cooking it down into a caramel, and reintroducing it to the rest of the wort. I kinda like the sound of this one, although I wonder if there is a concern about CO2 carrying volatile flavors off. I don't think the any of the important compounds in caramelized sugar are particularly volatile, so I would expect not...
Thoughts? Anybody have experience with any of these techniques? Anyone familiar with Saranac Caramel Porter want to take a swag at guessing whether it's just the malts, or if they boost it?
Any tips would be appreciated. If I were to try it today, I would probably do the recipe from North American Clone Brews, reserve a cup or two of the wort sometime after the hot break, cook it down in a separate pan, and combine it back for the last 2-3 minutes of the boil just so it got well mixed. But maybe that's crazy...
