Caramel Coloring

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blaster

blaster

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A buddy of mine is a caramel coloring salesman/rep. He gave me a couple of bottles of caramel coloring. This is the same stuff he sells to commercial breweries to tint their beer.

I'm making a cheap corn and 6 row preprohibition lager that I upped the hops in it, and i think I'm going to tint it to make it look more fancy. The beer is lagering out right now but I took out a cup sample and stirred it with a fork that had the first 1/4 inch of the prongs dipped in the coloring. Instant black lager.

As far a taste change, I wasn't able to detect any. The pure coloring itself smells like Chrystal 120l minus the grapenutty sweetness.

Basically it adds nothing but ascetics and change in the drinkers perception.

Would anyone buy it if it was available and reasonably priced?

What are everyones thoughts on coloring your beer?
 
Lipstick on a pig comes to mind. I don't really care how dark my beer is, and to darken beer without getting any roasted flavors seems pointless.
 
I'd be interested in a product like that if brewed a beer that tasted right but was too light in color, but each time I get a beer that is too light in color, I find it is also lacking in malt flavor.

-a.
 
Well I went for it.

Add 1tbsp of caramel color at bottling.

I pulled a half glass from the racking wand then another after adding the priming sugar/color.

Unfortunately I'm a cheapskate member so I can't attach photos but I did add the before and after as my profile pic. Take a look.
 
I might add some green food coloring to a "light" beer around St. patty's day, thats about as fake as i want to get in a beer.If my girlfriend wants fake boobs- what can ya do?
 
blaster said:
A buddy of mine is a caramel coloring salesman/rep. He gave me a couple of bottles of caramel coloring. This is the same stuff he sells to commercial breweries to tint their beer.
Click to expand...

Out of curiosity, what breweries does he sell this product to?
 
I'm with Nateo - if I color a BMC beer to give it a deep amber color, it's still BMC beer and ultimately I expect far richer flavors with a darker beer than I do a pale beer, meaning that coloring it will only set me up for greater failure. Color your beers naturally with grains and leave the coloring agents out in my opinion...
 
It actually isn't uncommon to find that product in some commercial MICRO beers, it's just hard to find it for US to use. It's talked about some in my Lion's stout clone thread. I

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/anyone-have-real-lions-stout-clone-200557/

And also discussed in this thread. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/ip...colorant-ok-sure-now-i-use-what-again-213561/ from Christmas eve.... There's several products in use..

SSinamar® is the ideal way to color-correct your lighter beers and to adjust your SRM levels post-fermentation. It is also great for "creative" brewing, and turning a pilsner into a Schwartzbeer, a brown porter into a stout, an IPA into a Black IPA, etc. In order to raise the color of 5 gallons by 6 SRM use 1 ounce of Sinamar.

Sinamar®: Made from Carafa® roasted barley malt and is very dark in color. Extract value is 40-45 Plato°. Sinamar® has been de-bittered through a proprietary processes and does not cause turbidity. It is highly pH-stable and is an all natural product made without any additives.

Note: While Sinamar is primarily used for color correction it also has a slight impact on the beer's flavor profile as well. We recommend sampling for both color and flavor contribution when deciding how much to use in your beer.
Click to expand...

It can be bought here, http://morebeer.com/view_product/11337//Sinamar_-_All-Natural_Liquid_Malt_Color_1_oz

There's also "brewer's caramel" http://www.goodlifehomebrew.com/brewers-caramel.php

http://www.caramel.com/EditorUpload/File/EU-brew tips-10-08-2010.pdf


So it's really not "lipstick on a pig" but used quite often, mostly where you want to lend some more depth of color without upping the caramel flavors any...not to different from using something like de-bittered dark roasted malts for color, but NOT flavor......It's evidently quite common in tropical stouts, where they want the dark color without the overly bitter roasty notes......

That's hardly lipstick on a pig, I would say. :rolleyes:
 
I'd also add the color can affect perceptions of flavor. I recall a blogger writing about his experiences training to become a beer judge. One of the tests was they had to take notes on a dark beer that was secretly just pilsener with food coloring. He said the trainees were badly tricked by it.
 

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