Blue beer: lets beat this dead horse

[NinjaBear]

Wife convinced me to go big or go home.

Used my entire supply of unaged whiskey to make the buffering solution. Used a dilution between the 400 and 200.

Final product is in fact blue from every angle and light.

 

[Julian Høstan Urrea]

Wife convinced me to go big or go home.

Used my entire supply of unaged whiskey to make the buffering solution. Used a dilution between the 400 and 200.

Final product is in fact blue from every angle and light.

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Really cool. Been following this thread since the beginning. How does it taste?

 

[Apimyces]

Really cool. Been following this thread since the beginning. How does it taste?

Do we really want to know?

Also, here's my result. Well water + pilsen LME + Boadicea hops + clitoria. About 3.5% ABV. Not anywhere close to blue, haha!

I'm tempted to just make blue hop infused dilute vodka. XD 95% ABV alcohol, distilled water, hops, clitoria, dilute to 3.5-6.5% ABV or so.

 

[Apimyces]

I tried adding sodium bicarbonate to a small sample of this... after dumping a lot more sodium bicarbonate than there was liquid originally, I still only got green. Obviously, it tasted gross. Still, my wife likes the color of my Clitori'ale, so even if it's not blue, it's not an utter failure.

 

[Dan w]

What do you guys think about brewing with alkaline water to counteract the possibility of acidity changing the blue color from the pea flower? I also just made a second attempt at this endeavor and so far so good but I was worried about the acidity.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

pH is important for optimal activity of enzymes, and if you go over pH6 or so there's a risk of extracting astringent compounds in the grain, and it also affects the final taste of the beer, so it's kinda hard to go too alkaline without affecting flavour.

 

[Soulshine2]

As a Kentucky Wildcats fan this blue beer thing intrigues me.

A little tidbit from my friend the internet(eater.com); "Butterfly pea tea has an incredibly sensitive pH balance, meaning even the slightest shift in acidity can turn a beverage from deep blue, to a vibrant plum, to a fizzy magenta. The drink becomes a sippable chameleon: The more acid that comes in contact with the tea, the lighter in color it becomes. From pH 8 to pH 4, the tea is a regal shade of blue. It quickly shifts into deep purple terrain at pH 3, and finally bursts into carnation pink territory at pH 2."

mood ring beer???

 

[lump42]

It seems many are trying really hard to recreate the wheel. There are several food companies that are working on natural blue dyes that are more pH stable. A quick glance around the interwebs would lead me to suggest some of the spriulina extracts. McCormick's Color from Nature product has a blue packet that is based on spirulina and may be worth checking at what pH the color changes. It's only $6 on amazon.

This company from Japan claims to have a spirulina extract that is color stable to pH 4.6. It's not heat stable to our mash and boil temps so it would be better to add post boil.

 

[Apimyces]

What do you guys think about brewing with alkaline water to counteract the possibility of acidity changing the blue color from the pea flower? I also just made a second attempt at this endeavor and so far so good but I was worried about the acidity.

I don't think you can have water that's alkaline enough to offset the acidity of the fermentation to be had (unless being so alkaline even the yeast won't survive and thus won't ferment).

 

[Marktic]

My attempt...it is very much an iridescent beer more than either exactly blue or purple. Out of my tap it is pure blue coming out, but once the optical path is more than a couple inches, it is purple. It looks great in glassware that has varying widths.

I used 75g of the whole dried butterfly pea flowers steeped for 20 minutes in 1.5L of water at 80C...I then cooled that down and added it all to the fermenter for 4 days, along with tropical forward hops in a strainer bag. I tried to keep my water profile a little more on the alkaline side by adding calcium carbonate towards the end of the boil. I also used a yeast that tends to not finish too low on the pH scale and dry hopped heavy. The SRM was 4.3 before the flower addition.

 

[Apimyces]

Looks nice. How did it taste, though?

Also, to the suggestion of using other dyes, that's no fun.

This is what I had gotten with 3lb of pilsen LME in a 5 gallon batch, and 50g of BFPB. Far from blue, but still nice.

 

[NinjaBear]

I tried adding sodium bicarbonate to a small sample of this... after dumping a lot more sodium bicarbonate than there was liquid originally, I still only got green. Obviously, it tasted gross. Still, my wife likes the color of my Clitori'ale, so even if it's not blue, it's not an utter failure.

Actually if you’re green, you went too far with too much sodium bicarbonate.

Even in mine I think I went to far because it seems to have obliterated any malt and hop flavors.

 

[Apimyces]

Actually if you’re green, you went too far with too much sodium bicarbonate.

Even in mine I think I went to far because it seems to have obliterated any malt and hop flavors.

Well, yea, but before going to green, it never passed by blue. The must was not very light-colored, so any blue from the clitoria gets mixed with the red from the malt. I'd have to try again with an american light lager malt bill to hope getting something closer to blue. pH was certainly a factor, but not the only one.

 

[AkTom]

This horse has more lives than several cats

 

[NinjaBear]

Well, yea, but before going to green, it never passed by blue. The must was not very light-colored, so any blue from the clitoria gets mixed with the red from the malt. I'd have to try again with an american light lager malt bill to hope getting something closer to blue. pH was certainly a factor, but not the only one.

The red isn’t from the malt. It’s the pH sensitivity of the color. You went from not enough… not enough… too much!

And depending on the volume you were working with, it’s very easy to do if the volume is small.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Ah, good old Clitoria. You want to be careful with that, as I suspect it acts like litmus and will go pink in something as acid as beer. Certainly I assume that's what's happening with Sharish "magic gin", which is blue-ish but turns pink when you add tonic and lemon, and contains Clitoria.

Here's some spectrographs of Sharish gin with and without (acidic) tonic water :
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/gary...its-gin-ph-activity-6592980389705375744-I2LW/

(may be easier to see the image file directly)

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Nice pictures of the pH response of Clitoria in beer :
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/blue-beer-with-butterfly-pea-flowers.674117/

 

[day_trippr]

Let the beating continue!

https://www.reuters.com/business/en...-brewers-use-algae-make-blue-beer-2022-02-03/
The Onion's take: French Brewer Using Algae To Make Blue Beer

Cheers! (Blue vomit indeed! )

 

[MaxStout]

We want the blue food!