Caramel Colorant

[pollardkevinj]

I am planning on making this oatmeal stout referenced in the link below. There is one row in the recipe that I do not understand. It says "caramel to add: 100 SRM". It is also referenced as "caramel colorant" in the text.

Can someone explain to me what that means? Is this simply for color or does it add to the taste/texture in any way?

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2012/06/lets-brew-wednesday-1909-maclays.html

 

[JKaranka]

That's just regular brewer's caramel. You get it in colours all the way from 12000EBC to 35000EBC. The main contribution is colour with a minor amount of flavour.

 

[JKaranka]

100SRM of it is a lot, though. It's usually used for around 5-10SRM to turn a 100% pale malt bitter from pale to amber.

 

[Brettomomyces]

I am planning on making this oatmeal stout referenced in the link below. There is one row in the recipe that I do not understand. It says "caramel to add: 100 SRM". It is also referenced as "caramel colorant" in the text.

Can someone explain to me what that means? Is this simply for color or does it add to the taste/texture in any way?

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2012/06/lets-brew-wednesday-1909-maclays.html

This is probably a good equivalent from the recipe

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/sinamar.html

Sinamar is a coloring agent that is Rheinheitsgebot approved; ie it's made from barley malt. It will darken a beer without adding flavor/body. It seems like they used a lot of coloring...you probably wouldn't need to go that crazy with it, much after 30 SRM starts to get dark quickly

 

[JKaranka]

Brewers' caramel is cane sugar based as far as I know. Cheaper than Sinamar too. Can't you get it in the US? It's fairly common although a bit old school here. Most shops on the high street and online carry it. It's likely that at the amount specified in that recipe it could have a flavour contribution.

 

[pollardkevinj]

OK, thank you everyone. I decided to just go ahead and brew without it, and it is pretty damn dark already, I don't know why they decided it needed more coloring.

However, for future reference, how much colorant do I use to achieve 100 SRM? I understand that SRM and EBC are basically absorption units for beer, but I can't measure absorptivity in my kitchen. So if the recipe calls for 100 SRM, how many ounces of colorant should I use?

thanks again to everyone for your help.

 

[JKaranka]

With brewers caramel additions are usually in ml. It works out around 1SRM for each ml in a 5US gallon. For example, you might want to bring a 97% pale malt, 3% medium crystal malt bitter into a copper colour by adding as little as 5ml into the FV. A 100SRM addition is likely to not be for only colour as that is a lot of caramel and is likely to be noticeable. To be fair, I read the recipe to be to 'add caramel' to bring the beer up to 100SRM rather than adding 100SRM worth of caramel.

 

[Brettomomyces]

I've actually never seen brewer's caramel in a shop, i'll keep my eye out for it though, sounds like something good to have in the tool kit.

 

[JKaranka]

You can try to ask for a sample from DD Williamson. They write in their pdfs that it's available (and even produced) in the US. Not sure if it's quite the same as this one they mention here:
http://www.ddwcolor.com/applications/beverages/beer-and-malta/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.D._Williamson

They do mention it does have a flavour contribution.

 

[giraffe]

Brewers' caramel is cane sugar based as far as I know. Cheaper than Sinamar too. Can't you get it in the US? It's fairly common although a bit old school here. Most shops on the high street and online carry it. It's likely that at the amount specified in that recipe it could have a flavour contribution.

Brewers caramel is hard to get in homebrew quantities in the US. Sinamar is usually available though.