Making salty beer on purpose

[Rkoory]

So, my wife has thrown down the gauntlet. She has set me to the task of producing a salted chocolate caramel beer.

By basic plan is this. Produce a sweet stout, somehow make it salty, and adjunct it with caramel and chocolate.

The sweet stout and adjunct part will be pretty strait forward, but the salty part has thrown me for a loop. I know that the "oyster stout" style tends to have a briny salty tone. However, I have not yet tried a beer from this genre, and am looking for alternative methods for adding a salty tone to a beer.

Does anyone have any experience with this? Any suggestions on how to add a salty quality to a beer in a controlled way?

 

[Calichusetts]

Black and Tan? Do a chocolate stout and a caramel gose?

 

[plath]

Following. I was just thinking about a salty beer the other day.


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[Rkoory]

Black and Tan? Do a chocolate stout and a caramel gose?

What is a caramel gose?

 

[youngpretender13]

Not sure on the technique but i can do a bit of research. My local microbrewery features a smoked salt bret saison, and a miso tan saison. Both excellent beer so I'll get to asking for some professional experience.

 

[GuldTuborg]

Salt the rim of the glass at serving time?

 

[masonsjax]

Add salt to taste after the batch is done (add to keg or bottling bucket). That way you won't have to guess at the right levels or worry about kettle pH throwing off the fermentation.

 

[Rkoory]

the gose is likely to be a non-starter. My wife has a deep dislike for beers with strong sour notes, or open fermentation.

 

[helibrewer]

Research Gose recipes. Gose is a salty German style.

 

[progmac]

find a chocolatey beer that she likes and then salt the finished beer with a known quantity that you could scale up once you find the taste that she likes.

salt dramatically affects the finish of the beer. it does a lot more than make it 'salty,' which actually doesn't really happen until you add A LOT.

 

[Rkoory]

Salting the finished beer is fine as a last resort, but it’s a bit ham-fisted for my preference. I was hoping to find more of a brewing technique that results in a salty tone to the beer.

I don't need the end product to be a pretzel, so a huge salty presents is not really sought after.

I know that oyster stouts gets a salty tone from the use of oysters. Also I like the idea of gose, but the sour tones from the yeast sounds like it might not work out.

Anyone ever brew either of these? I wonder if it’s possible to do a gose without the sour notes?

 

[TheCanisDirus]

Breakside did a salted carmel stout using...

Grain:
Two Row, Chocolate, Roasted Barley, CaraMunich, Flaked Barley

Hops:
Newport hops

Adjuncts:
Fleur de sel, caramelized lactose and salted caramel


Add some cocoa nibs/powder and you've got a solid start.

 

[satph]

I would take the salt additions from a Gose as a starter for your salt additions to the salted chocolate caramel beer. This one calls for 1oz per 5 gallons. This one 14 grams for 5 gallons (half as much as the first). Both call for the addition at 5 minutes left in the boil. The recipes advise you to add salt to taste at bottling if necessary. As a bigger beer, stout might need more salt to taste moderately salty, but I'd rather have too little salt vs too much.

 

[Rkoory]

Breakside did a salted carmel stout using...

Grain:
Two Row, Chocolate, Roasted Barley, CaraMunich, Flaked Barley

Hops:
Newport hops

Adjuncts:
Fleur de sel, caramelized lactose and salted caramel


Add some cocoa nibs/powder and you've got a solid start.

Hmm, this sounds promising.

It’s funny, it seems like there is no real "New Ground" to be traversed in beer making.

 

[GuldTuborg]

It’s funny, it seems like there is no real "New Ground" to be traversed in beer making.

There's plenty of new ground to travel and trailblazing to be done. But if you want a salty beer, I'm not sure too many have ventured beyond the obvious "add salt" option at some point in the process. Nothing else quite tastes like salt.

It kinds strikes me like asking how to make a malty beer without malt.

 

[Rkoory]

It kinds strikes me like asking how to make a malty beer without malt.

Agreed.
The no new ground comment was in reference to the slated caramel concept for a beer, not the method for imparting a salty tone. When I set myself to this task I did not expect to find a readymade example of a salted caramel beer.

Obviously the addition of salt to the beer will be the way in which the salty characteristic will be imparted. I was just looking for a more novel method than just the direct addition of salt.

 

[strambo]

I've had the Breakside salted caramel stout, the salt was pretty subtle. I would just add some salt at bottling/kegging also, not sexy, but what else would be that would give the right flavor?


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