Salted Caramel Pretzel Beer?

[boomtown25]

My girlfriend has wanted me to attempt a Salted Caramel flavored beer. Wondering if the crowd her could all get together and try to formulate something.

As far as the grain bill, I was thinking something in the lines of biscuit and rye may provide a nice pretzel flavor to build on. Add some Crystal 40L for some caramel flavoring.

Have no clue about salt flavor. I assume I can always add salt like they do with a Gose, but from my understanding, salt inhibits yeast activity so not sure how to go about this.

Finally, Doubt I would want a super hoppy beer, but what would play with this style?

Feel feel to trash my idea and add/import your own two sense. Treat it like a group project!!!

 

[cmac62]

Boom, I have never tried to make anything like this, but the idea sounds great. You could even add a little Cacoa to the mix. That said, I would use c60 and maybe some honey malt for the sweetness, and would add the salt as it goes into the bottle or keg to taste, or provide a salt shaker when drinking it. I added the last part because if you bottle, the salt may harm the carbonation.

 

[Jayjay1976]

Try mashing in with a few pretzels! Buy the natural ones without additives/preservatives of course. There is a certain taste that the caustic lye dip gives to pretzel dough that I think is the defining flavor characteristic. You might be able to mash a pretty large proportion if you get the unsalted ones. If I were attempting something like this, that's where I would start.

 

[boomtown25]

Great ideas!!!! Keep em coming!

 

[Jayjay1976]

This idea is really growing on me. I've been thinking about it all afternoon. You know that trick where you simmer full cans of sweetened condensed milk in a crockpot to transform the contents into dulce de Leche (basically caramel sauce) I've been wondering what a dairy product like that would bring to a beer. Hopefully it would provide some unfermentable sugars. Please post updates here on your progress if you decide to brew it. I really hope you do. My wife luuuvs salted caramel, and pretzels too.

 

[Lefou]

Caramel usually contains a portion of cream, but milk products usually don't ferment well - not in beer, at least.

I'd alter the caramel recipe a bit by using lactose, hard butterscotch candy, and a touch of vanilla in the mix.
Treating the brew water with slightly elevated chloride levels would enhance the sweetness perception, but I'd watch the sodium levels.
Adding crushed and powdered pretzel sounds like a great idea. Pilsner, biscuit, and C40/60 as part of the malt mix would be something to consider as well.
Mild noble hops, low IBU, and low to moderate hop-to-gravity ratio (BU:GU) under .4, much like a Marzen or bock would be my plan, too.

 

[Lefou]

Clean ale yeast (WLP001 or US-05) would do, but the extra gravity and ABV of the bock style would mean some extra aging. To keep the beer a bit more sessionable a Munich Dunkel, mild, or brown might be alternative choices, too.

 

[TGFV]

Go with a Scottish ale/ wee heavy style beer

Take your mash (or extract like I do) and give it a good long boil, like 90-110 minutes. This will caramelize some of the malt into unfermentable sugars, and this along with a good dosing off C40-60 will give a great caramel taste. Honey malt is a very small dosage can add to the sensation of sweetness too.

As for the pretzel, you could add biscuit malt aswell, and then salt the water pre bottling or even adding the salt pre fermentation like a gose (should still work well as long as you don't use a crazy amount).

If you want it even sweeter, a very small dosing off lactose can also make the caramel flavours pop.

 

[cmac62]

Go with a Scottish ale/ wee heavy style beer

Take your mash (or extract like I do) and give it a good long boil, like 90-110 minutes. This will caramelize some of the malt into unfermentable sugars, and this along with a good dosing off C40-60 will give a great caramel taste. Honey malt is a very small dosage can add to the sensation of sweetness too.

As for the pretzel, you could add biscuit malt aswell, and then salt the water pre bottling or even adding the salt pre fermentation like a gose (should still work well as long as you don't use a crazy amount).

If you want it even sweeter, a very small dosing off lactose can also make the caramel flavours pop.

really good suggestion. I think the Scottish style would be great with this.

 

[TGFV]

Now I am thinking of making a caramel pretzel wee heavy lol.

Done a salted wee heavy, maybe this time I will add a 1/2tsp caramel and some biscuit malt

 

[boomtown25]

This is getting excited boys (and girls)!

So let's get a run down of what we have developed so far:

Obviously everyone seems to be geared towards a Scottish style ale.
Grain bill appears to be built around the following:
Pilsner
Buscuit
Rye
Honey Malt
Caramel 40L or 60L
Crushed unsalted pretzels
-boil for long boil 9-110 minutes to caramelize some of the sugars
add low IBU hops like noble hops
add some vanilla beans to the boil
Maybe add some butterscotch candy into boil or fermentor
dose with lactose or maybe some condensed milk
add about 1 ounce of himalayan pink salt before bottling (saw this done to a Gose)
Use WLP 001 or US-05

Any tweaks or additions or "don't do that"???

 

[cmac62]

I wouldn't put the vanilla in the boil, most of the flavor are volatile compounds and will vaporize. Add at bottling/kegging with the use of a tincture.

 

[Idrum6969]

I wouldn't put the vanilla in the boil, most of the flavor are volatile compounds and will vaporize. Add at bottling/kegging with the use of a tincture.

Yes. I agree. I've never used vanilla in the boil. Fermenter is a different story. [emoji106]

 

[boomtown25]

Advice heeded!

Recipe base 2.0!:

So let's get a run down of what we have developed so far:

Obviously everyone seems to be geared towards a Scottish style ale.
Grain bill appears to be built around the following:
Pilsner
Buscuit
Rye
Honey Malt
Caramel 40L or 60L
Crushed unsalted pretzels
-boil for long boil 9-110 minutes to caramelize some of the sugars
add low IBU hops like noble hops
add some vanilla beans to the fermentor or possibly by tincture before bottling
Maybe add some butterscotch candy into boil or fermentor
dose with lactose or maybe some condensed milk
add about 1 ounce of himalayan pink salt before bottling (saw this done to a Gose)
Use WLP 001 or US-05

Any possible use of brown sugar in this recipe? My secretary suggested that when I was telling her about the recipe as she said "that is what is used to actually make caramel"

 

[Jayjay1976]

Make sure you use enough crushed pretzels to get that tangy pretzel flavor going, maybe 5-10%? Since I would assume the baking process has already gelatinized the wheat starches, enter flaked wheat into your recipe calc in place of pretzels to work out their impact on gravity, etc.

EDIT: I really like the idea of dropping some vodka-dipped butterscotch hard candies into the fermenter during primary. Maybe use a bag of Werther's original?

 

[Davide57]

Beautiful

 

[Jayjay1976]

Werther's ingredients:
INGREDIENTS: SUGAR, GLUCOSE SYRUP (FROM WHEAT OR CORN), CREAM, CONDENSED WHEY, BUTTER, CANE SUGAR SYRUP, SALT, SOY LECITHIN EMULSIFIER, ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR

So there is some butterfat which *might* affect head retention, but this beer is about flavor so I wouldn't sacrifice that for some foam.

Maybe keg this and serve it on nitro.

 

[mxstar21]

Amoreti makes syrups and purees. They also have a salted caramel syrup.

https://amoretti.com/products/crema-di-salted-caramelsyrup

 

[cmac62]

Boom, with a 90-120 min boil and lactos you may be too sweet. I wouldn't back sweeten with the lactos until you know you need it or not. Also, any kind of simple sugar is going to thin out the finished beer, and I think you would want some body to go with the caramel.

 

[boomtown25]

Worked up a recipe on Beersmith last night at the house and came up with a nice 6% ABV beer with great color and only somewhere in the area of 25 IBUs (I don't have it here at work so don't hold me to the IBUs exactly). I used a schedule (experimenting) with I believe was East Kent Goldings (.5 oz) at 60/20/10. Full disclosure: This is not on my brew schedule any time in the very near future, but have not stopped thinking about it since we started this thread.

 

[bleme]

The 20/10 hops would mess it up for me. When I make a flavored beer, I want hops to take a back seat - usually around 15 IBUs.

 

[boomtown25]

The 20/10 hops would mess it up for me. When I make a flavored beer, I want hops to take a back seat - usually around 15 IBUs.

Just a work in progress- your input is appreciated as I was just throwing that in there. Point is well taken and likely utilized when this comes to fruition.

 

[secretlevel]

Just a work in progress- your input is appreciated as I was just throwing that in there. Point is well taken and likely utilized when this comes to fruition.

Hey @boomtown25, did you ever brew this? I'm going to be adding a can of condensed milk to a stout and I'm curious what your experience was.

 

[Jayjay1976]

Hey @boomtown25, did you ever brew this? I'm going to be adding a can of condensed milk to a stout and I'm curious what your experience was.

Please be sure to report YOUR results! I still want to try this but I need someone else to try it out first!

 

[Rob2010SS]

Just my 2 cents on this one...

1oz salt is a good starting point. This is what I used in a strawberry rhubarb gose 2 attempts ago. This was noticeable but not overly salty. Given the heavier grain bill you're using, it might mask it a bit which will be nice. However, I'd recommend adding it to the boil. I picture it being difficult to get it to dissolve if you add it at bottling. My last gose, I went 1.25oz in the boil for 5 gallons and it did not inhibit fermentation from my perspective.

With the pretzels, that's a subtle flavor. Whatever amount your planning, I'd probably double. Granted, different ingredient with different characteristics, but I did a s'mores stout recently where I used 4 boxes of graham crackers and couldn't pick out the flavor in the end product. Ended up having to use extract. If I were to do it again, I'd probably double the amount of grahams. Again, just opinion.

For the caramel flavor, you might be ok with your grains and the other ingredients. I'm with you on adding the candy to the fermenter, like werther's or something along those lines. I think that'd be interesting to see what happens.

One thing that I saw someone do on social media was use Salted Caramel Crown Royal for the salted caramel flavoring. Not sure if you want to give that a shot because you'll get the whiskey flavor as well but thought it was an interesting approach.

Good luck. Really looking forward to how this comes out for you. I've wanted to do something like this for a while.

 

[Jayjay1976]

One thing that I saw someone do on social media was use Salted Caramel Crown Royal for the salted caramel flavoring. Not sure if you want to give that a shot because you'll get the whiskey flavor as well but thought it was an interesting approach

Oh man I gotta try that! On a side note, I'm pretty sure the crown royal uses artificial flavorings, I dunno why people seem to be so against that in brewing. If anything, use flavorings to supplement the natural ingredients to help them come through.

 

[Rob2010SS]

Oh man I gotta try that! On a side note, I'm pretty sure the crown royal uses artificial flavorings, I dunno why people seem to be so against that in brewing. If anything, use flavorings to supplement the natural ingredients to help them come through.

I'm one of those people that are against it, LOL. I just never like the way they taste. They taste super artificial to me. I just had a Coconut Porter at City Lights Brewing in Milwaukee. I had high hopes as their stuff is usually fantastic. However, just as my other experiences have been with artificial flavoring, there was an unusual burn/tang in the back of your throat after taking a sip. Confirmed with one of the brewers that it was coconut extract. But I tell ya, that beer was selling like crazy when I was there! The rest of the place loved it, and they were packed! So I must be the odd ball hahaha.

 

[Jayjay1976]

So I must be the odd ball hahaha.

You may be odd, but it could be that you're also a supertaster. You should seriously look into that and perhaps consider BJCP certification. The brewing community needs more qualified palates.

Also, I'm curious about your s'mores stout and PB s'mores stout recipes, is there a thread?

 

[Rob2010SS]

Ha, not sure about that, but thanks.

No, there's no thread, but I'd be more than happy to share the recipe and what I did you want. Just let me know.

 

[Jayjay1976]

Ha, not sure about that, but thanks.

No, there's no thread, but I'd be more than happy to share the recipe and what I did you want. Just let me know.

YESS! Send to me via PM or consider starting a thread.