Sea Salt and Caramel Flavors

[seandamnit]

Hello Internet,

I was introduced to a lovely brew from Parallel 49 called Salty Scot recently, which is a Wee Heavy with Sea Salt and Caramel flavor added. I'd like to emulate this...not strictly a clone, but something my own along the same lines.

What I need help with is:
1. How to best achieve the caramel flavor. I haven't found a lot of other discussions on this topic, but most tend to recommend skipping adding actual caramel to the beer, and instead going heavy on crystal malt, 60L in particular. The label on the Salty Scot specifically mentions adding caramel, however. Anyone have any experience with this?
In another conversation I was pointed to a brewtoad recipie where the author recommends collecting 1 gallon of the first runnings, and reducing it with an unspecified amount of brown sugar for 1 hour...the main boil would be 90 min, and you'd add this caramel-esque reduction sauce at 30 min. This doesn't sound like a bad idea to me, but again, I have no experience doing this, and am not sure how much brown sugar would be appropriate. Thinking 1lb.

2. How much salt would be appropriate. Searching for salt additions in homebrew is difficult, as most discussions are about water chemistry. I've only really found Gose recipes to give me any indication on where to start with salt for flavor, and most seem to be between 1-2 tsps. Sound about right?

3. Here's the recipe I have so far:
https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/grease-me-up-woman-62e49e

I'm inexperienced with building my own all grain recipes and could use guidance if anything looks funny. I looked at other wee heavy recipes for reference, but bumped up the base grain for higher ABV, and loaded up the crystal 60L for that sweet caramel taste.

Any help is appreciated, thanks!

 

[giraffe]

1. Caramel, id look up instructions on how to make invert #2, and make that and use it for 10% of fermentables (or instead of the brown sugar). Id avoid huge amounts of C60 (caramunich is very similar too) in a big beer, a wee heavy is going to be thick enough as it is. (You could boil down the first runnings as well.)

2. Never tried, but I wouldnt want anything saltier than a gose. So id go with 1tsp.

 

[Schumed]

Use caramel syrup.used for coffee lattes

 

[kempshark]

Yeah, I had the Salty Scot on tap once (been looking for it around since and wish I could get it in bottles), and was wondering about a recipe for it. I was little skeptical about the whole salted Caramel wee heavy idea before tasting it, but was pleasantly surprised and really enjoyed it. Not sure I could drink more than one or two at a sitting, but was an enjoyable brew. Will be following this thread to see your results......good luck.

 

[seandamnit]

1. Caramel, id look up instructions on how to make invert #2, and make that and use it for 10% of fermentables (or instead of the brown sugar). Id avoid huge amounts of C60 (caramunich is very similar too) in a big beer, a wee heavy is going to be thick enough as it is. (You could boil down the first runnings as well.)

2. Never tried, but I wouldnt want anything saltier than a gose. So id go with 1tsp.

In the recipe I posted I have ~12% of the grist dedicated to C60 or CaraMunich. Too much? What would you recommend?

I've never made belgian candi before. Seems simple: gather sugar, little bit of citric acid, add water, more boil = more dark. That's pretty much what I'd be doing with the caramel reduction, though I'd imagine that whatever the caramel process makes will be a lot more potent. I'd need to use 2lbs of either brown sugar or the homemade dark belgian candi to hit 10% of fermentables.

 

[giraffe]

Opinions vary on how much Crystal is too much in a high gravity beer. Personally id use 0-3%. If you dont mind it a tad thick, feel free to go 12%. I missed the part where you were reducing the brown sugar with the first runnings, i see it now. That should work as well.

If you do use that much crystal, mash on the low side. Dont mash at 156 like many scottish beers do, id go in the 148-150 range, you dont want alot of additional dextrins if you are getting them from the crystal malt.