Using Actual Caramel in Beer?

[Clint Yeastwood]

Has anyone here tried dumping caramel in beer? I mean plain old caramel?

I've used table sugar in beer, and I am thrilled with the results. Seems to me I should be able to get caramel flavor by turning table sugar into caramel. I do it for desserts, so why not beer?

I guess I would not get any sweetness, though, since the sucrose in the caramel would ferment away.

 

[lumpher]

NM. Rejected.

 

[DBhomebrew]

You don't want the butter.

I'm currently drinking a 3yo English barleywine that tastes like liquid caramel. I'm sure you're not interested in investing that time.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

Caramel can't have oil in it. It's burned table sugar.

 

[PCABrewing]

Brewers Best has a caramel flavoring for beer that will probably deliver a flavor closer to what you are aiming for.
I did a search for "alcohol based caramel flavoring" and got a few hits that seem viable.
And I second the "No Butter" suggestion. That would be a head (foam) killer.

 

[sibelman]

Caramel can't have oil in it. It's burned table sugar.

Well, maybe it can.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

I thought everyone knew this. To make caramel, you put sugar and a little water in a saucepan and heat it until it smokes. That's caramel. The other stuff is "caramel-flavored."

 

[lumpher]

Deleted

 

[lumpher]

I thought everyone knew this. To make caramel, you put sugar and a little water in a saucepan and heat it until it smokes. That's caramel. The other stuff is "caramel-flavored."

Wow... just.... never mind.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

I'm talking about caramel, the ingredient. It's the same wherever it's made. Burned sugar. It's used in flan and creme brulee, to name two examples. I'm not talking about something you dip an apple in.

 

[DBhomebrew]

That's the problem with common knowledge.

https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/homemade-caramels/
In my world, you're talking about caramelized sugar.

 

[Agent]

Every batch of caramel I've made has had a healthy dose of dairy concentrate in it as well.

Otherwise as you've thought out loud - all the sweetness of the burned sugar will ferment out leaving the burned taste behind.

 

[DBhomebrew]

Burned sugar

I definitely wouldn't use that. I'd use butter before that. Even when making invert #4, it doesn't burn.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

"Caramels" are candies. "Caramel" is burned sugar.

 

[DBhomebrew]

Have you googled 'diy caramel'? Check the recipes for the first handful.

 

[sibelman]

What we have here is a pair of related word meanings. What could go wrong?

 

[doug293cz]

I brew a Samoa Cookie beer that has a distinct caramel flavor, along with coconut, chocolate, and biscuit. Here is the grain bill:

• 3 lb Caramel 60 Malt
• 3 lb Pilsner Malt
• 2 lb Maris Otter Malt
• 1 lb Flaked Oats
• 1 lb Victory Malt
• 8 oz Lactose

So, if you use enough Caramel 60 malt you will get caramel flavor in the beer.

Brew on

 

[DBhomebrew]

FWIW, the English barleywine I mentioned started off very tasty, but with a lot of residual sugary syrupy sweetness from a heavy load of medium English crystal (C45/65). Time let that sugary syrupy sweetness to turn into a smooth, buttery sweetness like a caramel chew.

 

[Lalo_uy]

Here in Uruguay ther are several beer with “Dulce de Leche” , that I understand is the same as caramel ( the filling of Mars bars”.
It goes good in dark sweet beers.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

https://brouwland.com/en/other-additives/13281-caramel-100-ml.html
I take it you mean something like this?
In my understanding it's made the way you describe.
There are other versions made with some sort of ammonium compound added during the process that allows the sugar to darken even more without carbonising, that kind pushes 30.000 ebc though.
It has been and in many cases still is a standard practice in English/Brittish brewing to colour correct with stuff like this.

 

[Beekeeper]

Cooked sugar, but you don't want it burned. Burnt sugar is nasty.
Here is a terrific thread on making the various stages of light-to-dark cooked sugar.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/20-lb-of-sugar-and-a-jar-of-yeast-nutrient.114837/

 

[ross.filipek]

https://brouwland.com/en/other-additives/13281-caramel-100-ml.html
I take it you mean something like this?
In my understanding it's made the way you describe.
There are other versions made with some sort of ammonium compound added during the process that allows the sugar to darken even more without carbonising, that kind pushes 30.000 ebc though.
It has been and in many cases still is a standard practice in English/Brittish brewing to colour correct with stuff like this.

I've used something similar. Like Erik says, this is intended for color correction. It's used in such small amounts that it doesn't contribute any flavor or aroma. But honestly, it's much easier (and cheaper) to color-correct with black malt.

 

[Mike875]

Has anyone here tried dumping caramel in beer? I mean plain old caramel?

I've used table sugar in beer, and I am thrilled with the results. Seems to me I should be able to get caramel flavor by turning table sugar into caramel. I do it for desserts, so why not beer?

I guess I would not get any sweetness, though, since the sucrose in the caramel would ferment away.

I make an All Grain Caramel Milk Chocolate Imperial Stout. To get my Caramel flavor I used a mix of Carastan and Caramel 60.

 

[InspectorJon]

At its most basic, caramel is made by heating sugar until it melts. As it melts, the sugar undergoes chemical changes as the molecules break down and rearrange. The hotter it gets the more it changes and darkens. This is caramelization. Caramelized sugar is caramel.

The word caramel is also used to refer to various candies and sauces that start with caramelized sugar and have butter and or cream added to them. Butter and cream are generally not considered good ingredients in beer. High fat content is not desirable in beer. But, people put all kinds of weird things in beer.

One can use plain caramelized sugar in beer but it doesn’t seem to be a very common ingredient other than as a coloring. The stewing and kilning process used to make crystal and caramel malts converts sugars in the malt into caramelized sugar, or caramel, so in that form caramel is a pretty common ingredient in beer.

Then there are all the various methods for making invert sugar one can research here on HBT. The processes used to make these tasty converted sugars also use heat but combine the heat with acid to create changes in the sugar. Most of the inverted sugar reactions happen well below the temperature necessary to caramelize sugar and rely on Maillard reaction to create the brown colors and flavors. Some of the higher temperatures used to make the darkest invert sugars get into the caramelization range.

I suggest we assign @Clint Yeastwood to conduct a series of experiments in making and using various stages and colors of caramelized table sugar In brewing beer.

 

[sibelman]

I suggest we assign @Clint Yeastwood

I think he was hoping others had already obtained the results of such an investigation, especially regarding perceived sweetness.

I've only used crystal aka caramel malts for this, and I hypothesize/speculate that the more complex spectrum of material in these malts might add more "caramel character" to beer than caramelized sugar.

Maybe not, though. Molasses, which can add interesting flavors to beer, surely undergoes some of the same chemical changes that occur in caramelization (and kilning of crystal malts).

All this just begs @Clint Yeastwood 's original question about experiences of other brewers. So far, no one has chimed in with results of using basic caramelized sugar.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

I have used the one linked, but never more than about 30ml for a 20L batch.
Most often in the 10-15 ml range, but I tell myself it did leave a little flavour when you use it in higher concentrations.

 

[Jeroen79]

It would be better to use candy sugar of candy sirup i think.

 

[cire]

https://www.murphyandson.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Caramel-TMF-Rev-4-CD.pdf

 

[Beekeeper]

https://www.murphyandson.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Caramel-TMF-Rev-4-CD.pdf

A little dab 'll do ya! "Caramel TMF has a colour of approximately 33,000 EBC."

 

[faithie999]

Here in Uruguay ther are several beer with “Dulce de Leche” , that I understand is the same as caramel ( the filling of Mars bars”.
It goes good in dark sweet beers.

Dulce de Leche, at least here in the States, is made from milk and sugar (sometimes starting with "condensed milk" which is a very thick milk/sugar syrup in a can), that is very slowly heated and constantly stirred until it caramelizes.

 

[Agent]

I unfollowed this thread a while back, for the same reason I quit giving men who drive shirtless the finger while driving, but F everyone's I, I posted the same question elsewhere and only said "stout." Started getting informed replies right away. No one was confused at all. Kind of like they weren't actually confused here.

I wonder if he rage-quit his own thread again...

 

[kevin58]

https://brouwland.com/en/other-additives/13281-caramel-100-ml.html
I take it you mean something like this?
In my understanding it's made the way you describe.
There are other versions made with some sort of ammonium compound added during the process that allows the sugar to darken even more without carbonising, that kind pushes 30.000 ebc though.
It has been and in many cases still is a standard practice in English/Brittish brewing to colour correct with stuff like this.

That looks like "Brewers Caramel". Used for over 100 years by British breweries to adjust the color of beer. You don't want to use very much of it at all because it will drastically change the color of your beer in very small amounts (IE milliliters).

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

Correct, although this is the e150 variant, "only" about 10.000 ebc, whereas 150c wich is the commercially used variant is about 30.000 ebc.

 

[Lalo_uy]

Dulce de Leche, at least here in the States, is made from milk and sugar (sometimes starting with "condensed milk" which is a very thick milk/sugar syrup in a can), that is very slowly heated and constantly stirred until it caramelizes.

Yes. And you put a marvel inside to help stir the milk.
Bizarra beer makes a waissen with dulce de leche.

 

[waynetempro]

Caramel is comprised of several hundred different compounds from the breakdown of sugar using heat. If used in beer, yeast will consume the short chain sugars and leave an unsweetened caramel flavor behind. Depending on the residual sweetness left in the finished beer, you might end up with anything from a drinkable beer to a very unpleasant beer. If the caramel has any oil or fat content, it will probably kill head retention.
So we need a volunteer to make a test 1 gallon caramel beer using home made caramel (no oil), to find out what will really happen. But the next question is what style of beer would benefit from a caramel addition?

 

[DBhomebrew]

Meh. The flavor of caramelized sugar in beer is ubiquitous. Crystal/caramel malts. Invert sugar. Two- to three-hour barleywine boils. Decoctions.

 

[VikeMan]

Meh. The flavor of caramelized sugar in beer is ubiquitous. Crystal/caramel malts. Invert sugar. Two- to three-hour barleywine boils. Decoctions.

However, there's some debate about whether or not a significant amount of caramelization can happen at boiling temperature. It may be that it's predominantly Maillard reactions rather than caramelization. I'm not an expert on these two reaction types, but I have read quite a bit over the years and lean toward Maillard reactions.

 

[VikeMan]

I have experimented with a few different ways (beyond loading up on the crystal malts) to get caramel flavors into beer (for pastry stouts). The two most successful were adding D-45 Candi Syrup to the keg (and keeping it cold to prevent/slow refermentation) and Silver Cloud Caramel Type Natural Flavor Blend.

One particulary unsuccessful experiment was dosing with Hershey's Caramel Syrup. Incremental dosing just seemed to make the beer sweeter and sweeter without caramal flavors really coming through.