Using Actual Caramel in Beer?

[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.