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You are here: Home --> Forum Home --> Brewing Forum --> Recipe Discussion --> looking for inspiration on a big, caramel heavy beer

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homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


I'm on the hook to brew a big caramel beer for a Christmas bottle swap, so I'm thinking that I need to get on this pretty soon. 

I figure that I'll use Maris Otter for the base malt, go unreasonably heavy on the c-malts, keep the hopping low, and use an English yeast to emphasize the maltiness.  Just to make it fun, I plan to reduce at least a gallon of the first runnings to a syrup.

How does that sound?  Does anyone have any suggestions?



Posted 34 days ago.

chino_brews
Charter Member
Eden Prairie, MN
301 Posts


I can't wait to taste that cloying deliciousness.

Seriously, the English use a lot of crystal but are masters at using adjuncts to dry beers out (and save money). Something
like MO, 2-3 layers of English Crystal, flaked maize, invert no 1 or
equivalent, Whitbread "B" yeast (1099 I think), and mash very long. I
wouldn't be surprised to see some American 6-row either.





Posted 34 days ago.
Edited 34 days ago by chino_brews

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


I was thinking about a simple sugar to help dry things out.  6 row... I don't think I'll go there.  Definitely going to layer English crystal.



Posted 34 days ago.

rayfound
Charter Member
Riverside, CA
313 Posts


You don't want my opinion.



Posted 34 days ago.

chino_brews
Charter Member
Eden Prairie, MN
301 Posts


Wait, is the butterscotch beer you've been trying to create?




Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


Lol.  No, totally different.  This one should have no diacetyl.



Posted 34 days ago.

zeith
Charter Member
Seattle, WA
41 Posts


Looking good to me. How big is big for you? I like Chino's idea for the invert. Will be nice to help dry. Very excited.



Posted 34 days ago.

ingoogni
nl
314 Posts


Although it wasn't that strong, here's a dark strong mild I made;

OG 1061, FG 1020
37 IBU
58 EBC

73% Pale Malt
10% Crystal Rye
8% Cara 120EBC
6% Special B
3% Brown malt

Bramling-X @FWH & @ 5 min
Windsor Yeast

If I'd make it again I'd drop the Brown and Special B, use 10% Crystal Rye and 15% Cara 120EBC. It requires quite a bit of bitterness to balance.

There is an old custom in German beer drinking called "Bier Stacheln", you heat up an iron rod and stick it in the beer, foam forms and caramelises, you drink a cold beer through a layer of warm foam. Perfect for this kind of beers @ Christmas.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hOYKDUt0WA
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGjkAUXf59o
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKl61fVVFyo

Ingo




Posted 34 days ago.
Edited 34 days ago by ingoogni

testingapril
Charter Member
Atlanta, GA
595 Posts


You probably don't want my opinion either, but why not do something more palatable, but with clear caramel notes than just going to caramel extremes?

How about 100% maris otter, boil down a gallon or two of first runnings, and then use some dark syrup of some kind to dry it out?

If you want to do something unconventional/controversial/haphazard, I have two suggestions.

1. Skip the vorlauf for your "boil down" runnings. As long as pH is ok you shouldn't get any tannin or off flavor, but you might let a little more protein through to encourage more maillard products. This is all highly speculative, of course, but seems like something up your alley. The idea comes from some brewer on brewing TV long ago who said he saw some research that showed vorlaufing to reduce protein or nutrients so he didn't vorlauf any beers. I also think Kern River doesn't vorlauf their beers due to system constraints.

The second is to artificially oxidize the wort at various points in the process. English barleywine and old ale taste great with a hefty dose of age induced oxidation. Something really crazy would be to give it a tiny squirt of oxygen post fermentation to see if you can speed up the staling. This is probably a Mich more radical concept than the first one.

Overall, I would encourage you to think of this more as a caramelly english barleywine than CARAMELBIER!!!!11!!!

Looking forward to whatever you end up doing.




Posted 34 days ago.

ingoogni
nl
314 Posts


What's the negative sentiment with crystal malts?






Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


@Zeith - I'm figuring on something in the 8%-10% ABV range. 

@ingoogni - I don't know.  As I've mentioned to these guys before, I have an English brown that weighs in with ~22% of the grist made up of c-malts, yet it is far from cloying. 


Anyway, I'll see soon how my stout with almost 12% of the grist made up of English crystal, then a gallon of the first runnings reduced to a syrup, turns out.  I'm going to up the percentages from there, do the syrup thing.  Maybe go with a little brown malt, too?

We shall see.





Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


So, right now, my working recipe is Maris Otter, three Crisp crystal malts, brown malt, and some simple sugar (to dry things out). 

ATM, I'm looking at 1.091 OG (counting the sugar), around 1.018 FG, ~40 IBU. 

Hmm.  I hate to not include my new favorite malt (honey malt)... but I don't know that it would be appropriate. 

Playing with various English strains of yeast...





Posted 34 days ago.

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