# Caramelising First Runnings



## T.D. (9/3/08)

Hi all,

Recently I tried caramelising wort in a beer that was meant to be a modern replication of a post WWII ale where only the simplest and most readily available ingredients were used. I used 100% JW ale and all fuggles hops. The idea of the caramelisation was to try and get some caramel flavours and a richer colour out of the ale malt. As those who have done 100% ale brews before would agree, these beers are often not bursting with character! 

So what I did was draw the first runnings into the kettle, which was around 6 litres, and then boil them down vigorously to half that volume. I then added 3L of water to the rest of the sparge water, and sparged as normal, then boiled all the wort for 60mins as I usually would do. 

I can't believe how much effect the caramelisation has had! The colour is MUCH darker than 100% ale would have otherwise produced (see pic), and the flavour is rich and malty. I have done several 100% JW ale brews before and this isn't even remotely comparable. Its as if its got 5% crystal in the grist. I always think that beers that are, say, 95% ale 5% crystal seem to taste a bit out of balance, as if the sweetness sticks out too much. The caramelisation doesn't seem to get this, its very balanced. :beerbang: 

Having done this brew, I am now much more convinced that Timothy Taylor Landlord may well be 100% Golden Promise that's been caramelised in the kettle. I am amazed at how much it has changed the beer.

Anyway, I thought some of you out there in brew land might be interested in these findings. I'm thinking I might try and get a 10-20L ali pot to use solely for caramelising wort. I'll definitely be doing this more often in the future.

Here is the recipe. Extremely simple. I'm wondering if I need to buy crystal malt ever again! :lol: 

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 17.00 L 
Boil Size: 22.08 L
Estimated OG: 1.044 SG
Estimated Color: 9.0 EBC
Estimated IBU: 30.8 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 68.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU 
3.50 kg Joe White Traditional Ale (5.9 EBC) Grain 100.00 % 
35.00 gm Fuggles [4.70 %] (60 min) Hops 25.7 IBU 
35.00 gm Fuggles [4.70 %] (5 min) Hops 5.1 IBU 


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 3.50 kg
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Step Time Name Description Step Temp 
60 min Mash In Add 9.13 L of water at 74.4 C 67.8 C


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## Stuster (9/3/08)

Interesting stuff, T.D. The beer certainly does look darker than I'd expect with just trad ale. What yeast did you use? And what FG did you get? Certainly sounds like something to try. Hmm, I'm wondering what styles I could give it a go in.


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## T.D. (9/3/08)

G'day Stu, I used S-04. I only carbonated it today (which involved shaking!) so its not very clear. I think the FG was 1.008 from memory.

I reckon it could be a really good technique to use for an IPA. I think it suits the English Pale Ale style (extending up to IPA) beautifully!

Cheers.


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## warrenlw63 (9/3/08)

Heya T.D. that looks the duck's nuts. :beer: 

Good to see it went to plan. Might have to have at it myself.  

Stuster Brown Ale or Scottish Ales are a good starting point to try it... Or as T.D. said in an IPA. From memory the traditional English versions from days of yore obtained their colour from copper kettles etc.

Warren -


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## Gough (9/3/08)

Caramelisation is a great way to add flavour and colour to the resulting beer. Sounds (and looks) like your experiment was a winner T.D. I've done this myself a few times now and always been very pleased with the results. Your call on the TT Landlord may or may not be right but I reckon the caramelised flavours and the TT Landlord yeast from Wyeast would make a GREAT combination... 

Just out of interest though... I disagree regarding the British Crystal malts. Baird's 140-160 EBC and their Dark Crystal are fantastic grains IMHO. Different flavours entirely to what you get from caramelisation but not worse. Just different. Again though, IMHO  

Shawn.


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## THE DRUNK ARAB (9/3/08)

Agree totally that it's a great way to add an extra dimension in the flavour of your beer. I did it recently with an Old Ale and it is still conditioning but tastes very promising. A couple of years ago to I caramelised the first runnings of a Bier de Garde and was stoked with the resulting drop, the idea came from the Guru of FNQ :beerbang: !

C&B
TDA


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## T.D. (10/3/08)

Gough said:


> Your call on the TT Landlord may or may not be right but I reckon the caramelised flavours and the TT Landlord yeast from Wyeast would make a GREAT combination...



G'day Shawn, just out of curiosity, what is your hunch on TTL? If the 100% GP rumour is true, the only option other than caramelisation must be that the GP they use is a higher EBC than the ale malt we get from Bairds. I think this is also quite plausible. Its a topic on on-going conjecture that's for sure!



Gough said:


> Just out of interest though... I disagree regarding the British Crystal malts. Baird's 140-160 EBC and their Dark Crystal are fantastic grains IMHO. Different flavours entirely to what you get from caramelisation but not worse. Just different. Again though, IMHO



Yeah, I guess I was primarily referring to JW crystal. I just find that sometimes it can be disjointed - almost as if you can tell where the ale malt flavours end and the crystal flavours start, if you get what I mean. The cloying crystal flavours seem to leap out more than the malty flavours do in the caramelised beer. But I agree that some of the flavours coming out of Bairds specialty malts are pretty damned nice! I also err on the side of dark crystal these days, rather than lighter crystals - I find they produce a flavour that is less obviously "sweet". I think it was Warren who in a past conversation put it perfectly - the caramelisation gives more of a toffee flavour, while crystal tends to be more "lolly-like".


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## T.D. (10/3/08)

THE DRUNK ARAB said:


> Agree totally that it's a great way to add an extra dimension in the flavour of your beer. I did it recently with an Old Ale and it is still conditioning but tastes very promising. A couple of years ago to I caramelised the first runnings of a Bier de Garde and was stoked with the resulting drop, the idea came from the Guru of FNQ :beerbang: !
> 
> C&B
> TDA



Hey TDA, great timing on the Bier de Garde suggestion! I have been planning to do one of these for a while. I'll definitely go for the caramelisation option when I finally get around to it - sounds like it'll work beautifully! :beerbang:


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## kevnlis (10/3/08)

I did a "dunkleryezen" which was reallyjust a dunkleweizen with a kilo of the wheat subbed for a kilo of rye. I took the first 8L of clear runnings from the tun (at a ration of 2.5L/kg) and boiled it down to under 2L then added it to the final boil. Unfortunately I forgot to compensate for the extra loss of water and I ended up with a VERY strong 17L batch instead of a nice 23L batch. It was still a good drop, just couldn;t drink more than one in a night


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## ausdb (10/3/08)

T.D. said:


> G'day Shawn, just out of curiosity, what is your hunch on TTL? If the 100% GP rumour is true, the only option other than caramelisation must be that the GP they use is a higher EBC than the ale malt we get from Bairds. I think this is also quite plausible. Its a topic on on-going conjecture that's for sure!



The TTLLPA attempts I have made in the past except for the day we mashed a whole bag have all employed caramelisation of the runnings using 100% GP and apart from my hopping being out has come pretty close to the mark. The 1st one used WY1968 but from then on I have been using WY1469 from Kirems original bulk buy. The info TT have on their website points to it being 100% GP so as you say unless theirs is kilned darker caramelisation works for the rest of us.


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## chappo1970 (11/8/09)

Bump-o-matic

OK since trying BribieG's TTL and ensuing commentary on his recipe thread I thought it be better if we could revive this thread and discuss the ins and out of 1st running Caramelising here.

Now I really want to have a go at this because from 1st hand tasting the difference and what it brings to the right styled beer is absolutely exceptional and IMO well worth the effort.

So can anyone enlighten and educate me to the definitive process/method/theories for the caramelisation of wort.

Cheers

Chappo


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## Steve (11/8/09)

Chappo said:


> So can anyone enlighten and educate me to the definitive process/method/theories for the caramelisation of wort.



yeah all the people above :lol: 

Sounds interesting. I wonder if TD is still buying crystal?


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## jbirbeck (11/8/09)

I missed this thread first time around but it certainly looks like something I'll have a go at. Should be easy enough to give the first runnings a good boil down while sparging.


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## Steve (11/8/09)

Wouldnt you get break material forming in the kettle when you are draining the cooler 2nd runnings in?

Cheers
Steve


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## LLoyd (11/8/09)

This is something that has me really interested since Katie mentioned posts on here about it. It fits nicely with my growing obsession with traditional IPAs. So I started doing some research and a few practise runs with plain white sugar. If I took it off the heat too early, although brown, it just tasted like sugar. The ones I thought I'd buggared (smokey) had some really nice CARAMEL flavours and a slight bitterness..

On Bribie's super landlord thread BoilerBoy makes a good point;



> Just as a technical point of interest and for whatever its worth? though we all know what we we mean by "caramelization"in this process, from what I have read it strictly speaking isn't! as the temps invoved to do this begin at 170C, its "Maillards reaction," which is the heating (or boiling in this case) of sugar compounds in the presence of an acid which creates flavours similar to melanoidins.




My thermometer shits itself at about 160C, but even with my old one (200C), the size of the flame and size of the mix differences made measurements pretty haphazard.

This guy http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2008...o_make_the.html reckons you're better off learning to judge it visually (smoke).

Definately something worth playing with!

Congratulations Bribie! :icon_cheers: 
Inspirational stuff.

Lloydie


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## chappo1970 (11/8/09)

My Grandma being a country farm girl used to make the most exceptional sweets, candies, caramels and taffies. Being a wee little 'un at the time candy held my attention greatly especially if it meant getting the broken pieces.

Anyway I think a valid point was made in the other thread where it was said that we are more evaporating/reducing/concentrating rather than caramelising in the true sense. I remember my Grandma religiously used a sugar thermometer and everything depended on time and temperature. I even remember her stepping temps to attain different results. So what I wanted to know is if anyone has put anymore science behind caramelising wort rather than boiling the bejesus outa it?

Cheers

Chappo


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## BoilerBoy (11/8/09)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction

Just sime basic info on the effect of Maillards reaction.

Cheers,
BB


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## luckyeatwell (11/8/09)

I've now tried this process of caramelisation (for want of a better term) 3 times in recent AG recipes (An ESB, Brown Porter and a BdG). I've taken anywhere from 2 to 4 L of first runnings and boiled it down till it thickened to be the consistency of golden syrup and sticking to the sides of the pot.

I'm yet to be satisfied with the results in any additional flavour - I couldn't discern any "caramel" as I know and love in some of the commercial ESB's and IPA's.

Colour change is hard to discern as I've no control sample to compare too.

Haven't noticed any decrease in fermentability either, which I thought may occur. All of them have fermented out beyond expectations (too dry in one case).

I'd love for someone to accurately describe how to get the caramel flavour (and colour) of the commercial British Ales. I think my next attempt at any british ale is going to combine maybe 5 - 10% sugar - "caramelised" to an amber colour, along the lines of the home-made candi-sugar process discussed elsewhere, as well as wort-caramelisation.
I can only hope this will deliver on flavour and colour.

Cheers,

Lucky.


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## chappo1970 (11/8/09)

Thanks BB great read BTW. However this was stuck in the middle of it:

Caramelization is an entirely different process from Maillard browning, though the results of the two processes are sometimes similar to the naked eye (and tastebuds). Caramelization may sometimes cause browning in the same foods in which the Maillard reaction occurs, but the two processes are distinct. They both are promoted by heating, but the Maillard reaction involves amino acids, as discussed above, while caramelization is simply the pyrolysis of certain sugars.

So we might be on to something yet?

Your right Lucky to me that's the holy grail but I want to be able to do it predictably and be repeatable.

Cheers

Chappo


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## chappo1970 (11/8/09)

And this adds more to what BB was saying earlier:

Pyrolysis also plays an essential role in the production of barley tea, coffee, and roasted nuts such as peanuts and almonds. As these consist mostly of dry materials, the process of pyrolysis is not limited to the outermost layers but extends throughout the materials. In all these cases, pyrolysis creates or releases many of the substances that contribute to the flavor, color, and biological properties of the final product. It may also destroy some substances that are toxic, unpleasant in taste, or those that may contribute to spoilage.

Controlled pyrolysis of sugars starting at 170 C (340 F) produces caramel, a beige to brown water-soluble product which is widely used in confectionery and (in the form of caramel coloring) as a coloring agent for soft drinks and other industrialized food products.

Chappo


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## chappo1970 (11/8/09)

And finally this:
Caramel is made by heating sugar slowly to around 170 C (340 F). As the sugar melts and approaches this temperature, the molecules break down and re-form into compounds with a characteristic caramel color and flavor. A variety of candies, confections, and desserts are made with caramel and its products: caramel apples, barley sugar, caramel with nuts (such as praline, nougat, or brittle), and caramel with custard (such as crme caramel or crme brle).

Ok so basically I reckon we are ALL doing it wrong. If you boil bejebuz out of the wort to reduce it your not actually caramelising the wort your either burning it or just reducing it.

Just my thoughts so far.

Cheers

Chappo


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## OzMick (11/8/09)

Probably a bit of both, but mostly Maillard colour. When bubbles form on the surface of the kettle, the temperature of the metal surface can go > 100C (edit: if direct firing in particular, steam would alleviate this) and burnt on material can result when the bubble leaves or collapses. Which I believe is a reason why copper was traditionally used for kettles, different surface tension means that only smaller bubbles can form on copper whilst stainless has a tendency for bubbles to stick to the surface.


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## BoilerBoy (11/8/09)

Chappo said:


> And this adds more to what BB was saying earlier:
> 
> Pyrolysis also plays an essential role in the production of barley tea, coffee, and roasted nuts such as peanuts and almonds. As these consist mostly of dry materials, the process of pyrolysis is not limited to the outermost layers but extends throughout the materials. In all these cases, pyrolysis creates or releases many of the substances that contribute to the flavor, color, and biological properties of the final product. It may also destroy some substances that are toxic, unpleasant in taste, or those that may contribute to spoilage.
> 
> ...



I guess this is the issue concerning what temps are being reached in the boilng down process, as I mentioned in Bribie's Super Landlord thread as in the link above "caramelisation" is more of an instant result with temps over 170C. Where as Maillards seems to occur during the length of a longer boil down and may actually cease once the water levels decrease beyond a certain level.

BB


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## drtomc (11/8/09)

BoilerBoy said:


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction
> 
> Just sime basic info on the effect of Maillards reaction.
> 
> ...



Aaarrgghh! Wikipedia strikes again. linky

T.


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## bum (11/8/09)

drtomc said:


> Aaarrgghh! Wikipedia strikes again. linky
> 
> T.



Huh! There actually _is_ a "wet t-shirt competition" entry.

Erm... :icon_offtopic:


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## drtomc (11/8/09)

Chappo said:


> Ok so basically I reckon we are ALL doing it wrong. If you boil bejebuz out of the wort to reduce it your not actually caramelising the wort your either burning it or just reducing it.



Well, not just reduce it, but also encourage the Mailard reactions.

Factoid: I recall from Farmhouse Ales, that some Saisons were traditionally boiled for many (4-7 from memory) hours leading to significant darkening of the wort. This would be Mailard reactions. Presumably contributing flavour complexity too.

T (who, according to SWMBO makes the toast too dark. Clearly I *like* Mailard reaction products).


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## chappo1970 (11/8/09)

OzMick said:


> Probably a bit of both, but mostly Maillard colour. When bubbles form on the surface of the kettle, the temperature of the metal surface can go > 100C (edit: if direct firing in particular, steam would alleviate this) and burnt on material can result when the bubble leaves or collapses. Which I believe is a reason why copper was traditionally used for kettles, different surface tension means that only smaller bubbles can form on copper whilst stainless has a tendency for bubbles to stick to the surface.



Really good point. 



BoilerBoy said:


> I guess this is the issue concerning what temps are being reached in the boilng down process, as I mentioned in Bribie's Super Landlord thread as in the link above "caramelisation" is more of an instant result with temps over 170C. Where as Maillards seems to occur during the length of a longer boil down and may actually cease once the water levels decrease beyond a certain level.
> 
> BB



But it does point to the fact I reckon that you need to prepare your caramelised wort way before your brew day. That is if you want that extra authenic caramel punch, doe it not?

I guess I am forming the opinion (yes I have one) that just boiling the hell out of wort to reduce it is not the greatest answer. I going to specifically produce some wort for some experimentation in making beer caramels I feel. Oh gawd think of it BEER CARAMELS :icon_drool2: 

Cheers

Chappo


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## BoilerBoy (11/8/09)

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/med/research...on/melanoidins/

The opening paragraph of the above link would seem to indicate that the flavours being developed are infact melanoidins.

BB


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## LLoyd (11/8/09)

Chappo said:


> Really good point.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Just needs a handfull of BEERNUTS for a pretty wicked praline..


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## bum (11/8/09)

Just to put a bit of perspective on this, Chappo. You mention that you're basically wanting to emulate BribieG's results right? Then why not just do it as he describes? He's obviously gotten the character you're looking for (as mentioned a few posts back). If you complicate his process aren't you moving away from his results?


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## drtomc (11/8/09)

Chappo said:


> Oh gawd think of it BEER CARAMELS :icon_drool2:



It had already occurred to me that you could attempt caramel with a cup or two of DME. A pretty cheap and easy way to do a proof of concept.

T.


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## AndrewQLD (11/8/09)

BoilerBoy said:


> http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/med/research...on/melanoidins/
> 
> The opening paragraph of the above link would seem to indicate that the flavours being developed are infact melanoidins.
> 
> BB



I agree, I think it might be that brewers are in fact using the wrong term and hence the confusion, it's definitely creating melanoidens and not caramel , as stated previously, it's 2 completely different processes.
If I used straight sugar at temp it would be caramel, straight wort results in a different product.

Andrew


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## Bribie G (11/8/09)

Steve said:


> Wouldnt you get break material forming in the kettle when you are draining the cooler 2nd runnings in?
> 
> Cheers
> Steve







Lousy shot but if you squint hard you can see some break in the glass of boiled down wort. Also in my case the runnings are actually the 'whole' wort because being BIAB there arent any first runnings / second runnings as such. Also we are only talking about boiling down a couple of litres, not the whole of the first run. So maybe I should have been boiling four litres or so instead of just two? The idea of the exercise is just to add a bit of _je ne sais quoi_ to the brew, not alter it radically.

I've been 'winging' it just based on what I have seen on forums and taking the suck and see approach. The batch I did last night turned out slightly more runny than kit goop and tasted delicious so if that's melanoidins as opposed to true caramel, I'm happy :icon_cheers:


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## chappo1970 (11/8/09)

bum said:


> Just to put a bit of perspective on this, Chappo. You mention that you're basically wanting to emulate BribieG's results right? Then why not just do it as he describes? He's obviously gotten the character you're looking for (as mentioned a few posts back). If you complicate his process aren't you moving away from his results?




Your right Bum but it doesn't seem overly thoughtout as a repeatable process does it (no offense BribieG not shooting down your method mate). I'm guess I'm looking for something like: make wort X from grains x, y and z to grav 1.060 in a 10lt batch. Boil by this method for x hours x mins.

Repeatable, predictable and completely usable for brewing, No?

Or maybe I'm just a Beer Geek?

Cheers

Chappo

Edit: @ Andrew Qld I reckon your right our terminology is all skewwif.


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## Bribie G (11/8/09)

Chappo, I've done it a couple of times, first with the 'green dragon' ale I put in the case swap at Half-Fix's, and with the SuperLandlord you had a quaff of the other day, and again last night with the SuperLandlord II. Just seat of the pants method seems to produce fairly consistent result to my taste. Hey you're not thinking of setting up a retail microbrewery operation are you?

Go on, you know you really want to B)


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## buttersd70 (11/8/09)

To put the flavour that this produces into a bit of perspective....

Bribie was kind enough to sen me one of his Milds (that won a first :icon_cheers: )....

Now, when I got it, I _knew _what was in it, and how it was produced....cos he told me. :lol: So, the tasting _wasn't_ blind. I _knew _how it had been done. Now, his Mild isn't _entirely _dissimilar to mine....

When I tasted it, I would have _sworn_, if I hadn't known different, that it had about 5-6% caraaroma in it.(my mild has 6% caraaroma in it.) So, _thats _what I think is probably closest to what the wort reduction/mailard reaction in the quantities talked about is like. 5% caraaroma....but has been hinted at, with a "feathered edge", so to speak, slightly smoother in transition than a straight cara- or crystal addition would give.

2c only, cos everyones taste perceptions are different. But that's how I percieve it.


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## Bribie G (11/8/09)

Oops yes of course I forgot to list the mild as well. Again because it's a malt driven beer I wanted to get a bit more complexity into it. There's nothing worse than a dark beer where all you can taste is one flat malt (have a pot of Carlton Black to get the idea <_< ).


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## bum (11/8/09)

Chappo said:


> Your right Bum but it doesn't seem overly thoughtout as a repeatable process does it



I'll agree that it isn't very scientific but if you work to the same method each time (throughout the entire brew day, not just the reduction process) then it is very repeatable. IMO, obviously. Nothing wrong with wanting to know the ins and out of a duck's bum it just looked to me like you were looking at the back end of a different animal entirely (you perv).


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## hazard (11/8/09)

luckyeatwell said:


> I'd love for someone to accurately describe how to get the caramel flavour (and colour) of the commercial British Ales. Lucky.


Lucky, its called brewers caramel

Here's a link (non-wiki)

http://www.caramel.com/a-189-623-Beverages...-Tech-Tips.aspx


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## Renegade (11/8/09)

AndrewQLD said:


> I agree, I think it might be that brewers are in fact using the wrong term and hence the confusion



I concur, and was never comfortable with calling the process outlined in this thread 'caramelising'. I am not doubting anyone's success in the end results though. 

How's this for another angle on the process.... thoughts & comments appreciated. For those that use a lot of pale malts, how about reserving the 'flour' after each crush by seiving the grain, and when you have a decent amount, say 1/2 kilo (it may take a while), add this to a pot with a couple of litres of water and slowly 'cook' this at a gentle boil over a few hours ? Then add the resultant liquid to a regular all-pale malt brew.


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## Thirsty Boy (11/8/09)

Ozmick provided some nice info - you could get some minor "actual" caramelization happening in a boil - The phenomenon that Ozmick was talking about where the bubbles stick to the surface of the pot is known as Film Boiling. It is an issue in commercial breweries precisely _because_ it allows higher surface temperatures in the pot and promotes burn on, this can affect flavour, does effect the efficiency of kettles and necessitates more intensive cleaning regimes. It is more common in direct fired systems, but can still happen with steam jacketed systems, one of the reasons they aren't all that common in big breweries anymore.

So if you were careful about stirring that involved scraping the bottom of the pot, you might be able to scrape up small amounts of true caramel and dissolve it into the wort before it just turns into char.

Film boiling usually occurs where there is to high a heat flux and where the surface is not very "wettable" - so the perfect conditions for it would be ... a thin walled, stainless pot, with an intense heat source over a small area. All that would add up to burn city under normal circumstances... but if you are diligent about scrape/stirring the pot while its boiling, you might make it work to your advantage. Consider the old fashioned kettles that had rotating arms trailing lengths of chain - they constantly scraped the bottom of the kettle during the boil for exactly this reason.

Also, the mailiard products produced during an intense, concentrated boil, are going to be quite different to the ones produced in a normal boil. Mailiard products depend on the moisture levels, the sugar concentration, the amino acids and their concentration, the temperature, the pH. You will get quite different ones in a very sugary, higher than 100C (from high sugar concentration) relatively low moisture - first runnings concentration boil, than you would by boiling a more dilute wort for hours and hours.

So you wont be able to emulate the flavour of someone who does an extended length boil, by boiling a concentrate - and visa versa. If you were trying emulate bribie .. you would have to take a sample of the whole, mixed wort and boil that ... because thats what he does (BIAB) - taking first running would produce a different result.


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## AndrewQLD (11/8/09)

Thirsty Boy said:


> So you wont be able to emulate the flavour of someone who does an extended length boil, by boiling a concentrate - and visa versa. If you were trying emulate bribie .. you would have to take a sample of the whole, mixed wort and boil that ... because thats what he does (BIAB) - taking first running would produce a different result.



Would you think it would be a more intense flavor TB, given that the first runnings, especially in a batch sparge beer are of a high OG than the full batch? I imagine it's sort of concentrated already.

Andrew


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## Thirsty Boy (12/8/09)

AndrewQLD said:


> Would you think it would be a more intense flavor TB, given that the first runnings, especially in a batch sparge beer are of a high OG than the full batch? I imagine it's sort of concentrated already.
> 
> Andrew



Couldn't say Andrew - Really I am just trotting out theory. Never tried it myself. I know that the Mailiard reactions will be "different" given different conditions... different how?? I have no idea. Sorry.

TB


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## bradsbrew (12/8/09)

What would adding some citric acid during the boil down have on the end product. Only ask because this is what I done for a during ferment addition to a stout. Boiled down a combo of syrup,sugar, honey, vanilla with some citric added. At flame out I threw in three espesso bags, this went into an 11 batch fermenting with 1275 on day 2. Tasted like coffee toffee.
My original reason for the citric was to help the yeast eat through it. But I am thinking of adding some citric to the boil down of some first runnings my next brew.
Brad


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## luckyeatwell (12/8/09)

Without derailing the conversation on wort "caramelisation", I'd like to gather some opinion on how best to get that sweet caramel flavour into AG homebrew british ales.

I mentioned in my earlier post that wort caramelisation has been a disapointment for me. I've also tried adding cararoma crystal malt @ around 5%, which hasn't satisfied my tastes either.

Hazard suggests Brewers Caramel - which I'm sure is the true and correct answer to my problem, but it looks to be the sort of product sold in 44 gallon drums to commercial brewers, and not likely to be available to the rest of us.

Has anyone any insight into the manufacture of brewers caramel. The website linked by Hazard talks up colour shift more than anything in the flavour department - but toward the bottom of the page there's discussion of products known as "brewing syrups" which by the description are part fermentable sugar, part caramel colour (can be used in the kettle or for priming).

The blog "Shut Up about Barclay Perkins" has plenty of recipes and posts that discuss the use of sugars and caramels in british ales through the last century and makes plenty of mention of Invert sugars, Types 1, 2 and 3.

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/search/...brewing%20sugar

Invert type 1 is often equated to Golden Syrup. Inverts Type 2 and 3 I would assume to be somewhat similar to the Amber and Dark Candi sugars we're familiar with use in Belgians.

As a homebrewer I'm not looking to buy 44 gallons of brewers caramel - I need to know how to reproduce it on the stove-top with whatever I can buy around town.

Any tips would be helpful.

Cheers,

Lucky.


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## hazard (12/8/09)

luckyeatwell said:


> Without derailing the conversation on wort "caramelisation", I'd like to gather some opinion on how best to get that sweet caramel flavour into AG homebrew british ales.
> 
> I mentioned in my earlier post that wort caramelisation has been a disapointment for me. I've also tried adding cararoma crystal malt @ around 5%, which hasn't satisfied my tastes either.
> 
> ...


How to brew belgian candy sugar by graham sanders

http://oz.craftbrewer.org/


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## Kai (12/8/09)

You could also look at tailoring your yeast strain / fermentation conditions to (shudder) increase diacetyl production.


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## Thirsty Boy (12/8/09)

The vast majority of brewers caramel is used as a colour tailoring adjunct - check the colours out on that website... 20,000+ ebc. You wouldn't be able to use enough of it to make a flavour impact without making your beer black. We use it at work and it takes a massive 2kg extra to raise the colour of 100,000L by an EBC point. So that would be 0.5 of a gram per ebc point in a 23 batch. From light lager to stout in under 50g. Not a lot of room for flavour there. And I have tasted it ... basically no flavour anyway.

Brewers caramel is usually made in the same way as glucose syrups. acid/pressure/temperature hydrolysis of starches from wheat or maize. Glucose syrups can essentially be tailored to any desired composition of solids, fermentables, different sugar types and colour.

I would be looking towards things like belgian dark candi syrups, treacles, mollasses etc for "dark" sugary flavours in homebrew.

TB


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## RdeVjun (3/10/09)

Folks, this has been a really interesting thread, so firstly thanks heaps. I just thought I'd share some of my experiences with reducing wort to get some caramel flavours. I've been messing with the 100% GP + 'caramelization' thingy for a while now, a TTL-esque ESB has been my target and while some batches have been pretty ordinary, some quite OK, the odd pearler, unfortunately there's been no holy grail to speak of yet.
However, the most encouraging results I've had so far have been with the process of reducing a few litres of wort, but only by taking it almost to the point of burning it on to the pot, i.e. as per TB's 'true caramel'. I'm not sure what the cooks would call it, but the reduced wort ends up as a thick and much darker, toffee- like syrup, and once it starts to stick to the bottom of the pan, almost burning it on, then that's been the point to stop. Reducing in a wide pan with a thicker base seems to be better, a thin- based stockpot might leave the heat (I use gas) just too localized, but I note TB's comments about film boiling too.
After reducing, rather than trying to pour it into the boil, it is quite thick and sticky and will take for ever to scrape it all out plus there's not much to play with (only a few cups- full) and we don't want to waste any, just pour a few litres of the boil wort in and dissolve it, then add it all back into the boil. Be sure to scrape off the brown film that sticks to the bottom of the pot too, eventually it can all be retrieved this way.
This seems to be getting closer to the mark, I'm not 100% satisfied yet but getting closer. BTW, I use a dunk- sparging BIAB process and I grab some of the 'first runnings', for the want of a better term, usually >1.060, for the reduction. I think reducing 2 litres would be a minimum, 3 seems fine so far and today I'm planning to reduce 4. The other thing I really favour are the flavours, the colour is of no great concern to me personally, its just a convenient side- effect.

I also wonder about lowering the reduction's pH with citric acid, did you try that at all Brad, BribieG or anyone else? I've noticed that FG with these seems to end up a bit higher, so wondered if inverting some more might help get FG back down where I'm more accustomed. BTW, has anyone measured the commercial products' (i.e. bottle and cask) SGs?

Again, FWIW, these are just my experiences. I'm keen to test other methods and ingredients too, and while I've messed around with spec malts, for these reduction experiments, I've just used 100% GP to keep things simple, with 1469, sulphate- emphasised water, Fuggles, EKG and Styrian to 30 - 35IBUs as per usual. Its a given that straight, no- twist 100% GP is fairly uninteresting, but it sure can be spruced up! :icon_cheers:


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## Bribie G (3/10/09)

Rde we seem to be pretty much on the same track, as you say the BIAB runnings are obviously much thinner than the first runnings from a 3V system and I've been reducing 2L to about 300ml but haven't taken it as far as yours, yet. Next time :icon_cheers: I think what I have been getting is melanoidins production rather than caramel and I've also been using a bit of Munich, choc and crystal so that would also mask things. Next time I'll just go the GP, and go back to Landlord rather than SuperLandlord :icon_chickcheers:


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## Ross (3/10/09)

I fully caramelised 5L of 1st runnings while brewing my Imperial Hopped Mild.
It took 50 minutes on high flame in my kettle to reach the point where the wort turned to toffee as I pulled a sample.
Tasted devine - Not sure if it will be noticable in a 1.9% Mild, hopped to 150 ibu's, but will know later today when I keg it.

Will be on tap from Monday in the shop.

Cheers Ross


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## RdeVjun (3/10/09)

BribieG said:


> Rde we seem to be pretty much on the same track, as you say the BIAB runnings are obviously much thinner than the first runnings from a 3V system and I've been reducing 2L to about 300ml but haven't taken it as far as yours, yet. Next time :icon_cheers: I think what I have been getting is melanoidins production rather than caramel and I've also been using a bit of Munich, choc and crystal so that would also mask things. Next time I'll just go the GP, and go back to Landlord rather than SuperLandlord :icon_chickcheers:


Yeah, at 2L:0.3L reduction ratio, for sure there's a certain change in the malt and sugar characters, to taste directly it is rather nice (once it cools!), there's 'bent' sugars, melaniodins etc, but I reckon those flavours get diluted and become almost undetectable in a full batch, swamped by everything else that goes on or perhaps just digested by the yeast. This is why I was looking to take the process further and with larger amounts, particularly with the 'first runnings' being dilute compared to 3-V. (Many 3-Vers measure this?)
Like a lot of things, its hard though to know when to stop, I've just been such a fairy when doing this before as I was sure I was going too far, but now that I've taken the process to this point I'm much more comfortable and it seems to be giving very decent results.
With the specs, I'll probably start adding them back in at some point once I'm happy that I've explored the caramel path as far as I can or still have the patience. 
I am a bit worried about my latest, a smaller 15L batch which is struggling to get below 1.020. It was 1.023 a few days ago and I seemed to rouse it sucessfully, hopefully it continues but with it being a small I'll be losing a fair proportion to samples at this rate! Usually the 1469 gets to 1.012 and lower with ease, even hyperattenuated to 1.008 once, maybe these more complex sugars are tougher for it to digest, will see if inverting helps with today's batch but still retains these elusive flavours.
I still reckon your SL is a cracker though, knocked my socks off! BTW, the SL has been a stimulus for another experiment I've got slated- earlier hop additions instead of the usual late ones.


Ross said:


> I fully caramelised 5L of 1st runnings while brewing my Imperial Hopped Mild.
> It took 50 minutes on high flame in my kettle to reach the point where the wort turned to toffee as I pulled a sample.
> Tasted devine - Not sure if it will be noticable in a 1.9% Mild, hopped to 150 ibu's, but will know later today when I keg it.


Whoa! 150 IBU in a Mild Ross? :blink: Typo? Even so, I would dearly love to sample that- I might actually get to set foot in the store for once! 
I reckon you've got a better chance of a fuller low- alc brew with more body (plus the caramels of course) with this method, is this what you had in mind?

Yeah it takes for ever to reduce, even with my domestic gas stovetop going full tilt it still takes a while to bring the stockpot with the rest of the wort up to the boil, so I have a bit of time on my hands at that point, plus I'm dunk- sparging while all this is going on too. So it sort of fits into the process and its not too chaotic.

Many thanks chaps!


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## Ross (3/10/09)

RdeVjun said:


> Whoa! 150 IBU in a Mild Ross? :blink: Typo? Even so, I would dearly love to sample that- I might actually get to set foot in the store for once!
> I reckon you've got a better chance of a fuller low- alc brew with more body (plus the caramels of course) with this method, is this what you had in mind?



It's actually 170 IBU's SG 1040, *FG 1025.* 1.9%alc. Mashed at 70c & used Windsor yeast - Fully fermented out in 24 hours.
Looking forward to tasting it this afternoon once filtered & kegged - The hydro samples are too full of hops to taste it properly.


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## reviled (3/10/09)

Ross said:


> It's actually 170 IBU's SG 1040, *FG 1025.* 1.9%alc. Mashed at 70c & used Windsor yeast - Fully fermented out in 24 hours.
> Looking forward to tasting it this afternoon once filtered & kegged - The hydro samples are too full of hops to taste it properly.



Interesting that you used Windsor, as that strain normally masks the hops a little, is that why you chose it? not that it will stand a chance to hide much


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## Screwtop (3/10/09)

Forgetting theory or malliard reactions, caramelisation etc. What I did six months ago was to brew an old english recipe which called for a reduction of some wort to add complexity and colour. Take some wort off prior to hopping, reduce it down then add it back, I do 2L down to 300ml. I'm sure Bribie won't mind if I divulge myself as the source of this whole debacle. After telling him he tried the same thing with great success and the rest is history. Lots of UK brewers use the method it's nothing new, and it really is only a reduction. Anyway for those interested in caramelisation have a look at this brewers method of making a TTL clone using caramelisation HERE

Cheers,

Screwy


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## Sammus (3/10/09)

Ross said:


> It's actually 170 IBU's SG 1040, *FG 1025.* 1.9%alc. Mashed at 70c & used Windsor yeast - Fully fermented out in 24 hours.
> Looking forward to tasting it this afternoon once filtered & kegged - The hydro samples are too full of hops to taste it properly.



170IBU? I didn't think alpha acids were that soluble... it would be interesting to get it tested at a lab and see how how it actually is...


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## Ross (3/10/09)

Sammus said:


> 170IBU? I didn't think alpha acids were that soluble... it would be interesting to get it tested at a lab and see how how it actually is...




Nowhere near I'm sure - it's just theoretical. In such a low gravity wort though I'm guessing it should be pretty high.

Cheers Ross


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## Bribie G (3/10/09)

Screwtop said:


> Forgetting theory or malliard reactions, caramelisation etc. What I did six months ago was to brew an old english recipe which called for a reduction of some wort to add complexity and colour. Take some wort off prior to hopping, reduce it down then add it back, I do 2L down to 300ml. I'm sure Bribie won't mind if I divulge myself as the source of this whole debacle. After telling him he tried the same thing with great success and the rest is history. Lots of UK brewers use the method it's nothing new, and it really is only a reduction. Anyway for those interested in caramelisation have a look at this brewers method of making a TTL clone using caramelisation HERE
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Screwy



You certainly set things in motion :icon_cheers: and I still haven't even attempted that Samuel Smiths Old Brewery Bitter :lol:


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## RdeVjun (3/10/09)

BribieG said:


> You certainly set things in motion :icon_cheers: and I still haven't even attempted that Samuel Smiths Old Brewery Bitter :lol:


 :blink: You're joking?? I just opened a bottle of that this very afternoon, big brother picked it up at Nectar in West End last weekend for me (they had no TTL, dammit...). Nice, thoroughly bitter, maybe too much for my taste, good malt characteristics though, just not as aromatic as I prefer, but still a mighty fine drop. I thought about reculturing, decided I'd better not- I have enough yeast strains on hand ATM!

Getting back to the caramelization, reducing three litres with citric seems to be over a critical mass/ threshold where burning is minimised while also getting a good proportion of toffee happening. A great foaming mass which expands, then contracts and deepens in colour, but with minimal burning while still hitting 'soft ball' if I remember my cookery correctly (I tested it). Colour when diluted into a full- sized wort is good, a yellowy- golden hue, so not like urine any more, and with flavours being something to behold. Can't wait to drop a WY starter in this one!

Edit: Screwy, you have a lot to answer for BTW!


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## Screwtop (3/10/09)

RdeVjun said:


> :blink: You're joking?? I just opened a bottle of that this very afternoon, big brother picked it up at Nectar in West End last weekend for me (they had no TTL, dammit...). Nice, thoroughly bitter, maybe too much for my taste, good malt characteristics though, just not as aromatic as I prefer, but still a mighty fine drop.



Thats pretty much how it turned out too! 



BribieG said:


> You certainly set things in motion :icon_cheers: and I still haven't even attempted that Samuel Smiths Old Brewery Bitter :lol:




Heyup Lad, get t'brewin

Screwy


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## muckanic (6/10/09)

Chappo said:


> If you boil bejebuz out of the wort to reduce it your not actually caramelising the wort your either burning it or just reducing it.



As long as the boil contains enough water to generate steam, the temperature won't rise much above 100C except for some of these odd browning reactions that occur at the interface of the wort and the kettle. Once most of the water is gone, the temperature rises sharply and pyrolysis starts to happen in a big way, and that is when most cooks would consider that they are making "caramel". One signal that this is all about to happen, as someone else mentioned, is that the wort foams up. Another signal of course is the increased viscosity. 

It may well be that different sugars pyrolyse differently and at different rates, which could be a justification for using some acid to promote inversion of both sucrose and maltose. Note that inversion is actually a hydrolysis reaction, ie, it requires water. There is a school of thought that the heat is enough to make hydrolysis happen anyway (to some extent) without the presence of acid. And once the water becomes scarce it is possible that a dehydration reaction could reverse the hydrolysis. 

One idea I have been tossing around for a while is to try and caramelise some dextrin (corn syrup) in a bid to replicate what might be going on during decoctions. Alternatively, I guess you could boil down some first runnings at an early stage of the mash, and hope not to deplete the enzyme content too much.


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## Thirsty Boy (7/10/09)

muckanic said:


> One idea I have been tossing around for a while is to try and caramelise some dextrin (corn syrup) in a bid to replicate what might be going on during decoctions. Alternatively, I guess you could boil down some first runnings at an early stage of the mash, and hope not to deplete the enzyme content too much.



In a decoction you are definitely talking maillard reactions rather than caramelizations... so I doubt you would be able to replicate it with the corn syrup thing. You are in fact probably going to have trouble replicating it at all. As I said earlier, you get different maillard products depending on the conditions - moisture, sugar, pH, protien levels, temperature....

So in a boil you aren't getting the same mix of flavour/aroma/colour compounds as you get in a malt kiln, or in a decoction or in a concentrated wort boil.

Probably not a lot more trouble actually doing a decoction - as mucking about trying to emulate the flavours of a decoction


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## RdeVjun (7/10/09)

Something I meant to add, I know we're all big boys and girls at this caper, but if you have a go at this just be careful with the caramelising hey? It gets pretty darned hot that pot of sticky goo, get some on you and firstly it will smart and then you'll be left with a blister, you may also swear in ways you hadn't thought possible.
And not only that, make sure there's lots of head- space in the pot. I'm saying this because the stuff will expand dramatically before it drops down to toffee. Last night's effort alarmed me even though it was just the product of 3 litres of wort in a 12 litre pot, it frothed up to about 2/3 full at the peak, but I was driving it pretty hard though. This pic is from another site mentioned earlier and looks like it has overflowed already (RHS), so it is not really big enough, hey? 





(Source) 
And its got a fair bit further to go I'd say, that's a pussy boil, and it could even grow some more. So, get this bit wrong and there will be sticky goo all through your stove/ burner and again, swear in ways you hadn't thought possible. 

Also, any 3-Vers ever measured the SG of first runnings? My BIAB with 3.5kg grain in about 14 litres gives me ~1.060 pretty much every time (and then I'll sparge it), I'm just wondering how that compares to different methods and whether there is enough sugar in it.

Thanks everyone for your input too BTW, its a really useful thread this one. 

Edit: Spelling...


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## Thirsty Boy (8/10/09)

Rde Vjun,

Here is a chart from BrewKaiser's site giving the theoretical first runnings gravity for different L:G ratios - You can see that your 4:1 ratio would be giving a maximum of 1.066 and you are at 1.060 .. so I'd say most people are running roughly equivalently effective mashes and would be getting figures not a hell of a long way from a proportionally similar figure. So my 3:1 mash "should" give me 1.085, but in reality its probably like yours and down a couple of notches at 1.076... etc etc

TB


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## RdeVjun (10/10/09)

Thirsty Boy said:


> Rde Vjun,
> 
> Here is a chart from BrewKaiser's site giving the theoretical first runnings gravity for different L:G ratios - You can see that your 4:1 ratio would be giving a maximum of 1.066 and you are at 1.060 .. so I'd say most people are running roughly equivalently effective mashes and would be getting figures not a hell of a long way from a proportionally similar figure. So my 3:1 mash "should" give me 1.085, but in reality its probably like yours and down a couple of notches at 1.076... etc etc
> 
> TB


Many thanks TB, that's quite helpful! 
To be honest, I was being conservative and often hit around mid- 60's, but my volumes aren't perfect, so that could just be a function of poor volume estimation. I usually measure post- boil SG once it has cooled and then adjust volume up to the target SG, with a heavier grain input sometimes it is right up to a full batch. If need be I'll increase hops levels, but in all honesty its roughly SFA as noted earlier and our senses probably aren't that good at discriminating a few IBUs anyway.
What worries me though is low fermentability of the caramelised wort, am just about to get some numbers in from the latest batches' FGs, will post them when I can but one got stuck at 20, plus a few others are finishing higher than previous versions. I've also got a few bottles of the real thing (TTL that is) to sample over the weekend, some will inevitably make it into a tube for determination and comparison! Not that TTL is the be all and end all, I'm quite happy with what's coming out with these, just some things to note.
:beer:


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## RdeVjun (11/10/09)

RdeVjun said:


> I've also got a few bottles of the real thing (TTL that is) to sample over the weekend, some will inevitably make it into a tube for determination and comparison! Not that TTL is the be all and end all, I'm quite happy with what's coming out with these, just some things to note.


Measured TTL's FG of 1.010 or thereabouts. Anyone else tested it?

I actually learnt a lot from this exercise, last weekend I bought a few bottles from one place, a smaller boutique bottle shop, the first sample was terrific and then saw some yesterday morning at another bigger chain bottle-o so I grabbed another and sampled it last night. The first was rather good, the second was very ordinary, however they had the same BBE date so I assume they all came here to the wholesaler in the same shipment. The first was quite crisp with excellent hopping and everything I expected, the second was like Melbourne Bitter with a hint of stale aromatic hops, not really worth $7.50 a pop. The place where I got the second one is where I've seen pallets of beer largely abandoned out in the sun in the carpark, who knows for how long.
During the last week I've discovered that we have a just few bottle shops here in Toowoomba that stock TTL, Spotted Cow Cellars who have a decent and diverse range for a fairly small shop, and also a First Choice near the CBD which is like a big warehouse with a lot of wine and spirits plus pallets of megaswill, but also a token specialty beer section. I guess folks can work out which sample came from where. Oh and there's a Dan's too, but the boutique stock is tucked away in a corner and gathering dust while BBE date is often not far off, I've not been there recently to see if they've started stocking TTL.


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## pdtnc (11/10/09)

My Blog has got a shed load of hits from this thread!
Thought I'd sign up and have a look around.


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## RdeVjun (11/10/09)

pdtnc said:


> My Blog has got a shed load of hits from this thread!
> Thought I'd sign up and have a look around.


Welcome mate, you'll find just a few TTL fanciers here! Thanks for putting up your recipe and method, I for one have found it quite helpful, obviously lots of other brewers are interested too.
Got yourself a bigger pot for caramelising wort yet?  
:beer:


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## pdtnc (11/10/09)

TTL is a classy pint when the beer fresh and well kept 

Got a few bigger pans, but that one did me.
My recipe and method was a combination of other peoples methods and suggestions.
I'll alter my recipe next time for the grains but probably leave the hopping. Maybe boil the feck out of the caramel a bit more, though that does add a while to the brewday its tempting to omit and see what the results are like.




RdeVjun said:


> Welcome mate, you'll find just a few TTL fanciers here! Thanks for putting up your recipe and method, I for one have found it quite helpful, obviously lots of other brewers are interested too.
> Got yourself a bigger pot for caramelising wort yet?
> :beer:


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## RdeVjun (11/10/09)

Aye, there'll be no argument from me! 
My latest batches are straight Golden Promise mashed anywhere between 65 and 69C depending on my mood, caramelise 3 litres sometimes with citric acid to invert, Fuggles for bittering, EKG and Styrian for late hops (basically as per Dr Smurto's recipe, his recipes are all brilliant BTW) which seems to be the right combination for me and with 1469 which is a superb and versatile strain if you can get it. GP with a touch of melanoidin is good too, also 1768 gives the malt a kick, sulphate is pretty important as well. Like my posts say, lately I've going really hard on the caramelising, it isn't a stroll in the park either and not for the timid.
You're lucky to get the stuff out of the cask, we only get the bottled stuff here AFAIK, and as mentioned earlier it is variable in quality. I hadn't actually tasted the original until a week ago and while I'm not necessarily trying to clone TTL, it is a pretty darned good spot to aim... :icon_drool2: 
A few of your kinsmen abound around here too, am sure you guys will all get on famously, now't t'be doubtin'! 
:beer:


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## pdtnc (11/10/09)

Yeah, fair few friends and relatives over there too 
Your link seemed to be broken btw.


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## RdeVjun (12/10/09)

Sorry about that, here's Dr Smurto's Landlord. BribieG's Superlandlord is another cracker.


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## muckanic (12/10/09)

RdeVjun said:


> What worries me though is low fermentability of the caramelised wort, am just about to get some numbers in from the latest batches' FGs, will post them when I can but one got stuck at 20, plus a few others are finishing higher than previous versions.




Yeah, that's an aspect that doesn't receive a lot of attention. It suggests that either pyrolysed maltose isn't so fermentable for some reason, or that a dehydration reaction is occurring and is forming larger polymers out of the maltose. Either way, it conflicts somewhat with the notion of using acid to try and encourage sugar inversion (as in breakdown into smaller units) at the same time. It is interesting that there is also some brewing folklore around which suggests that decocted brews are less fermentable than the norm. Folks have speculated in the past that this could be due to beta amylase being selectively denatured by the heat, but it is also possible that it could be a caramelisation affect. Obviously, a decoction is not as viscous as a full-on caramelisation process, but it still seems to be more concentrated than a normal wort boil. Hence the need for constant stirring.


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## pdtnc (12/10/09)

RdeVjun said:


> Sorry about that, here's Dr Smurto's Landlord. BribieG's Superlandlord is another cracker.



Interesting...
They might be worth a go, thanks


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## Thirsty Boy (13/10/09)

muckanic said:


> Yeah, that's an aspect that doesn't receive a lot of attention. It suggests that either pyrolysed maltose isn't so fermentable for some reason, or that a dehydration reaction is occurring and is forming larger polymers out of the maltose. Either way, it conflicts somewhat with the notion of using acid to try and encourage sugar inversion (as in breakdown into smaller units) at the same time. It is interesting that there is also some brewing folklore around which suggests that decocted brews are less fermentable than the norm. Folks have speculated in the past that this could be due to beta amylase being selectively denatured by the heat, but it is also possible that it could be a caramelisation affect. Obviously, a decoction is not as viscous as a full-on caramelisation process, but it still seems to be more concentrated than a normal wort boil. Hence the need for constant stirring.



I thought - but now I come to think of it I am not sure why - that caramelized (pyrolyzed?) sugars were unfermentable... Mainly I suppose because crystal malt is quite unfermentable.

Generally for me I use the rule of thumb that says "sweet sugars ferment - unsweet sugars don't - except for caramelized ones which are both sweet & unfermentable"

So... which is it I wonder. Are caramelized fermentable sugars rendered at least partly unfermentable... or is it that caramelized unfermentable sugars are rendered sweeter than they were. Or do I just have it completely arse bout?


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## RdeVjun (13/10/09)

My uneducated leaning is perhaps partial fermentability, at least at the scale and process I'm familiar with, i.e. not pure compounds but the wort I 'partially- caramelise'. The reason I say partial if because the whole of the wort I carmelise doesn't end up the same, it is incomplete, some gets burnt, some almost burnt, some less so. I also wonder if the real caramel is the stuff that sticks almost rock hard to the stirrer when stirring furiously close to the end, only a small amount ends up like this for me, I'd like to see more but I'm a bit of a chicken and afraid to go much further when it smokes the way it does. I guess I'd better stop being such a fairy and go even further, also getting some pictures would help... This is one pic of someone else's, mine have a similar appearance.

The repeatability side of things worries me so having objective measurements during the process would be helpful, I don't have a candy thermometer though (does look like I should get one though!) and that's why I dropped some into water way back in this thread, i.e. the 'soft ball' from cookery. This guy mentions 'hard crack' stage, maybe that's where I should aim, perhaps lowering the flame to reduce burning, also there's plenty of other useful information on his blog.

BTW, that test batch I mentioned earlier, I did it when I picked up a fresh bag of GP, caramelised 2 litres out of 18, Dr Smurto's hops schedule, fermented with 1469 but has stopped firmly at 1.020. I roused it, warmed it, tried all the tricks in the book except repitching, I even put a cupful in a small erlemeyer, shook the crap out of it every so often, left it in the top of the fermenting fridge where it is a bit warmer for four days and then remeasured this morning- still 1.020. Beautiful stonefruit BTW :icon_drool2: , it is magnificent but too much of the batch is being lost to samples! I'll think about bottling it, but only after testing in an erlenmeyer again with some fresh yeast.
So, pending the outcome from that test, there's obviously something that is unfermentable in it although some other batches since have gone way below 1.020, around 1.012. And the bought product is closer to 1.010, maybe 1.011.

All very confusing... many thanks though you guys for enlightening us on the technical side of things. I'll be doing more over the coming weeks, will post pictures and findings.
:beer:


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## Kodos (13/10/09)

sorry to step back a little, but one small thing in this thread has confused me... people have talked about adding citric acid to "invert" the sugars in the wort-caramelising process. I've always been of the understanding that this process is used for inverting sucrose into it's two main components, glucose and fructose, so the yeast doesn't have to do it (and secrete an odd-tasting "cidery" enzyme to do it).

If we are caramelising all-malt wort, is there much point in converting the maltose sugar? (maltose being two glucose molecules, generally consumable by the yeast) and does it even do anything?

I've even seen on some AHB threads the idea that if you're putting sucrose in a 1hr full-batch boil, the acidity of the wort and the time involved suggests this is enough to invert the small amount of sucrose present in some recipes. Indeed, many of traditional English ale recipes I've seen call for small amounts of sugar of some type (brown, cane or otherwise) and I don't often see these recipes calling for inverting. This to me suggests that "inverting" is only necessary for kit brewers trying to add sugar but avoid the dreaded cidery flavours.

If someone could explain if I'm missing something I'd greatly appreciate it, because this caramalising thread is of real interest to me.


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## randyrob (13/10/09)

Has anyone else tried stir-frying it in a wok?

apparently that is the way South Australian's do it!


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## RdeVjun (13/10/09)

Good point Kodos, RyanBrews (and others) seems to think inverting isn't such a brilliant idea and I'm tending to agree (his blog has lots of useful information too BTW). I tried it to see if it makes much difference or enhances the process of caramelisation, but I'm now inclined to drop it out, the last batch I did had none and it seems to be the best so far, but it is still in the fermenter and crunch time will be when I crack a bottle or two. (Hopefully, it is just :icon_drool2: ...!! )
I wonder if the cidery kit situation you mention isn't just poor temperature control during fermentation though, some few cidery K&Ks I've been given to sample have been fermented mid- 20s (as per the manufacturer's ridiculous instructions) and just dreadful. Ryan's site discusses cidery aspect too, makes a good point about Belgians with lots of sucrose that isn't inverted.


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## BoilerBoy (13/10/09)

Kodos said:


> sorry to step back a little, but one small thing in this thread has confused me... people have talked about adding citric acid to "invert" the sugars in the wort-caramelising process. I've always been of the understanding that this process is used for inverting sucrose into it's two main components, glucose and fructose, so the yeast doesn't have to do it (and secrete an odd-tasting "cidery" enzyme to do it).
> 
> If we are caramelising all-malt wort, is there much point in converting the maltose sugar? (maltose being two glucose molecules, generally consumable by the yeast) and does it even do anything?
> 
> ...



Good points, I have never added citric acid in the boiling down process for the very reasons you have mentioned that its unneccessary in a full 1hr boil with acids already being present.

The boiling of sugar with citric acid to innvert sugar as far as I can see only really benefits brewers who are using kits and extracts and not doing a full boil and the best you can hope for in this process is only a partial conversion anyway.

When I have boiled down 1st runnings I add water back into the reduced syrup to achieve the original volume of wort I started with, then added that to the rest of the sparge runnings and then proceed with boil as normal.

Cheers,
BB


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## muckanic (14/10/09)

Kodos said:


> If we are caramelising all-malt wort, is there much point in converting the maltose sugar? (maltose being two glucose molecules, generally consumable by the yeast) and does it even do anything?



Fix claims that all-malt worts contain about 10% glucose. That is most likely due to thermal hydrolysis of maltose, so it obviously only occurs partially. Adding some acid would most likely accelerate the process. Note that the acid is a catalyst, ie, it isn't consumed in the reaction, just makes it happen faster. It can also be achieved with base, and I seem to recall ammonia being used for caramelisation (the advantage presumably being that it can be evaporated off). A prolonged boil (as in Flanders reds) probably also results in more glucose. Whether this is a good thing or not is another matter. It may very well be that hydrolysis, dehydration and pyrolysis are all occurring simultaneously. Reality tends to get messy like that. 

IMHO, the terms inversion and isomerisation are often used misleadingly in brewing and certain other fields as they (to me at least) suggest some sort of optical or right/left handed effect which may not necessarily be the case.


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## RdeVjun (14/10/09)

muckanic said:


> A prolonged boil (as in Flanders reds) probably also results in more glucose. Whether this is a good thing or not is another matter. It may very well be that hydrolysis, dehydration and pyrolysis are all occurring simultaneously. Reality tends to get messy like that.


Yeah, I'm in complete agreeance muckanic, all of these processes taking place simultaneously makes this caper appear pretty complicated, hard to understand and then to replicating it reliably isn't simple either.
However, I feel I'm getting close to where I wanted to be with my process, and the good thing is I've discarded a few factors like citric acid and spec malts along the way. Seems to be repeatable enough, the results are encouraging so far, albeit there could be more data of course. 
The only thing I'm looking to change with the next one is lowering the temperature slightly once it reduces after frothing up to minimise burning, but there's got to be a teensy bit of smoke or it is just no fun! I'm guessing this is the business end of the operation, but I also get the feeling that it doesn't get there without all the hydrolysis and dehydration, and perhaps even pyrolysis of various sugars before then. (Uneducated guessing, BTW.) :icon_cheers:


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## muckanic (15/10/09)

RdeVjun said:


> However, I feel I'm getting close to where I wanted to be with my process, and the good thing is I've discarded a few factors like citric acid and spec malts along the way. Seems to be repeatable enough, the results are encouraging so far, albeit there could be more data of course... (Uneducated guessing, BTW.) :icon_cheers:



I oversimplified it all by neglecting to mention Maillard reactions! I'm wondering whether simple sugars might combine better with amino acids (also pure speculation BTW). :icon_cheers:


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## manticle (18/10/09)

Had a crack at this before but really just reduced a bit of wort.

Today making a robust porter of sorts I forgot about it and the smell of burniness made me think I had stuffed it.

However the burniness was simply a touch of boiled over malt onto the stove.

This was the results: malt toffee.

mmmmmmmmmmmm


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## RdeVjun (18/10/09)

Yep manticle, that's the sticky, gooey, delicious stuff we need! I am presently mashing some GP for another batch.

What was the wort SG and pre- & post- volumes if you don't mind me asking?


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## manticle (18/10/09)

RdeVjun said:


> Yep manticle, that's the sticky, gooey, delicious stuff we need! I am presently mashing some GP for another batch.
> 
> What was the wort SG and pre- & post- volumes if you don't mind me asking?



I don't always measure SG (and didn't this time around). According to brewing software expected SG should be 1040 and OG 1061. I always measure OG but the main wort is still boiling. Due to pot size restrictions I often have to do 2 boils. First lot is chilled, second lot is coming to the boil as I write.

Pre volume is around 34 litres, aiming for 22 litres but I reckon I'll get closer to 26/27.

That goo was the result of about 3.5 litres in a fry pan. No idea how much difference it will make but at least now I know what to aim for. Tasted like burnt toffee and this porter is aiming for toast, coffee and toffee flavours so she should fit in nicely.


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## RdeVjun (18/10/09)

manticle said:


> I don't always measure SG (and didn't this time around). Always measure OG but the main wort is still boiling. Due to pot size restrictions I often have to do 2 boils. First lot is chilled, second lot is coming to the boil as I write.
> 
> Pre volume is around 34 litres, aiming for 22 litres but I reckon I'll get closer to 26/27.
> 
> That goo was the result of about 3.5 litres in a fry pan. No idea how much difference it will make but at least now I know what to aim for. Tasted like burnt toffee and this porter is aiming for toast, coffee and toffee flavours so she should fit in nicely.


Yep, I know it might seem weird, but starting with 3 litres seems to be above a threshold where, when it reduces down, the burning isn't quite as bad as with a smaller volume, at least for my pot. My inwards SG is usually about 1.060 and I end up with less than half a litre of toffee, closer to just a cupful, I wash it directly into the boil though.
So, I'm guessing there was some burning on the bottom of the pan? That's the point where I usually stop, when stirring with a spatula there is still some stuck to the bottom of the pot which is starting to burn.
One thing I've found is that fermentables take a knock, one batch just refused to drop below 1.018, even a couple of small test bottles with fresh yeast and a sprinkle of sugar refused to budge, so I'm bottling it (tastes divine BTW).

Oh, and it might've been fun trying to keep all that sugary goo in a fry pan when it froths up towards the end!! I use a 12 litre pot, always allow plenty of room for the froth- up near the end. At least, that's what happens with mine.
:beer:

Edit: Thanks for the photos BTW!


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## pdtnc (18/10/09)

manticle said:


>



Thats some serious Dark toffee!!!


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## manticle (18/10/09)

RdeVjun said:


> Yep, I know it might seem weird, but starting with 3 litres seems to be above a threshold where, when it reduces down, the burning isn't quite as bad as with a smaller volume, at least for my pot. My inwards SG is usually about 1.060 and I end up with less than half a litre of toffee, closer to just a cupful, I wash it directly into the boil though.
> So, I'm guessing there was some burning on the bottom of the pan? That's the point where I usually stop, when stirring with a spatula there is still some stuck to the bottom of the pot which is starting to burn.
> One thing I've found is that fermentables take a knock, one batch just refused to drop below 1.018, even a couple of small test bottles with fresh yeast and a sprinkle of sugar refused to budge, so I'm bottling it (tastes divine BTW).
> 
> ...



Initially I had two much smaller pots on but they frothed up almost immediately. The wide based pan seemed much better suited - slowly simmered and reduced away. There was very little burnt material on the bottom - a little bit but I was expecting from the smell to have to chuck it. Lucky I waited. As mentioned the burning was actually the stove rather than the caramel and being smart I tasted some cooled caramel before deciding to turf the lot.

It got stirred in towards the end of the boil.

Now I know what to expect so I'll be doing it for anything darker than golden as I love toffee and caramel. Hopefully it shines through.


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## muckanic (19/10/09)

Re pre and post boil volumes, I would typically obtain about 5L of SG 100 first runnings from a standard batch. An implication there is that I am either getting a high mashing efficiency or I am mashing stiff, correct in both cases. Those runnings represent about 40% of the total extract from the mash. I wouldn't reduce them down in anything but a 3X bigger pot, so that would take a heck of a big frying pan or wock! Terminal gravities tend to be around 20, which I guess could be considered to be a bit of a problem, depending upon style. It is probably an argument for either not caramelising the lot, or for employing an extended beta amylase rest (like around 60C). I haven't tested whether that residual sugar gets slowly eaten in the bottle over the course of 6 months or so, but that is a distinct possibility.


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## RdeVjun (19/10/09)

muckanic said:


> Re pre and post boil volumes, I would typically obtain about 5L of SG 100 first runnings from a standard batch. An implication there is that I am either getting a high mashing efficiency or I am mashing stiff, correct in both cases. Those runnings represent about 40% of the total extract from the mash. I wouldn't reduce them down in anything but a 3X bigger pot, so that would take a heck of a big frying pan or wock! Terminal gravities tend to be around 20, which I guess could be considered to be a bit of a problem, depending upon style. It is probably an argument for either not caramelising the lot, or for employing an extended beta amylase rest (like around 60C). I haven't tested whether that residual sugar gets slowly eaten in the bottle over the course of 6 months or so, but that is a distinct possibility.


Many thanks muckanic, that's really interesting and some enormous numbers there! 
I have been concerned that much of the total extract is no longer fermentable, a recent one stopped at 1.018 and others 12 to 14. But mine are usually 3 or 4 out of 12 litres of first runnings at 1.060, so fairly low proportions.
With that in mind, I am tempted to just mash up a stiff one purely to caramelise the whole lot and distribute this over several subequent batches. But, are you mashing low and mashing long as well as incorporating the stiff mash? Would you recommend this? It would fit better into my brewday if I could just whip out a few hundred mls of previously- prepared caramel and bung that into the boil rather than pissfart around over a steaming/ smoking stockpot for an hour or so, albeit while the boil is underway.

Now, not that TTL is the be- all and end- all, but for me it is a fairly good aiming point FWIW, but the thing that bothers me with this is that the bottled commercial TTL is about 1.010 - 1.011 so there's not much of this stuff going into theirs, or else they have some method to keep it fermentable. Maybe your last point is the key to this, the thing is most of mine just won't keep long enough, no matter how hard I try! :icon_drunk: 
Oh yeah, I completely agree with you, and like I mentioned earlier, the bigger pot is a must for safety, at least at the heat rate I pump into them. Last night's effort peaked around 4/5th of the 12 litre stockpot full starting from just 3 litres of wort.


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## muckanic (20/10/09)

RdeVjun said:


> With that in mind, I am tempted to just mash up a stiff one purely to caramelise the whole lot and distribute this over several subequent batches. But, are you mashing low and mashing long as well as incorporating the stiff mash? Would you recommend this?



I haven't deliberately mashed cool but probably should whenever I'm caramelising 40% of the extract or thereabouts. However, distributing the product over several (3-5?) batches would probably alleviate that need.



RdeVjun said:


> It would fit better into my brewday if I could just whip out a few hundred mls of previously- prepared caramel and bung that into the boil rather than pissfart around over a steaming/ smoking stockpot for an hour or so, albeit while the boil is underway.



Yeah, and the nice part is that if the caramel is dehydrated enough then it will keep at room temperature (could possibly oxidise however). Thinking outside the square: toss the caramel into the mash and see if the enzymes can eat it.


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## Thirsty Boy (20/10/09)

Would it not be easier to just take some DME and caramelize it like you would table sugar?? Then you are talking 5 minutes work rather than an hour. I cant imagine that there would be a perceptible quality difference between AG wort that someone else has sucked 98% of the water out of - and the wort you had to boil the snot out of for an hour to get to the same point.

When I make caramel for brewing I just:

Put the required weight of sugar into a little electric skillet - add enough water to make it a little wet - a pinch of citric acid (but it works without it anyway) - and boil till it gets dark. Pour it out onto a sheet of tinfoil to harden for later use or pour it straight into the kettle.

Takes a few minutes only and I cant see it being terribly different if you used DME rather than table sugar. It would make your volumes and OG calculations a lot easier, just develop the recipe so it hits your targets with X amount of DME as an ingredient; and proceed as normal. It shouldn't change anything but the flavour (and maybe the terminal gravity) if you happen to caramelize the DME on the way.

an idea anyway

Thirsty


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## luckyeatwell (26/10/09)

In the past I've not had much success with caramelising wort, to impart any noticable caramel flavour. Reading this thread and looking at the process others have been applying, I can see that it's possible that I've not been reducing the wort far enough to appreciably "caramelise" (& other chemical conversions) the sugars.

On the weekend I put together a simple experiment to try and capture a process that will introduce the caramel flavours I'm after, in a repeatable fashion to be applied to my future recipes.

A mate and I brewed a "tribute" to Harvestoun's Bitter & Twisted (65% JW Pale, 25% TFMO, 10% JW Wheat: OG 1040), of which we made about 9L more than was required for the fermenter.

Of this 9L, one litre was reduced down to a bubbling mess, stuck to the bottom of a saucepan.

The remaining 8L was poured into QTY x 8, 2L coke bottles. In most instances, 0.9L in each coke bottle (with a couple of exceptions).

Into each separate 2L coke bottles we put an individual ingredient to make up an equivalent 10% addition. This was done by taking each ingredient and boiling/steeping it with some water to produce a 1040 wort, then measuring out 100ml.

Each bottle was filled to approx. 1L total volume.

5ml of active yeast slurry (WLP-013) was added to each bottle.

The individual batches are as follows (the remaining volume being the B&T wort):
1. 10% caramelised CSR treacle
2. 10% caramelised white sugar w citric acid - light
3. 10% caramelised white sugar w citric acid - medium
4. 10% caramelised white sugar w citric acid - dark
5. 10% Bairds Dark crystal malt (steeped)
6. 3% caraaroma (steeped) + 12% caramelised white sugar w citric acid - medium
7. 15% Reduced wort concentrate - rehydrated back to 1040.
8. Control.

There's plenty of error thorughout (e.g. note the level each bottle is filled too) - But then again, that's a fair description of every brew that I make, where the critical numbers that make up the wort that goes into the ferementer are never quite what's on the printed brew sheet.


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## goomboogo (26/10/09)

luckyeatwell, keep us informed of your findings. I understand the method you choose for the future will come down to personal taste preference but the side by side should be very interesting. I like this type of small scale brewing experimentation as you may just answer your question in a very short space of time rather than brewing full batches of all the brews. Great initiative.


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## RdeVjun (26/10/09)

(Slaps forehead...)
Wow, now that's trying just about everything out, great stuff lucky! No need for pissing around with initially testing mostly full batches, that's been the one painful thing for me and has taken just about for ever. About the only good side to doing it with full batches is there has been plenty of sample for a thorough 'critique'.  
(/slap)

To be honest, even where I'm at with volumes and process over a dozen batches, caramelising hasn't quite given me the results I've been after (and I'm not trying to clone TTL either), although to be fair there are several still conditioning and fermenting. The caramel flavours aren't as pronounced as I'd expected but it is still a great leap from plain 100% GP with nothing special done to it, no doubt about it.
Seeing as I just bought another, I'll be continuing with this caper for say, at a rough guess, roughly one more bag of GP...  

That's showing some real initiative and a fairly wide spectrum of testing, so keep up the great work lucky! 
:beer:


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## niggles (29/10/09)

luckyeatwell said:


> ...... QTY x 8, 2L coke bottles. In most instances, 0.9L in each coke bottle (with a couple of exceptions).
> 
> View attachment 32331



Dude... you've got a drinking problem. Don't you know Coke is bad for you!! I need to talk to your SWMBO about that again...

Seriously though I'm looking forward to tasting these. Remember we need to sample them all side-by-side on the same day. From tasting the few samples throughout the brewday I wont be surprised if the only decent "caramel" flavours are accompanied by the slightly acrid/burnt toffee notes in the darker brews. I'd be interested if anyone can shed light on how to reproduce caramel in a reasonably light coloured wort without any significant accompanying flavours (think Caramello Koalas).

In retrospect we should have done another 8 samples using the same worts but a more diacetyl prone yeast (WLP002/WY1968), since the buttery character accentuates the flavours we're after (Werther's Originals). But that would mean you'd need to consume more of the evil black liquid..... :unsure:


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## neonmeate (12/11/09)

as coincidence would have it i just brewed a biere de garde round about the time this thread got going, and i tried to go for a la bavaisienne sort of thing, which according to markowski is made with only pilsener malt but with a violent boil that darkens the beer into amberness.
so i: *brewed a 1070 wort with just weyermann pilsener
*double decocted it with 30 minute boils of the decoction until the mash went a nice red colour
*caramelised 4L of first runnings down to just under a litre of goo (not sure if i did it enough but it was pretty thick and brown)
*gave it a hard 2 hr boil

and now that it's been bottled for a coupler weeks and the yeast has dropped out i can get a look at it. not much darker than a pilsner urquell dark gold, after all that. ah well. plenty of melanoidins (at least that what i think they are) in flavour though, much more than usual for an all pils malt grist, and a nice caramel flavour and aroma that's there but not dominant. my wife even tasted it and said "oh... caramel".
dunno what i can do to get it darker though! use black malt?


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## bconnery (12/11/09)

Back in the extract brewing days I wanted to make a beer that was Flanders Red like. 
I read a Belgian brewing book that suggested that in the past a lot of the colour was achieved using long boils rather than the malts. 

So this was an extract beer so I steeped a few grains, added the extract and enough water to kind of fill my trusty 11L pot and let her boil away.
For 6 hours. 

Definite caramelization and darkening. 

Plus this was a sour orange beer, made with a sour variety so it had a little citric acid in there too. 

This was for a long time the best beer I made. It took me a few attempts to really get close to this with AG. 
I give it a good hour boil of around 4L and also caramelize the rind and a little juice with some brown sugar to add some more of the same flavours.


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## TidalPete (7/1/10)

Just bumping this thread to say that I'm putting down my latest Scottish on Saturday & plan having a go at this caramelisation thing.
Problem is the only pot I have big enough to handle the expected boil over is my old Woolies 19 litre pot which is VERY thin around the bottom & I expect a lot of burning of the reduced wort on the electric stove.
To help counteract this I'm thinking of putting three bits of scrap ss sheet between the pot & the element when most of the wort is boiled off & caramelisation immanent. 
Not at all sure if this quick fix will work or not but as I can't think of anything else will give it a go unless someone else has a better idea?

Waddayareckon?

TP


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## Ross (7/1/10)

TP,

I just boiled 5L of my first runnings in the kettle until it turned to toffee on a spoon & then poured in the rest of the wort - Worked great in my Imperial Mild & will be the foundation for my BananaObalma (Black Banana Beer) being brewed this weekend.

cheers Ross


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## manticle (7/1/10)

TP: I don't know if you've ever made toffee or your own candi sugar but this is essentially the same. It will just be boiling wort for what seems like forever. All of a sudden the bubbles wil seem to get bigger and slower. Dipping a spoon in will show you that the wort is starting to coat the spoon instead of just drip off. This is the point where you need to watch it like crazy. Like Ross, I like to take it to a thick toffee syrup but the point between this and burnt useless nasty is very, very fine.

By the way - even if you think you've hit burnt useless nasty, let it cool for a bit, then taste. First time I really got brave with this process I thought I stuffed it. On cooling I realised I'd made thick brown wort caramel which was super lovely. I reckon 1 or 2 more minutes would have been stinky crust city.


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## TidalPete (7/1/10)

Ross said:


> TP,
> 
> I just boiled 5L of my first runnings in the kettle until it turned to toffee on a spoon & then poured in the rest of the wort - Worked great in my Imperial Mild & will be the foundation for my BananaObalma (Black Banana Beer) being brewed this weekend.
> 
> cheers Ross



Thanks Ross. :icon_cheers: I thought of boiling in the kettle but am unsure whether I should just recirculate the rest of the first runnings (Mashout temp) for the time it takes to caramelise the 4 litres I plan to do & then sparge or just shut the pump down & wait?
On reflection I'd say the former?

Just saw your post manticle & it's very helpful. I'll be watching the kettle like a hawk.  

TP


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## Bribie G (7/1/10)

Pete, you and I must have been Apache Blood Brothers in previous lives whatever, I'm going to do a wort caramelisation on Saturday with my first Yorkie of the season. Was going to brew today but time has got away on me. I also have a thin 10 litre stockpot from Sam's warehouse, and I have found that it doesn't burn as such, but there is a bit of gunk on the bottom that does need a scrub off with a stainless steel kitchen scrubber afterwards. I have found that a regular stir with a stainless steel spoon works ok. The thinness of the pot base shouldn't be as much of a problem as you fear. 
I'll post on Saturday and let you know how I get on, looking at reducing 2L down to 300 ml.


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## TidalPete (7/1/10)

BribieG said:


> Pete, you and I must have been Apache Blood Brothers in previous lives whatever, I'm going to do a wort caramelisation on Saturday with my first Yorkie of the season. Was going to brew today but time has got away on me. I also have a thin 10 litre stockpot from Sam's warehouse, and I have found that it doesn't burn as such, but there is a bit of gunk on the bottom that does need a scrub off with a stainless steel kitchen scrubber afterwards. I have found that a regular stir with a stainless steel spoon works ok. The thinness of the pot base shouldn't be as much of a problem as you fear.
> I'll post on Saturday and let you know how I get on, looking at reducing 2L down to 300 ml.




Cheers Bribie. Here's to a happy brewday. :icon_cheers: 

TP


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## dr K (7/1/10)

Ross.I tasted your Imperial Mild in Kanbeera

K


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## clatty (7/1/10)

dr K said:


> Ross.I tasted your Imperial Mild in Kanbeera
> 
> K



Want a medal dr K?


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## Ross (7/1/10)

dr K said:


> Ross.I tasted your Imperial Mild in Kanbeera
> 
> K



You sure did good doctor, it was certainly an interesting brew...

Cheers Ross


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## dr K (7/1/10)

> Want a medal dr K?



I have sufficient, both Imperial and Republican.

K


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## Ross (4/3/10)

A slightly different twist on the theme...

I've been thinking what caramelising some of the finished beer would be like? The idea was to reduce & then add boiled water to original volume & add back to the keg.

Would there be enough sugars to get the flavour sought?
Would the bitterness increase from the prolonged boiling?

Has any one tried it or heard of someone who has?

cheers Ross


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## Thirsty Boy (4/3/10)

Ross said:


> A slightly different twist on the theme...
> 
> I've been thinking what caramelising some of the finished beer would be like? The idea was to reduce & then add boiled water to original volume & add back to the keg.
> 
> ...



what would the purpose be Ross? You'd lose a bit of alcohol and maybe darken it a bit... but what else?

I think I've asked before.. but has anyone tried just making a caramel out of DME?? Same process your would use to make candy sugar out of cane sugar, but starting point is DME.

Takes 5 minutes to make candy sugar and might save a whack of time boiling all that wort down to syrup.. to end up with the same thing.


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## Ross (4/3/10)

Thirsty,

To try & put a bit of caramel character into a mild that is missing the mark - losing a little alcohol is a bonus.
I'm assuming there are still some sugars there, so just wondering if this would work. i don't want to be adding fermentable sugars back to the finished beer.

cheers Ross


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## Bribie G (4/3/10)

Thirsty Boy said:


> what would the purpose be Ross? You'd lose a bit of alcohol and maybe darken it a bit... but what else?
> 
> I think I've asked before.. but has anyone tried just making a caramel out of DME?? Same process your would use to make candy sugar out of cane sugar, but starting point is DME.
> 
> Takes 5 minutes to make candy sugar and might save a whack of time boiling all that wort down to syrup.. to end up with the same thing.



I'm doing a series of ales ATM, I'll try it in the next brew. 300g ???


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## Thirsty Boy (4/3/10)

Ross said:


> Thirsty,
> 
> To try & put a bit of caramel character into a mild that is missing the mark - losing a little alcohol is a bonus.
> I'm assuming there are still some sugars there, so just wondering if this would work. i don't want to be adding fermentable sugars back to the finished beer.
> ...



Maybe a little brewers caramel - not really anything in the way of fermentables in that stuff. But then again, to get any real flavour out of it you have to use so much that it'd make your beer pretty much black.

Dunno - but I'm going to try to boil down a bit of beer just to see what happens.

TB


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## Thirsty Boy (4/3/10)

ahhh - brainwave (warning contains possible stupidity)

I was talking about making candy sugar / caramel out of DME as a shortcut to boiling down wort.... Well, obviously Ross can't do that because that might introduce fermentables back into his beer -- but what if you did it with malto dextrin powder? That stuff is just sugars... malt sugars... dextrins in fact - which are _unfermentable_ malt sugars.

So put a little water and some malto dextrin powder in a pot, heat it up and make some caramel out of it.

Would that do the trick??

PS - am currently boiling a cup of belgian blonde down to syrup to see what the hell happens

TB


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## RdeVjun (4/3/10)

An interesting proposition that Ross. I guess sugars which are normally caramelised as wort are then processed into water vapour, alcohol and CO2, all of which will be evaporated if it is subsequently boiled, however there should remain some unfermentable sugars and other complex residues including hops, presumably that stuff gives beer much of its character. I'm a fan of wort caramelisation but just how these residues/ essence would react to caramelisation I have no idea. Yes, I'd also be wary of bitterness increasing although it may not necessarily need to be a huge proportion that is subsequently caramelised. Wouldn't hurt to try it though?
I know that reducing wine in cookery leads to some intense flavours which are quite potent and just delicious. Occasionally I'll use some beer like that too, but I never reconstituted and added it back to some other/ more beer! The prospect of adding some character to a Mild is appealing too, so hope it goes well.

Thirsty, I've yet to try out caramelising some DME or straight sugar process as per previous post, but it is on my list of to- dos for my TTL- style. It could save a considerable amount of energy and farting about if it works satisfactorily.
Bribie, I suppose the amount could be equivalent to a couple of litres of wort that would otherwise have been be caramelised... plus a bit more to account for any losses/ tasting etc, so I'd guess 300g would be a good starting point and yield plenty of it.
Aaahh stuff it! I'm staying home today to experiment- all in the name of science! :super:

Edit: Clarity.


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## Thirsty Boy (4/3/10)

OK, so I just did the boiling some beer thing.

I boiled 250ml of beer (belgian blonde ale, about 7 ebc, 6% abv) down to nearly nothing - it probably got down to 15-20ml before it went syrupy in any way. The smell coming off the stuff (after it stopped smelling frankly nasty at any rate) was all about bread crust and toast.. no caramel.

So I ended up with this





I added back enough boiling water to make the volume back up to 250ml, making sure I scraped down the sides of the pot and got back as much of what went in as possible. This is what came out. A glass of the original beer on the left - the reconstituted syrup on the right




So - got a bit of colour development then.

And this is what happens when you add some of this reconstituted syrup back into your beer. I added 10ml to 90ml of the original beer to simulate what would happen if you did this to 10% of your keg ( a couple of liters)

original left, altered right




Added a little colour. How's it taste??

Well, it didn't add any caramel - it added maltiness. So the difference between pale and munich. It was toasted breadcrust all the way. thats what it smelled like, thats what it tasted like. 

A 20% solution added a very small amount of what you might call caramel/toffee - but in that burned and slightly sour way you get when your toffee goes wrong. Bit of extra body, definite strong maltiness/kilned character and an edge of astringent bitter/sour.

So I tasted the tincture itself... not all that pleasant. I have tasted the same thing when making malt "tea" to learn about malt flavour - got it from amber malt, got it from melanoidin malt. Bitter, puckering, sour acid structure like you get in an espresso. Also there were significant floaties and haze -- It would take a bright beer down a peg or two in the clarity stakes to add 10% of this stuff.

Conclusion -- you could do this to add colour and maltiness to a beer. A little structure and mouthfeel perhaps ... but caramel??? Not so much. Worth it? Only if you were desperate to save a truly bland beer.

TB


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## Ross (4/3/10)

Fantastic Thirsty - Thankyou :icon_chickcheers: 

cheers Ross


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## manticle (4/3/10)

Thirsty Boy said:


> ahhh - brainwave (warning contains possible stupidity)
> 
> I was talking about making candy sugar / caramel out of DME as a shortcut to boiling down wort.... Well, obviously Ross can't do that because that might introduce fermentables back into his beer -- but what if you did it with malto dextrin powder? That stuff is just sugars... malt sugars... dextrins in fact - which are _unfermentable_ malt sugars.
> 
> ...



While anything is worth trying, it kind of makes sense to me that caramelising the actual wort you are making the beer from will give the best tasting results. Otherwise you could just add in some LME maybe?

It's not that much of a pain - I use about 4 litres in a fry pan which tends not to boil over and reduces to thick toffee in about the time it takes to boil the wort. Reduced DME would just taste like DME wouldn't it? I find iI can discern a nice caramel in the porter I make with it (although yet to try it without).
Anyway let us know how you go.


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## Thirsty Boy (4/3/10)

manticle said:


> While anything is worth trying, it kind of makes sense to me that caramelising the actual wort you are making the beer from will give the best tasting results. Otherwise you could just add in some LME maybe?
> 
> It's not that much of a pain - I use about 4 litres in a fry pan which tends not to boil over and reduces to thick toffee in about the time it takes to boil the wort. Reduced DME would just taste like DME wouldn't it? I find iI can discern a nice caramel in the porter I make with it (although yet to try it without).
> Anyway let us know how you go.



But that doesn't address Ross' issue, which was the point of using malto dextrin.

If you are talking about DME - then I strongly suspect that by the time you reduce it and boil the shit out of it... something that is largely maltose will caramelize to taste pretty much the same as something else that is largely maltose. Its not like DME is something exotic... its dried AG wort after all.

LME - is really quite uncaramelized. They go to a fair bit of trouble when they make it to ensure that.

Its more or less a null point for me - I suspect if I want caramel character, I'll just use caramel malt or some actual caramel - just suggesting an option for people who think this adds to their beer. I might try it out of curiosity once time... maybe.

Glad to be of service Ross. I was interested to see what happened.


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## Ross (4/3/10)

I'm still not totally convinced that caramelising the wort adds actual caramel taste to the wort. I probably need to work on some side by side tests.
The Imperial mild I caramelised the wort of already had heaps of crystal in the recipe, so the great aroma could have been from either - the Banana beer I followed up with had no caramal flavour at all using the same process.


Cheers Ross


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## manticle (4/3/10)

I need to do a blind side by side to really be able to confirm but to my mind it's quite distinctive when the caramel is really thick syrup (not just a bit of reduced wort).

One day but there's so many side by sides I don't know where to begin.


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## RdeVjun (4/3/10)

Interesting discussion once again chaps! :icon_cheers: 

Yes, sometimes I wonder if I'm kidding myself about the degree, if any, of a caramel flavour change. However, I think the variability in the results is partly explained by different endpoint for anyone who tries it as there isn't a gauge or measure for when to actually stop caramelising. Every brewer will have a different endpoint with this caper, and I think many brewers have stopped too early in their process for any real benefits, my conclusion is that it needs to be almost smoking to be having any effect.
The fact that maltose caramelises at 180C is probably quite important, I suspect many brewers have not come close to this temperature, although there are probably other sugars caramelising at lower temperatures that could be contributing to the flavour profile and perhaps in varying proportions. I would like to measure the actual temperatures (with a candy thermometer) achieved in the process the way I do it, just haven't got around to it. I don't doubt there's a discernable flavour shift (and obviously some colour but that's immaterial to me), lending some repeatability to the process would be one way to put a lot of the debate to bed, the best I can do so far is to stop when it starts to smell like it is about to burn.

I'll post some pics next time I do it with wort, today I did the caramelised DME effort mentioned earlier, some pics...

So, this is how it looks at the beginning, about 1/2 a cup of hot water with 200g of Coopers' Dried Malt Extract:



About half way through. Frothing is obvious, but the stuff is sticking to the sides of the pot and forms a sort of honeycomb (confectionery)/ styrofoam texture, not just the thick sticky liquid any more.


The end point today. Note the consistency, I don't usually take it quite this far, it has formed a mass rather than being just a sticky goo in the bottom of the pan. There's a distinct almost- burning odor, not really smoky though. I'm expecting this to have more of a Caraaroma flavour and aroma.



The wort I've added this to is actually 100% Bairds Perle/ Pale Ale with just a mashout decoction, I'll post a hydrometer sample pic when its finished the boil. I started this caper trying to emulate TTL which supposedly has 100% GP, some caramelised wort and 1469, but I think now that I'm more into TTL- inspired ESBs.

:beer:


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## RdeVjun (4/3/10)

The post- boil hydro sample to go with my previous post.


Quite a strong colouring this time and much darker than my usual 100% base malt + 2L wort caramelisation- they're not generally this dark but this one is with DME and not my usual process. I'll be doing one on the weekend in the usual manner but will take it to the same endpoint, extreme though it might have been... :huh: 

If there's no caramel imparted from the last pic in my previous post, I'll probably just give up! :icon_cheers:


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## muckanic (9/3/10)

Seeing this thread seems to have revived itself, here's an update from my end. After caramelising the entire first high-gravity runnings a while back, I managed to wind up with a terminal gravity of 30. Some dry beer enzyme subsequently reduced that gravity down to near 0 over a period of a month or so. So what you say? Well, it suggests that the caramelisation (condensation?) process is not creating a particularly complex sugar. It could very well be malto-dextrin.

As for making caramel out of DME instead of wort, I'm basically too much of a tight-*rs*. I think I'd be more inclined to boil down the entire first runnings of a batch with a view towards having several future additions of caramel ready to go.


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