# Salted Caramel



## Cantoffie (30/9/14)

How would one acheive a true and unmistakeable flavor of Salted Caramel in say a darker ale of sorts? 

Any suggestions?


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## OneEye (30/9/14)

I was contemplating this very same thing only a few days. I was given this as a challenge by my brother for a christmas beer. I was thinking a porter or brown ale type base when a generous hit of caramel malt and then perhaps serve with a salted rimmed glass. From my understanding, yeast and salt don't play well together so any additions pre-fermentation I want to avoid.


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## hoppinmad (1/10/14)

I noticed 1st place specialty at QABC this year was a Salted Caramel Nut Brown Ale. Scored an average of 44 out of 50 so must have been a nice beer. Not sure how you'd do it though


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## manticle (1/10/14)

OneEye said:


> I was contemplating this very same thing only a few days. I was given this as a challenge by my brother for a christmas beer. I was thinking a porter or brown ale type base when a generous hit of caramel malt and then perhaps serve with a salted rimmed glass. From my understanding, yeast and salt don't play well together so any additions pre-fermentation I want to avoid.


Sodium is toxic to yeast in too high an amount but in lower amounts it's ok. Gose is an example of salty/sometimes salted beer probably not a style that would work with caramel).


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## NewtownClown (1/10/14)

Snap!
I have been contemplating a salted caramel flavoured ale for a few weeks.
I have made three batches of salted caramel ice cream in the last month. the first was using salted butter, the second was made adding salt to the caramelising sugar. The first two batches had trouble freezing and was like a very soft soft-serve. I put that down to the salt lowering the freezing point. For the third batch I folded in crushed salted praline after churning a caramel custard (creme anglaise with butter) in the ice cream maker and it held its freeze.
The point being there was no noticeable difference in flavour of the caramel regardless of when the salt was added.

I am planning a similar approach to a pilot batch of salted caramel ale (sans butter) this weekend. I will reserve a couple of litres of wort, add cane sugar and make a "wet" caramel from it and add it to the fermenter after the bulk of fermentation is complete and add the salt at kegging to taste. I will bottle a few with some salt to see how much it affects the yeast - bottled versions may need to be salted at serving...

I also plan on using a yeast that produces Diacetyl to get some buttery goodness in there - suggestions?


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## hijukal (1/10/14)

I'm pretty sure the Southern Tier Creme Brulee uses some sort of commercially-available vanilla bean paste in their beer. Obviously it's not caramel but IMO (and it's been a while since I drank that beer) the flavours were somewhat caramel-esque anyway. I don't think you should just dump some Top & Fill in, but ... actually maybe that wouldn't be so bad except that it has milk in it. Personally I would try to avoid much diacetyl unless you're after a butterscotch ale, and then I'd try to keep it low anyway, maybe just skipping the rest if you really want it.

The problem with caramel is that because it's sugar, it'll have the same effect as a candi syrup (without the inverted part); you're basically adding sugar straight in. I don't know how much caramel flavour you'd get out of it at the other end.

Maybe try cold steeping some caramel malts and vanilla bean paste, and adding that to a similar beer you already have to get the caramel part down? I'd just do the salt to taste when packaging.


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## Not For Horses (1/10/14)

NewtownClown said:


> I also plan on using a yeast that produces Diacetyl to get some buttery goodness in there - suggestions?


1187 Ringwood is often touted as being a diacetyl producer. I've only ever used it well above d rest temps for my main ferment so I've never really noticed it.


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## NewtownClown (1/10/14)

hijukel - The dark candi syrups impart quite a bit of flavour and aroma and I have caramelised wort before for strong scotch ales. The sugar for the caramel will be accounted for in the recipe probably only half a cup (150 grams) - not much, and the sugar in the wort has already been calculated as pre-boil gravity. 

Slight diacetyl is what I am looking for. My experience in cold steeping has been to _restrict _the flavours of the caramel and roast malts when, in this case, we wish to enhance them. 
I think vanilla would be great if the aim was a custard type aroma - a creme brulee is basically a firm custard topped with hard caramel. I once made a vanilla cream ale with too much dark crystal - "Creme Brulee-ish" was the consensus!

NFH - I was thinking WLP 005 because I have used it before. I just looked up mr malty and saw it is the same as WY 1187, so I will go with that or WLP 007.


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## Cantoffie (1/10/14)

Interesting. Thanks for the discussion folks.

So What I have got out of it thus far. Salt is safe to be added pre-fermentation if it is in reasonable amounts else I could theoretically go crazy post-fermentation to balance out a big caramel flavor... if required. I was thinking I'd do some research into how much salt is used in a Gose to get my pre-ferment balance right, or just add post-fermentation to be safe.

Also an idea, although a wacky one. I was thinking of taking a small portion of say 80L Crystal and mashing it in a small saucepan before the brew in a small muslin bag. A mini mash. Then taking the liquid and in the same saucepan reducing it down to nothing, to almost caramel. Then adding that to either the end of the boil, or to the fermenter. Crazy?

Or alternatively using a dehydrator and reducing the liquid?


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## NewtownClown (1/10/14)

Cantoffie said:


> Also an idea, although a wacky one. I was thinking of taking a small portion of say 80L Crystal and mashing it in a small saucepan before the brew in a small muslin bag. A mini mash. Then taking the liquid and in the same saucepan reducing it down to nothing, to almost caramel. Then adding that to either the end of the boil, or to the fermenter. Crazy?


Not wacky, at all. Kinda what I propose but using the wort, as explained earlier. I may make a traditional caramel with 150 grams of sugar (taking it to the point just before it burns - i.e. after it smokes and turns a dark copper-amber) then adding that to about 2 litres of wort reduced to 500 ml (something I have done previously for strong scotch ales.


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## Mardoo (1/10/14)

Stein brews have been the most caramelly brews I have ever tasted. Perhaps one with a good whack of 60-120 crystals and salt added post-ferm?

http://byo.com/stories/beer-styles/item/857-hot-rocks-making-a-stein-beer


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## Cantoffie (1/10/14)

NewtownClown said:


> Not wacky, at all. Kinda what I propose but using the wort, as explained earlier. I may make a traditional caramel with 150 grams of sugar (taking it to the point just before it burns - i.e. after it smokes and turns a dark copper-amber) then adding that to about 2 litres of wort reduced to 500 ml (something I have done previously for strong scotch ales.


Cool might do two 12L batches one with caramels sugar and one with carameled(reduced crystal Malts) an see if there is a difference.


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## hijukal (1/10/14)

NewtownClown said:


> hijukel - The dark candi syrups impart quite a bit of flavour and aroma and I have caramelised wort before for strong scotch ales.


Yeah, you can get chocolate and cherry and raisins and figs and whatnot, but I figured that homemade caramel wouldn't necessarily impart caramel flavours, and may just throw you off the trial a bit. That's why I suggested something which emulates the flavours of caramel rather than caramel itself.

I often get more melted butteriness from diacetyl than toffee or caramel-type flavours, which is why I would still try to keep it lowish, as that'd possibly be a turn off for me. Not to say I don't like a slice of buttery fudge now and then (that's what she said).

Suppose it also depends on whether you're after caramel notes or a beer that actually tastes like it has caramel in it.


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## Cantoffie (1/10/14)

Ok so for Salt I have been studying a few Gose recipes online.

Most are calling for a 14-28g salt addition w/5-10mins left in the boil for a 20L batch. Make sense?

-Is that under the appropriate amount of salt that isn't going to bunk up the yeast?
-this is of course for recipes of sour Gose... so what if I add 22g of salt w/10 mins to a... say Brown Ale?


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## manticle (1/10/14)

Personally, if I were to try, I would begin with the post fermentation addition. That way you know it won't be toxic to the yeast and you can play around getting the dose right in a small test amount before dosing the main batch. Although I mentioned Gose above, it does rely on a mix of lacto and sacch and I believe it's generally quite low abv so yeast health might be seen in different terms.

I'd caramelise/reduce wort as suggested above, get that to a salt level that's acceptable and add that to a post fermented batch. Once you've got amounts you like, you could play around with adding earlier if you thought it needed it or you wanted to*. Start with the easiest, safest method and work from there.

As a caveat - I do not have experience with making salted caramel beer but some experience of adding post and pre-ferment flavourings.

*pretty much all in line with NC's suggestions above


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## Mardoo (4/10/14)

Having just consumed some high-end salted caramels (THANK YOU WIFEY!!!) it occurs to me that one thing that makes salted caramel work is the juxtaposition of the sweet with the salty, the salty cutting the sweetness at the same time the sweetness is augmented by the salt. I'm thinking that for a salted caramel beer it might be a good idea to leave some residual sweetness for the salt to play with. Otherwise the salt will just come off as salty.

I would also ensure that a significant enough whack of either caramelized wort or sugar was added to carry over the caramel flavor. I recently made a beer where I caramelized 1/5 of the final volume of wort (5 liters of a 25 liter batch) and it added very, very little caramel flavor. (Great melanoidins, yes.) I boiled 5 liters of base wort down until it reached the caramelization stage and so ended up with about 1.5 liters of caramelized wort in the total 25 liters. My next try will be to end up with 5 liters of caramelized wort out of the 25 liter final volume, so an actual 1/5 of the final volume being caramelized wort. That means starting with about 16 liters of base wort, boiled and caramelized down to 5 liters, (for which you would need a 25 liter or so pot). Due to changes in viscosity during the changes in the sugars you need a lot of head space if you're going to actually reach caramelization.

My own added caveat, I have not actually been attempting salted caramel beer, just various experiments, but I'm getting damn interested now!


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## TimT (4/10/14)

I've read that when you caramelise wort you produce more unfermentable sugars, so maybe you can mash as normal, caramelise part of the wort, and with the caramel/toffee tastes you will get a sweetness in the final beer, too.


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## Cantoffie (19/11/14)

Caramelized 500g of Crystal 80 L after doing a little "Mini-Mash". Added this caramel into boil with about 5 mins to spare. Also added 16g of Salt... Fingers crossed. 

I originally just wanted to do a 10L batch, but ended up ordering the grains for a 20 L batch and said the hell with it!


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## Truman42 (19/11/14)

Cantoffie said:


> Caramelized 500g of Crystal 80 L after doing a little "Mini-Mash". Added this caramel into boil with about 5 mins to spare. Also added 16g of Salt... Fingers crossed.
> 
> I originally just wanted to do a 10L batch, but ended up ordering the grains for a 20 L batch and said the hell with it!


Im impressed that you were still at it at 3.00am this morning. I would have crashed and burned hours ago..LOL

Let us know how it turns out.


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## Cantoffie (20/11/14)

Truman said:


> Im impressed that you were still at it at 3.00am this morning. I would have crashed and burned hours ago..LOL
> 
> Let us know how it turns out.


Will do. I am a vampire, I work as a bartender.


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## Mardoo (28/1/15)

So how did this turn out Cantoffie??? Very curious.


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## Tahoose (28/1/15)

+1


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## Moojie (15/9/20)

would love to know how this turned out, or if anyone has a new thread that is built around Salted Caramel....
Recently enjoyed a 3 Ravens Salted Caramel and by god was that delicious... if anyone has a clone or just methods for the salted caramel now a fair bit of time has seemed to have passed since these threads were first created


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