Adding Colour

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Darren

Beer Dog
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Howdy,
A week or so I attempted to make a dubbel. Now the ferment is finished but the colour although dark, is not as dark as I would like (more of reddish brown).
Can I steep some roasted malts, boil and then add to the beer before bottling?
Anyone ever done this?
I would be interested in any thoughts on this.
cheers
Darren
 
Hey Darren,
As an idea from left field how about trying adding some distillers caramel. Will darken without adding any flavour. No idea if it would work tho.

cheers
Roach
 
What about making up some really dark Candi sugar as your priming agent?

I just did a quick calc using Beersmith, and assuming an awful lot, 150g of the stuff could add a couple of SRM units to the batch.

There's an article about how to make it here; Candi Sugar

I've never used it but what about 'Brewers Caramel' instead?

Trev
 
There was an article in BYO about this stuff you put in to darken your beers, only few drops are needed, and it's made from de-husked caraffa or something like that. I'll go see if i can dig it up.
 
Nothing wrong with some Carafa Special being steeped, strained, simmered 15 mins and added to the fermenter or secondary, not a lot in there to ferment anyway

Jovial Monk
 
Jovial_Monk said:
Nothing wrong with some Carafa Special being steeped, strained, simmered 15 mins and added to the fermenter or secondary, not a lot in there to ferment anyway

Jovial Monk
[post="61503"][/post]​


If you are going to do that, you would need to boil it hard to kill off any bacteria that may be on the grain. The last thing you would want is a late infection.

Cheers
Pedro
 
Hey again,

Thanks for your suggestions.

Roach, Where do you get distillers caramel from? Is it sweet?

Trev,
I used some dark candi sugar in the beer. Maybe when the yeast drops the beer could be darker than I think. Also, I would prefer not to add any more fermentables at this stage. It already up around 9%

JG, It would be great if you could dig up the article.

Pedro,
I suspect I am going with the dark grains. I would boil them hard for 15 or so minutes.
Anyway, It is a Belgian anyhow :D
 
Darren

How about seeing if the good lady has some food colouring?

Cheers
Pedro
 
jgriffin said:
There was an article in BYO about this stuff you put in to darken your beers, only few drops are needed, and it's made from de-husked caraffa or something like that. I'll go see if i can dig it up.
[post="61499"][/post]​

It's called Sinamar. Can't say if it's available here. However its main purpose is to add colour post-fermentation.

Another thing you could try (though I can't vouch personally) is parisienne essence. Think our grandparents used to call it gravy-browning?? Adds colour and a very mild caramel flavour.

Here's the blurb from the Weyermann site for Sinamar;


SINAMAR is produced solely from our roasted malt CARAFA SPECIAL, according to the strict German "Reinheitsgebot" (purity-law). This law allows the brewer to use only the following four ingredients:

MALT - HOPS - YEAST - WATER

To get the characteristic color and extract, SINAMAR is carefully evaporated in a vacuum process, finely filtered and canisters and containers of different sizes are filled directly at 158F - 167F (70 - 75C).

Due to this special treatment the taste of SINAMAR is less bitter.
SINAMAR causes no turbidity and remains pH stable.

According to federal regulations, SINAMAR does not need to be labeled with a so-called E-number (European Community Number). A declaration as malt extract, barley malt extract or roasted malt extract is sufficient.

SINAMAR is perfectly suited for coloring foods such as: baked goods, beer, non-alcoholic drinks, spirits, pharmaceutical products and tea etc. SINAMAR is gluten free.

In order to raise the color of 1 hl beer though 1 EBC, 14 gr. of SINAMAR is required.

Unopened containers have a 1 year shelf-life.
Once opened, contents should be used immediately and stored cool.


Warren -
 
Here's another article.

I didn't put in the URL. Unfortunately the site was a breeding ground for pop-up ads. <_<

Hope this helps.

Warren -

Sinamar", the trade name for the black malt extract from the Weyermann Malting Co., has a very contemporary ring to it, but the product first hit brewhouses back in 1903.

The specialty maltster, based in Bamberg, Germany introduced Sinamar Malt Extract just after the turn of the last century. It was, and is, made entirely from roasted malt, and is described as "black and complex as an authentic espresso."

According to Thomas Kraus-Weyermann, the Company's Vice President of Technical Operations, the introduction of Sinamar revolutionized operations at dark beer breweries. "Many beer styles, especially the darker ones, place contradictory requirements on the brewer," he notes. "The challenge is to put opaqueness into the beer while keeping acrid, burnt flavors out of it. This applies not just to such lager beers as Bock, Munich Dunkel, and Schwarzbier, but also to such typical British-style ales as brown ale, Porter, Scotch ale and stout.

"The dark color in all these beers comes from the intense roasting of the malted barley," Kraus-Weyermann continued, "but the roasting process also accentuates acrid bitter notes that stem from the barley's husks. When these notes are leached into the wort during mashing and lautering, the resulting beer can cause an unexpected and unpleasant jolt to the drinker's palate. So it is not surprising that brewers and maltsters were looking for a raw material that would supply the required color but de-emphasize the harsh, and sometimes offensive, bitterness of severely roasted malts. The Sinamar process developed here at Weyermann at the beginning of the twentieth century, therefore, was largely in response to that perceived demand for a gentler dark brew on the part of the consumer. Sinamar changed many dark brews into the drinkable, smooth and pleasing beverages they are today.

"The Sinamar innovation was the result of two engineering achievements," Kraus-Weyermann adds. "First we found a way to mechanically remove the husks from the barley before it was malted, thereby eliminating the source of the bitterness from the product altogether. Second, we then made a wort from that now dehusked barley and found a way to vacuum-evaporate it into a concentrated extract. By adding this all-natural, grain-based color extract to their kettles or fermenters, brewers have since then been able to make flavorful, malty, dark brews from their normal, enzyme-rich, pale and amber foundation malts without having to overload their mash tuns with chocolate or black malts. Thus Sinamar gave dark-beer brewers the added benefit of increased mash efficiency."

Johann Baptist Weyermann, the great-grandfather of current Company President Sabine Weyermann, had secured a patent for making his "debittered color beer," as Sinamar was them known, in 1902, one year before the first production run. T

The company marked the 100th anniversary of that first production batch of Sinamar liquid color malt on July 19. Today the product is made using a completely automated process, with about 200,000 gallons produced each year.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Business Journals, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group
 
Now I would be interested in some of that. Bet we can't get it here though.
De-husked roast sound like the go.
Anyone sell these?
 
Darren,

Not sure who sells it. However upon reading about it I know it comes in a minimum size of 5 litre buckets. Contents have to be used fairly quickly upon opening. Colour is a whopping 8000-9000 EBC!! Think something like a teaspoon will turn a Pils into a Stout.

They need to look into 50ml homebrewer sized bottles.

Warren -
 
Darren said:
Who sells Carafa special?
[post="61556"][/post]​

Darren

Dave from Goliath has it listed on hist web site.

Cheers
Pedro
 
Sinimar can be ordered from your HBS. They would need
to get in touch with Maltcraft I presume, who are
the Australian distributors for Weyermann.

I have an old pricelist from Ocean Brewing (Hi Scotty)
from January 2003. The retail price was:
5 L $190.67
30 L $960.67

Might be a bit more now!!! :)
 
bradmcm said:
Sinimar can be ordered from your HBS. They would need
to get in touch with Maltcraft I presume, who are
the Australian distributors for Weyermann.

I have an old pricelist from Ocean Brewing (Hi Scotty)
from January 2003. The retail price was:
5 L $190.67
30 L $960.67

Might be a bit more now!!! :)
[post="61649"][/post]​

Think I'll stick to steeping my own carafa...
 
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