Using Artificial Flavors

[Spartan 117]

Hey Guys,

Have been reading a bit into flavoured beers (especially the porter side of things) and was wondering are artificial flavors the way to go or can you add things like vanila pods or crushed hazelnuts into your boil or fermentor instead ? If so what are some of the good combos you guys may have used.

Aaron

 

[O'Henry]

I heard there was a brewery in Vic making chesnut beer by adding the chesnuts straight to it. Someone else will pipe up hoepfully with more details.

I have used hazelnut essence. Let it mellow a few weeks at least. Can taste artificial and weird at first. I wouldn't mind adding real hazelnuts if I could get a hold of them though. It was a Northern English Brown btw.

 

[manticle]

Hey Guys,

Have been reading a bit into flavoured beers (especially the porter side of things) and was wondering are artificial flavors the way to go or can you add things like vanila pods or crushed hazelnuts into your boil or fermentor instead ? If so what are some of the good combos you guys may have used.

Aaron

I've only ever thrown cocoa, coffee, orange rind and coriander into a brew so take what I say with a grain of salt.

However I did work for 6+ years as a chef and to my mind anything artificial is going to taste artificial. I recently tried a wheat beer that was racked onto raspberries (real raspberries) which tasted like raspberries. Use the real thing.

Most fruit beers are racked onto fruit after primary I think. Not sure how you account for the extra sugar.

There is a wiki article here: http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...;showarticle=39 and I would assume that similar principles would probably work with other flavours.

Did the recipe for Doc's hazelnut/choc porter ever get posted?

 

[bconnery]

To me it comes down to what you are trying to add. Some flavours work on in essence / artificial for mine and some don't. I lean very much towards the natural flavour, especially for fruit beers. I've tasted very few fruit beers made with even natural extracts that where as good as those with fresh fruit in my opinion. Some flavours appear difficult to reproduce artificially. Most cherry flavoured things in life are awful in my book...

Chefs especially will like to tell you that vanilla bean is always superior to extract but when it comes to beer I think extract is a good sub.

The hazelnut extract worked great in the hazelnut brown, but it did taste strongly artificial at first. Blended in beautifully in the end though and a lot easier than trying to stuff around with nuts in the mash.

I am a great one for putting all sorts of fresh fruit, spices etc in beers but sometime the artificial way is just easier to control measure and replicate.

 

[Spartan 117]

Did the recipe for Doc's hazelnut/choc porter ever get posted?

no idea but this is what got me going. Sounds like a great combo, its like nuttella but it gets you pissed

Aaron

 

[manticle]

Chefs especially will like to tell you that vanilla bean is always superior to extract but when it comes to beer I think extract is a good sub.

Vanilla extract (assuming you are talking about the bean paste) is made from beans and so the flavour is true vanilla. If you were talking about a pie or a custard I'd say get your own beans but for something like this, extract would be fine. It's still not artificial. Vanilla essence or worse - imitation vanilla essence would be wrong in my book.