Food Porn: Caramel, Part 2 (and how it applies to brewing)

In my last post about caramelizing, I described a process of getting some very deep flavors out of your food through delgazing:

"Letting these sugars brown by cooking off the water in them, then adding water back to them through deglazing, then browning the sugars again (and repeating this process multiple times) will lead to the creation of a very savory sauce using nothing but the food you are already cooking."



This principal also applies to beer, as it turns out.  After a home brew meeting with the Maltose Falcons  I met with a couple of very good brewers, and asked one of them if I was tasting diacetyl in one of his beers.  He said no, and that it was actually caramel.  As it turns out, boiling your wort for 2-3 hours with a driving, high heat with 4-5 hop breaks greatly enhances the flavor of many beers through the carmelization process.  It also helps suspended proteins that can contribute negatively to the flavor to glob up (I know, very clinical language) and drop out/be skimmed off.


I recently brewed a very big beer (likely to be 17% to 19% alcohol) and put this theory to the test.  Hopefully, a big slug of Trappist yeast from some Belgian monks will help it attenuate.  If not, I will have to find some stronger yeast.


I will let you know how it turns out!