1st Drippings ™ Caramelisation

[Reviled]

As the title may suggest, ive tried something new (which I learnt from JoKing) and adapted it for BIAB..

The practice is caramelising the 1st runnings, down to a smaller amount on the stove top, using a pinch of citric acid to invert the sugars making it more fermentable, and lending a caramel flavour to the brew.. I witnessed this when I was in New Plymouth and have been intrigued by this ever since, not only for the purpose of adding a caramel flavour, but also for the purpose of adding cane sugar to a recipe…

Now seeing as I don’t have a tap on my kettle, and that im not sparging in a traditional sense, how the hell am I gonna get my 1st runnings? I now introduce to you, BIAB 1st Drippings Caramelisation (that’s TM’d by the way DB ;oP)

Heres what I brewed – An ale with a splash of Carafa Special III (thanks Jo) and all Motueka hops – I havnt brewed much with Motueka before and wanted to know what it can lend to a brew, so I decided to also add an extra element here and mash hop 10gms, just for the hell of it ;o)

2.5kg Pilsner
800g Munich
120g Cara-Munich III
25g Carafa Special III (thanks Jo)
250g Cane Sugar
Mash hop : 10g Motueka 6.7% - pinch of citric added to the mash to make PH 5.6
60 : 15g Motueka 6.7%
20 : 25g Motueka 6.7%
FO : 10g Motueka 6.7%
WLP-001 (thanks Jo)

I did a normal BIAB mash, only difference being that there was 10gms of hops thrown into the bag, pretty basic stuff, I then mashed for an hour covered and let the enzymes do its thing…

Now comes the part where I get my 1st drippings ™ - Normally with BIAB you hoist the bag out, and let the wort drain off either back into the kettle or into a bucket, but this time I collected the 1st three litres of wort (I know most people do 5 to 1, but this was a 1st for me and just testing the waters), I boiled the three litres down to about 1.5litres, then added the cane sugar, a pinch of citric acid, and let it keep boiling down to 0.5 litres, the stuff tastes and smells amazing, like wort toffee, literally! I had to beat Nicole and Enzo off to stop them eating it all ;o)
This mixture got added to the boil at 15 mins along with some nutrient and carageenan.

One problem I was left with now, was that 3 litres of the good stuff has not been lost, but wont be going into my kettle at full volume, so it leaves me with a bit more room to sparge… Now normally ive been sparging with only about 3-4 litres of water over my bag in a bucket, but this time I sparged with about 8 litres of water, using Spillsmostofits patented dunk sparge method – You basically have your spent bag of grain, pour 2 litres (my jug size) of 78*c water over it, let it steep for 5 mins, then dunk the bag in and out of the water, you will note the water changes from a clear pissy colour into wort, and the hydro readings confirm this.. After 8 litres im still pulling out wort at 1030 SG so I could technically sparge more, but theres no need to be greedy ;o) I started doing the dunk sparge over my method after talking to Jo and Mike about my process and they pointed out that the water would be going down the sides of the bag and not picking up the sugars, by dunk sparging the water picks up a lot more sugars, thus being a lot more effective!

So all in all it was a good brew day, a couple of new practices which ill definitely be putting in place again! Next time I caramelise im going to do 5 litres down to one, and im definitely going to dunk sparge from now on.

[JoKing]

I like. Your ears never turn off! I was pretty drunk when we were talking about your process - thenks for jogging my memory!

[Reviled]

It was like a lightbulb went off in my head when you guys mentioned that, I went and watched my sparge water and noticed the massive difference in colour when I started dunking! Imagine how much sugar I was wasting before :oP lol

BTW - The 25gms of Carafa actually added a fair whack of colour!

[JoKing]

Yeah - she'd be pretty dark. Are we talking somewhere around see through reddy / brown? Same colour as Aventinus?

[Reviled]

Yeah quite brown, allthough it will probably ferment out and be a dark copper/amber colour

[studio1]

cool! what size bucket do you dunk you sack in?

[Reviled]

A shitty small one mate, I struggle with it and actually need a bigger bucket, a bucket fermenter would be ideal to be honest!

[Bambule]

just inspired some carmelisation in my current batch. Making a best bitter, only took 1L though, couldn't convince myself to take all the best stuff out.

[Barbara Joppa]

Do you think this carmelisation would work for any beer style or more suitable for the darker beers? On the other side, would the porters and stouts be pushed over the edge with this method or would this make them even more yum? I love the idea. I'm just not sure which style to try it with, though.

[Reviled]

It definately works best for darker beers, I wouldnt say its over the top for a Porter or Stout, I guess it would depend on how much caramel/toffee taste you were after... You tried Alasdairs Irish red yeh? That was I think 5 litres down to 700mls which gives a massive toffee hit, but you could do it with less wort for a more subtle flavour im sure...

I probably wouldnt do it for lagers, but it could be nice in an IPA?