extracts or the real thing ?

[odie]

what's y'all's opinions on flavorings? the real deal or extract?

I get that you can't honestly say you made a honey brown if there is no honey. Maple stout without real syurp. vanilla porter with imitation vanilla. pecan ale without toasted pecans, fruit whatever without the fruit...

But it often seems what real ingredients we add sometimes doesn't really translate to the final product. Either because of the boil or the fermentation. What we put in gets lost at the end. Is this where extracts come into play? Or is extracts just "cheating"?

A real extract I wouldn't feel too dishonest...but sometimes the choice is whole ingredient or imitation.

In which cases does a whole ingredient vs extract basically taste the same and which ones the difference is huge? Syrup and honey so much is fermented maybe extracts are the way to go?

like cacao powder vs nibs...I probably think they come out the same...but "nibs" just sounds cooler.

 

[bucketnative]

I have spoken with some professional brewers who are up front about their use of extracts. Often times they will use extracts to supplement or complement what they get using fresh fruit. A few brewers have specifically mentioned that they do that with strawberries, because they are such a delicate fruit to work with. As long as a pro-brewery is up front about it (and, they have to be up front with TTB when they file a formula), I have no problem with it. See TTB requirements for what constitutes a non-standard ingredient: https://www.ttb.gov/images/pdfs/rulings/ttb-ruling-2015-1-attachment-1.pdf

As a home brewer, who cares? As long as I am happy with the final product, I'm fine with whatever gets me there.

 

[TurnipGreen]

No such thing as cheating as a brewer. The fun of home brewing is you can just make stuff up. Sometimes it works, sometimes it’s really gross, but it will alway be beer.

Hubba bubba watermelon gum doesn’t taste anything like watermelon, but it reminds you of watermelon.
I kind of like the stuff that just reminds you of something. Saisons don’t actually have any hay in them, but they remind you of hay. Some to the point that you can imagine the French farmer cursing you out for stacking hay bails wrong. Belgian beers and citrus IPAs don’t need to have citrus in them to get that flavor and feel.

I did have a really good pale ale that was racked on top of pine straw to get a good pine flavor though. That was pretty cool. So, however you get there it’s beer and it’s good.

 

[sicktght311]

I use flavorings for some fruits and real fruit for others. I’ve never been happy with fresh mangoes giving off the right flavor no matter how much I use, so for that I’ll use mango flavoring. But for my strawberry milkshake ipa, I use real frozen strawberries.

 

[kevin58]

You don't have to use literal ingredients to achieve the character of a particular flavor profile.

 

[Robert65]

You don't have to use literal ingredients to achieve the character of a particular flavor profile.

This is so true. The human brain is an amazing thing, and very easy to trick. Some things are a matter of degree: fenugreek tastes so much more like maple than maple itself does, it is the standard flavoring in pancake syrup. Some are associations: people associate allspice with pumpkin and caraway with rye, though pumkin and rye don't really contribute intense flavors themselves. And sometimes just substitution of a similar flavor is practical. I worked through a problem with a friend once. He wanted to make a beer that tasted like peanut butter and white chocolate for his wife, but all the real peanut products pose significant challenges and white chocolate really isn't chocolate. The solution was toasting some 2 row in the oven until it took on a sweet, nutty aroma and flavor, suggesting fresh roasted peanuts. White chocolate was suggested by vanilla bean. Think flavors, not ingredients.

 

[odie]

I dropped 2# pure maple syrup in a RIS. Was not cheap. The maple is only subtle