Planning on brewing the Caramelized 70/- recipe from Jamil’s, “Brewing Classic Styles.”
In the instruction regarding boiling down a gallon wort and adding it back to the main boil, he calls for “reducing it down until the sugars begin to caramelize.” Does that really mean cooking it down until it thickly coats the back of a spoon? What would an appropriate test be to gauge whether you’d reduced enough?
Yep, that’s what it means.
Great. Thanks, Denny.
Yeh volume speaking for a 5 gallon batch, pull the first gallon of wort and reduce down minimally to a half gallon, I reduce to a quart.
I usually take it down to a pint as suggested by skotrat. It gets very thick at that point.
Boil 'til you’re scared. It will start to foam up and try to boil over. Let it cool a wee bit before adding it to the main boil or it will cause a boil over there too.
It looks like boiling syrup when you’re done - large bubbles that persist on the surface and the color looks nearly black.