I know cabbage flavors in beer are typically associated with DMS. I am experimenting with natural dye in beer. I’m hoping to take a beer that would typically be light in color, and give it a purple tint. A friend of mine is a cancer survivor and has a life-long story of battling cancer with friends and loved ones. She is part of a Relay for Life team, which is a charity for cancer research. I want to support that, and their “thing” is purple. So…
Red cabbage makes a fine purple dye, but what does it do to beer? I took 5.7 lbs of chopped red cabbage and boiled it in 15 gallons of water for 20 minutes. This was the result. I intend to use this as my mash water. What do you guys think? What should I look out for? Can you think of other natural ways I can add a purple hue to the beer? I’m brewing tomorrow morning and looking to get some input. I figure, if this fails (which it probably will!), I can just brew a normal beer with purple food coloring… but that wouldn’t be very fun, would it?
I found that the mixture comes out blue with the pH level that my water supply is, but with a couple drops of lactic acid, the solution turns a beautiful shade of purple.
My intention is to mash with this solution. The taste of the cabbage definitely comes through, but I wonder how it will play with the malty-grain bill I’ve chosen. I’m not very optimistic after tasting the water… but it might work. Thoughts?
However, after tasting the water again this morning, I am abandoning the idea. I think this idea would make an interesting looking beer, but cabbage tea just has an awful taste. Bitter, buttery, salty, and sulfur in the aroma. This would not make a good beer. I guess my hopes were that I could extract the color without too much of the flavor components.
So I’m brewing a blonde ale today. Any recommendations on how I can turn it purple prior to kegging? The beat idea was pretty cool, but I’m behind schedule on that.
+1 to beets and I would add hibiscus to the list. It adds a nice tartness too. Never brewed with it, but I’ve had a couple beers brewed with it. And a -2 to the cabbage-y, ‘fart beer’.
Blackberries will give you a deep, inky purple. Blueberries are close to that color as well. Hibiscus is in the pink-to-magenta range. Beets are red/purple. Red wine must (Merlot/Cabernet/etc) will get you into the deep purplish-red range as well.
A lot of the color will be quite dependent on how much you add. For example, at 1 oz/gallon steeped Hibiscus adds a deep pink color. For full-on red you’ll need to go higher. For a lighter blush, maybe 1/3 to 1/2 oz/gallon will do.
When you add the ingredients matters as well. A lot of natural dyes are degraded or changed by heat and/or pH. Certain colors will be different depending on whether you add them on the hot side or cold side.
Good luck, and please continue to share your results!
With all the rage over Black IPA and White IPA and Red IPA and Brown IPA, I have been wondering how to make a Purple IPA. Looks like this may be the answer. I would thank you, but I am a style nazi, and… ew.
Maybe getting purple from smaller amounts of different things (like beets, hibiscus, and berries) would get a purple that wouldn’t have too strong a flavor of one thing. Also, you mentioned using it as your mash water. I wonder if it would difficult to get a workable PH if you did it first like that.
Sometimes its hard to judge intent and tone in settings like this. Are you making fun of the OP? It seems this person wants to make a purple colored beer for a good reason and it could be a fun experiment and I think folks were having fun trying to figure out the best way to do this. Maybe there is an ongoing joke that I don’t get that you know the OP is in on about style guidelines but I don’t think this thread has anything to do with any style. I apologize if I’m wrong and you were not criticizing the OP or otherwise being snarky. Just wondering what these posts were about.
I don’t want to ignore you, I enjoy your posts very much and I get the joke and knew you were being silly. Its just that I couldn’t tell if your sarcasm was directed at commercial beers and style guidelines (funny), or towards the original poster (not funny). I noticed that the OP hasn’t been on the thread since it took a turn away from the comments that were trying to help with the question. I was wondering if they were turned off to the forum which would be a shame for someone who has just joined as they would miss out on a lot.
+1 to blueberries in the blonde if you like that sort of thing - the color would come through nicely. I’ve done a saison with hibiscus, sweet orange and saffron that was really popular, but it was more of a red color.