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Caramel Flavour Standard
The Caramel Flavour Standard is primarily used by professional tasters to recognise and measure the intensity of the caramel character in beer and other beverages.
In alcoholic beverages, the caramel flavour is introduced by the Maillard reaction, which comes from the malting process. It can be a positive flavour, giving rich caramel and toffee-like tastes to beers and spirits.
Whereas in non-alcoholic beverages, this off-flavour is imparted by sugars and caramel flavourings. Therefore, individuals on the sensory panel should learn to detect and identify this off-flavour as part of a regular training programme for sensory quality control.
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What is Caramel Flavour?
Caramel flavour is a distinctive taste characteristic that ranges from sweet, rich caramel and toffee-like notes to more complex burnt, nutty, or chocolate-like sensations. In the context of sensory analysis, the Caramel Flavour Standard serves as a reference tool used by professional tasters to identify, measure, and calibrate the intensity of caramel character in beverages.
This flavour profile can manifest as both a desirable characteristic that enhances product appeal and an unwanted off-flavour that compromises quality, depending on its concentration and the type of beverage.
What Causes Caramel Flavour?
In alcoholic beverages, this flavour is introduced by the Maillard reaction, which occurs during the malting process. It can be a positive flavour, providing rich caramel and toffee-like taste to beers and spirits. In high concentrations, this flavour can alter the brand profile, providing a burnt, almost nutty-like flavour. The fermentation process can also introduce caramel flavours.
In non-alcoholic beverages, this off-flavour is imparted by sugars and caramel flavourings. It can accumulate due to poor cleaning in process systems or through the use of burnt or contaminated sugars.
Using the Caramel Flavour Standard for Sensory Training
The Caramel Flavour Standard is an essential component of professional sensory training programs. Here’s how it’s effectively implemented :
Training Protocol
1. Baseline Recognition : Tasters learn to identify the standard caramel flavour profile using calibrated reference samples
2. Intensity Scaling : Participants practice rating caramel intensity on standardised scales
3. Threshold Determination : Training establishes individual and panel detection thresholds
4. Consistency Checks : Regular calibration ensures consistent evaluation across different tasting sessions
How to Recognise Caramel Flavour : Sensory Terms
Professional tasters use specific descriptive terms to identify and communicate caramel flavour characteristics :
Caramel : Sweet, rich, golden syrup-like notes
Chocolate : Cocoa-like, slightly bitter undertones
Burnt Caramel : Intense, slightly acrid caramelised sugar notes
Nutty : Roasted, almond-like characteristics
Earthy : Deep, soil-like undertones
What are the Professional Applications of the Caramel Flavour Standard?
The Caramel Flavour Standard serves multiple critical applications across the brewing and beverage industries :
– Brewmasters and beer tasters use it to identify and assess the intensity of caramel character in their products, ensuring optimal flavour balance from the Maillard reaction during malting while preventing excessive burnt or nutty off-flavours that can alter brand profiles.
– Sensory analysts utilise it for flavour evaluation of spirits, beers, juices, syrups, and other sugar-based products to ensure quality consistency and detect unwanted caramel off-flavours that may develop during processing or storage.
– Quality control teams and beverage producers rely on it to ensure consistent flavour profiles by detecting caramel off-flavours as part of regular sensory training programmes for maintaining product quality standards.
Other Information
– Beer Flavour Wheel Number : 0420
FlavorActiV GMP Flavour Standards
Only Pharmaceutical Quality GMP Flavour Standards provide sufficient quality for professional sensory panels to train and validate with.
We produce encapsulated GMP (Pharmaceutical Good Manufacturing Practice) Flavour Standards that are safe to both smell and drink. The compounds within our capsules impart the aroma, taste and mouthfeel of a specific defect or positive flavour into a beverage for the purposes of taster training, calibration and quality control.
Our individual flavour GMP Flavour Standards are sold by flavour, each flavour pack contains 5 capsules, each separately blister packaged. Our sensory kits contain a mixture of flavours, each separately blister packaged, read the product description for flavour details.
We ship globally, and have over 20 years of experience at it. Our GMP Pharmaceutical Flavour Standards are produced to the highest standards, and as such, their shelf-life is strong and their quality consistent.
FlavorActiV’s flavour centre is the world’s only pharmaceutically run facility dedicated to the production of flavour reference standards. The Flavour Centre is a state-of-the-art facility housed within the campus of world-renowned Quay Pharma near Liverpool in the U.K.
The Flavour Centre was designed by FlavorActiV from the ground up at the direct request of global customers as they looked to move away from inferior food grade ‘certified flavour standards’ to GMP Pharma, a standard that ensures safe, stable, traceable, consistent and long shelf-life products.
All FlavorActiV’s industry-leading encapsulated flavour standards are manufactured following GMP at our Flavour Centre. All aspects of manufacture are overseen by Quay Pharma who are audited by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.K. Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory agency (MHRA). We also welcome customer audits.
Only FlavorActiV GMP flavour standard capsules bear our mark of authenticity.
We brand each of our capsules so that our customers know they’re getting the Pharmaceutical GMP Quality that only FlavorActiV provide.
Industry leading packaging and shelf-life
FlavorActiV flavour standards are blister packaged, which extends shelf-life and protects capsules from potential contamination. The average shelf-life of FlavorActiV flavour standards is 18 months to 4 years, depending on the flavour compounds.
We will never ship in pots or plastic packaging, here’s why…
Blister packaging protects capsules from the environment until they are ready for use. Blister packaging greatly reduces the amount of headspace for possible flavour escape. As each capsule individually blister packaged, making use of one capsule still leaves all others protected. FlavorActiV Flavour Standard packaging is 100% recyclable, as opposed to polypropylene which is not widely recycled.
Pots are semi-porous, they allow molecules to pass through and flavour to be lost, their significant headspace also adds to substantial flavour escape as a gas, even when using just one capsule all those remaining in the pot are exposed.
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