Using Halloween Candy for a beer recipe

[dangerisbrewing]

I'm starting to think is there a good use for all the kids candy they don't want...er the candy we don't want them to have
Whichever way we look at it, I think it's a good use for candy and should be considered.

Has anyone here ever used or thought of using Halloween Candy to make a beer?

Could we just melt down all the hard candies and suckers, to get the sugar out and put into the boil, or maybe put the chocolates in the mash?

[BOB357]

Why not? Most of it's probably 95+% simple sugars. Sounds like a great gravity booster to me. I would use it in a characterful beer so none of the artificial flavors shine through.

[Oginme]

There are also a number of fats and oils in candy which will affect your beer as well.  Generally, they will reduce the head retention greatly and could cause an issue with the fermentation by binding to the yeast cells.

[BOB357]

Good point. Never thought of that. I'd think that hard candies would be much less likely to contain fats and/or oils than things like chocolates, caramels, gummies, etc. What's your take on this?

[Oginme]

Thinking about it a bit, one could crush or melt the candies in hot water and then chill in the refrigerator to solidify the fats/oils.  Skim those off and you would have a sugar solution with the flavorings from the candy to add to the wort.

[BOB357]

great idea.

[Brew Bama]

Thinking about it a bit, one could crush or melt the candies in hot water and then chill in the refrigerator to solidify the fats/oils.  Skim those off and you would have a sugar solution with the flavorings from the candy to add to the wort.

That?s a good idea.

It reminds me of a video I saw where a guy made a tincture with alcohol (vodka I think) using cocoa nibs. Then then strained it thru a coffee filter to separate solid from liquid, cooled the liquid, skimmed the separated fat, and used the resulting tincture in his beer. He said he got the method from Drew Beechum.

All I ever did with cocoa nibs was put them in a hop sock, soak em in alcohol and dumped everything into a secondary. Who knew there was fat in them.