Flavorah Caramel
ConcreteRiver
Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 15 wrap 26g 3mm Nifethal 70 coils @.17 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: FLV Caramel @ 3%, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 29 days.
Flavor Description: Heavy on the sugar, light on any sort of cream. Moderate pleasant sweetness. Mouthfeel is a little buttery but no real rich, buttery taste to it. More of a brown sugar simple syrup than full caramel.
Inhale is dense brown sugar sweetness. Natural tasting sweetness without any chemical off-flavors. Exhale is relatively thin, with some cooked sugar top notes but mostly a middle-heavy raw brown sugar taste. Really subtle richness here with a richer mouthfeel than actual taste. Overall tastes quite a bit thinner than you'd expect from a relatively strong flavor.
Off-flavors: Slightly soapy aftertaste solo. A little bit like grabbing a glass the dishwasher didn't quite finish with. I've never noticed it coming across in a mix.
Throat Hit: Light. Raw sugar taste is a bit harsh.
Uses & Pairings: I'd use this a lot like TFA Brown Sugar Extra, a richer dark sweetener. Good fit for bakery applications, as that brown sugar sweetness does taste a little cooked and fairly natural.
/u/joesepaa/ mentions a RY4 in the second opinions a bit later, and that does seem like a natural fit. This would be great as a sweetener for tobacco mixes without adding any weird candy or sucralose notes.
Tastes a bit raw for lighter creams, but it could bump up some brulee notes or sweetness with a custard mix.
Lacks the body or richness I'd want from a solo caramel. I don't see getting to a full caramel without a different caramel concentrate in the mix. Even with the diketones here, doesn't seem to be much richer than FA Caramel.
Notes:
S&V Concentration testing, what little richness I get here comes in low. As low as 1% and I get about all the buttery notes that seem to be available here. That raw brown sugar and sweetness scale up from there. I'd mix with this at 1% if I was just shooting for whatever caramel this brings to the table. I'd bump up to 2 to 3% if you're mostly after the sweetness here. This definitely isn't a solo concentrate for me, just because I find that raw sugar note off-putting by itself.
Overall, seems like a good sweetener, but not a great caramel.
Second Opinions:
It's probably worth noting that I've heard rich used quite a bit to describe this. A couple reviews on flavorah's site and one review on ECX talk about this richness. I just don't get it here.
/u/joesephaa/ provides a quick rundown and suggests pairing with coffee and tobacco.