Flavorah Wheat
ConcreteRiver
This a a pre-release flavor, which was provided to me solely for the purposes of review.
Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 15 wrap 26g 3mm Nifethal 70 coils @.14 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: FLV Wheat, .25, 1, and 3%, others noted, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 9 days.
Flavor Description: Somewhere between a cracked wheat top note and a wheat bread additive.
Around 1%, definitely a wheat bread. Not full on 74 whole grains and no sweetness style of wheat bread, but more the brown flavor of square bread.
Relatively subtle yeastiness here, much more accurate to cooked bread than something aggressive like FA Joy or FLV Fried Dough. This doesn't seem like the kind of bready concentrate that's going to go straight to stale beer if you use an extra quarter of a percent. The concentrate in the bottle smells like proofing bread, but that warm yeastiness is fairly well balanced and doesn't overwhelm the concentrate when steeped.
There's a bit of fruity sweetness and some sourness in the base of this. Not enough to be truly offputting, but solo it's a bit distracting. Not really all that noticeable at lower percentages, and shouldn't be a big issue in mixes.
I'm missing some texture here, the top note accurate but it doesn't have the body to really carry it, at least solo.
Off-flavors: Not really a solo flavor, the base is a bit thin and sweet without that bready texture. Gets a little earthy and picks up a green malt note at higher percentage.
Throat Hit: Nah, not really.
Percentage testing: At .25%, i get a thin wheat top note out of this. Pretty much nothing going on in the base, but there's a light wheat coming through in the top notes. Light sourness here, but not overwhelming. I actually think it tastes like how cracked wheat smells at low percentages, and it seems to be picking up just a bit of grassiness.
At 1% this is a clearer wheat bread type of flavor. Light yeasty note here, and a warmer wheat flavor. Base is a bit sweeter, but not all that much thicker. Maybe a touch of a greener malt flavor, but works pretty well as an accent. Still missing some texture.
At 3% this is definitely more present, but hasn't gotten all that weird or aggressive. Yeast note is more pronounced, and maybe pushing more towards overwhelming. Greener, earthy flavor starting to pick up a bit. Soft base, very light texture.
Just based on these tests, I'd probably use this around .75-1.5% as a wheat top note in mixes.
Uses & Pairings: I'd use this more as a wheat additive to existing bready bakery mixes. I don't think quite has the body to pull off a bread by itself, but it should be able to pull more neutral flavors into something a bit heartier. I could see using this to bend cake and donut flavors to hit more specialized varities. Would make a decent stand-in in a donut flavor to something more traditional and less of a krispy kreme sugar bomb. Good modifier for a bread base if it needs a bit more presence in a mix.
Should pair well with cereals as well, would probably let you take everything in a healthy-ish tasting direction if you'd like more raisin bran than frosted flakes.