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Since sugar turns into caramel when heated, caramel is not sugar. I suppose then, that caramel still tastes sweet because of the uncaramelized sugar mixed in the caramel. Is it practically and/or theoretically possible to remove the sugar from the caramel, so that it won't have a sense of sweetness anymore? How would that taste?

Catija
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Albert Hendriks
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  • Might be of interest: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/45952/can-you-candy-salt-experiment-results – Jolenealaska Apr 12 '16 at 21:27
  • Off-topic, but any mention of non-sweet caramel makes me think of Norwegian Gjetost (brunost, brown cheese). It's sweet, but not sugary sweet. It gets its color from milk sugars that get caramelized during cooking. It reportedly is good as an ice cream flavor, too. – cape1232 Apr 13 '16 at 00:51
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    Yes. Burn it. It tastes... burnt. – David Richerby Apr 13 '16 at 01:44

1 Answers1

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It is very simple, you just have to heat it long enough. It can even happen by accident :)

The taste is a mixture of bitter and sour, while the smell component is mostly towards something burnt.

Also, your assumption "because of the uncaramelized sugar mixed in the caramel" is incorrect, or at least incomplete. There usually is such sugar, but many of the caramelization products of the early stages of caramelization also taste sweet on their own. In later stages, you get more and more nonsweet stuff until you get into the state I described (barely liquid charcoal).

rumtscho
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    Indeed, in beer, for instance, there is a good deal of use of partially caramelized barley sugars (in the form of "kilned malts") to make sweetness which is inaccessible to yeast (so it does not ferment into alcohol) but perceptible to human tasting. And the pretty much burnt variety as well. – Ecnerwal Apr 12 '16 at 18:57