Testing how well butterfly pea flowers would color a batch blue, sharing some findings.
While searching on web for similar attempts, read somewhere that PH is a critical issue, so went ahead with some testings.
I did an infusion of dried flowers in cold water and it did extract the color quite well.
To start, did a quick test by adding one drop of phosphoric acid in about a cup of water previously tinted with the blue solution and it immediately went from blue to purple, like magic 😐
Took my PH meter, water and lactic acid to setup couple samples at different PH, specifically at 2.95, 3.75, 4.40, 5.07, 5.32 and 6.63. Then added 20 drops of tinted solution to each sample.
Samples ready for testing:
Test results:
Closer look:
Clearly, only after PH 6 (Neutral to alkaline), color still remained blue. PH lower than 6 (acidic), color changes to purple, at different levels.
Then tested a sample with real home brewed beer, a very light SRM beer, on which I measured PH of 4.01.
Guess what happens when added the blue drops?
Yes, looks purple and weird.
Here's a another view;
Conclusion is, unless one produces a neutral to alkaline PH beer, color will not be blue.
That seems to be hard to achieve given the PH drop caused by carbonation (carbonic acid).
