Hi, I’m John. Brewing for a year, 25 batches. I brewed the Brickwarmer Holiday Red all grain kit in November. As promised, it had a quick turnaround, and was ready by Christmas. People really like it, me too. But it is very dark for a red. NB lists the color as amber, mine is so dark you can’t see through it. If you hold it up to a light, you can see deep ruby. It also tastes very roast-y. Is this normal? Could I have done something to cause it? It’s a five gallon batch done in a 5g aluminum kettle. Boil was 4.5g, topped off after. Used S-04, fermented in the low sixties. I don’t think I could have boiled it hard enough to scorch it. I suspect it may have been mixed wrong at the store, too much dark malt. It arrived crushed and mixed. Thanks.
My father in law brewed one of those this year aswell and it too came out far darker than expected.
He told me it was a red and when i looked at it i said, “are you sure about that?”
although he does extract, not all-grain, which i thought was the problem. you did it all grain and its still that dark? strange
Maybe NB screwed up on this years round of kits?
Maybe, or maybe it shouldn’t be called “Red” or described as “amber”. It’s a good beer anyway. Thanks for confirming it. Anyone else?
I’ve done the extract version twice. Both waaaay darker than the picture on NBs page. I blamed extract, but maybe not so much…
^^^ Same here
I brewed the extract kit for Brickwarmer back in late October and didn’t crack one open until Christmas. I love the beer, but the color threw me off. I too blamed the extract. It’s a deep copper color, nearly opaque, and you can only see amber/red if you hold it up to a light. If all grain is giving you the same results, I guess that’s just how the color is supposed to be…
when I first started all grain brewing I used DE chlorinated tap water. my water was vary hard, still is. after a few brews I started using a mixture of tap and ro. now I’m basically building my water from scratch with ro as a base. this whole time my beers have been getting lighter in color , some in fact look like that lite beer in the can, can’t quite remember the name. my point is I believe water has a big impact on beer color (srm). not as much as the malt but sill an impact.
Well, it seems unanimous, it’s dark. I too cannot see through it unless held to light. I don’t think the water is a problem, Long Island water is pretty good for brewing. My blondes come out light in color.
Thank you all.
The BJCP lists Amber @10-17 SRM. I noticed NB didn’t list color in their profile. It would be interesting to call a tech and see what they say about the color range they give you. If you do post it, ok. Sounds like a brown.
I entered the AG recipe in Beersmith and it was right at 17srm. Old Guy was right with BJCP guidelines so this is right at the limit stylewise.
I found the same on Brewers Friend, it comes out amber with the listed ingredients. I don’t know if they changed the recipe, but everyone seems to find it dark.
