I am so confused about why this would happen. I was brewing a small/scaled down BIAB version of the Northern Brewer All Grain Cream Ale kit. Note that I was brewing a copy and not the actual kit. I entered the grain bill into Beersmith and scaled it down for a 2 gallon BIAB recipe. The recipe amounts were:
3 lbs American Pale Ale 2 Row
5 oz. Honey Malt
2 oz. Biscuit Malt
.5 oz Cluster
1/2 Whirfloc tablet
I started the boil with 3.5 gallons and ended up with 2 gallons in the fermenter. OG was 1.030 which was a point or two under estimates. NO extracts and nothing else added to the pot.
The final product came out with a brown/copper color that was definitely not intended. It is quite dark, as in like Bass Ale. The color should have been light or amber. What could be the reasons for why this would occur?
Thanks!
High mash pH can darken a beer by extracting more color than intended and by increasing maillard-like reactions. If your water has high alkalinity, that could do it.
I used Poland Spring bottled water for the brew and have never concerned myself with pH. I guess I should be concerned with it now. : (
1.5 gallons of boil off is on the high end. This could mean a very vigorous boil and some carmilization of the wort, that would cause a darker color.
Also - the color in the fermenter always looks much darker than the color in the pint glass. So I wouldn’t be too worried
Thank you for the responses. I am not worried, per say. Just trying to understand and be able to one day match the color of the recipe.
The 1.5 gallons was not all boil off. It was about half that, say .75 gallons for boil off and .75 for hot break left behind in the kettle.
The boil was done on a gas stove top and although it is a high output burner, it doesn’t scream like a turkey fryer setup. I guess it is possible to have had a too vigorous boil, but I thought that was encouraged.
This is something I’d like to get to the bottom of and I just don’t know how.
One thing I am wondering is if the LHBS may have given me the wrong grain. I am not familiar enough with the malts to be able to spot them.
A vigorous boil IS encouraged, and it doesn’t sound like yours was over-the-top.
It’s possible that the lhbs gave you the wrong grain… My theory is that it looks darker in bulk than it will in the glass. It always does
Thanks. I would just like to know if I need to start messing with pH, or be concerned about caramelization in the boil.
But I am thinking the lhbs substituted the Honey Malt with something else/similar. I ordered via the web and picked it up. I don’t have any other Honey to compare it to, but it looks more brown than it does in the pics on the web. Not a scientific comparison, I know! Also not 100% sure if 5 oz in a batch could color a brew that much or not?
caramelization isn’t a big deal. it’s normal, and can be tasty.
taking ph readings is always good practice. although i would wait until the beer is ready before you start fixing problems that might not exist yet.
also a proper scaling down of the recipe would be 4.8oz of honey malt, 1.6 oz of biscuit, and 2.8 lbs of 2-row. so naturally it will be slightly darker.
once you bottle, carb, and chill it. report back on how the color looks in the pint glass. it will be lighter than you think.
edit: there are some water profile programs that you can download that give you an estimate of what your pH is. also gives other water adjustment info/recommendations . the best program is called Bru’nwater
Thank you for the advice. I think you’re right - when siphoning into the fermenter it didn’t appear very dark in the tubing, so I think the final product will be lighter than I think.
The ingredients were in fact rounded up so as not to require measuring fractions of ounces. You are right about that being a cause as well, didn’t really take that into consideration.
