Color of Dead Ringer

Northern Brewer General
1

Hello!

I recently kegged my 5th batch of beer. The 1st and 5th were/are both Dead Ringer (extract) and I’m noticing that the color of both is darker than I expected. The beer is excellent but it’s definitely darker than the picture shown on the website

. I don’t care much about the color but I do care that I’m doing things correctly so that I don’t screw up other batches.

I filter with some cooking equipment I have and there’s almost nothing floating in the beer that’s visible to the naked eye. I think the color is closest to Emma’s Ale

.

What might cause this?
Does it change the taste of the beer?
Does it change the thickness of the beer?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

2

did you turn your heat off when you added the extract? you could have burnt it which would make the color darker.

Did you add all of the extract at the beginning? or split to an early and late addition? this will keep your color lighter.

Most all grains tend to be darker than the all grain version.

3

I take it off the burner (it immediately stops boiling) and add the extract. My assistant (my wonderful/begrudging girlfriend) pours the extract slowly while I stir to keep it off the bottom of our stainless steel pot.

The NB instructions
http://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/beerkits/DeadRingerIPA.pdf
call for it to be added when water comes to a boil. I’m not a stickler for instructions so I’ll try splitting it next time. From what I understand, as long as the sugars are dissolved into the wort and boiled for sterilization, when you add them doesn’t change the flavor (which is what I would care about).

Guessing you meant extracts are darker than all grain. That makes sense.

The only other thing I can think of is that I boil 2.5 gallons of water then add in ~3 gallons at primary (assuming .5 galls or so boil off).

I only care because I’m boiling a Hoegaarden today or tomorrow and a dark White Ale would look pretty silly.

4

Extract brews are darker, especially doing the partial boils like you are. One note, adding the extract later will lower the bitterness of the hops. If you don’t care too much about the color, don’t deviate from the recipe for adding the syrup. It seems like your process is sound.

5

Thanks so much sawyer. Bitterness (or any flavor for that matter) are way more important to me than color.

6

I think you might be mistaken. Everything i have read states the higher the gravity the less hop utilization there will be. So if he had a lower gravity by not adding all the extract at the beginning wouldnt he have better hop utilization?

quote below from http://www.byo.com/stories/techniques/a … ew-science
“It is generally accepted that hop utilization is better in low-gravity worts than in high-gravity wort”

If i have this wrong can you explain why?

7

That’s correct, I was wrong. Higher gravity gives LESS bitterness; lower gravity, stronger. My mistake. :oops:

8

So much to learn! Thanks, both of you.

9

FWIW, even the all grain version is slightly darker than the bottled version of Bell’s 2-hearted.

As for the hop utilization bitterness and flavor, both will be more intense if you only boil about 1/2 the extract as was previously stated.