After the 2 weeks (per instructions) in the primary, I recently transfered the beer into the secondary. It started out as a nice golden orange color, but after 3 days has started turning a dark brown. Is this natural? It seems the be the complete opposite of what it should be since, the beer is supposed to be very light in color.
I’m not too worried about the color so much, just that the beer will be ok.
Thanks in advance,
Joe
I guess I should add, I am a complete novice at this, and this is my second batch. The first is currently conditioning in the bottles, so I do not know how that turned out.
Most likely your beer is fine. The following reasons could be why your beer looks darker: Extract kits are darker because you are doing a partial boil and darkening the sugar, when you’re looking through 5 gallons of beer it’ll look darker than in your glass, and fermentation will churn up particles that will block light thus making the beer look darker.
A word of advice, don’t follow the instructions as far as fermentation timeline. The best way to tell your beer is done fermenting is to check the gravity with a hydrometer. Once you get the same reading two days in a row, you are ready to secondary. There are clues that fermentation has finished such as slowed air lock activity and foam on top receding but these signs should prompt you to test gravity, not assume it’s done fermenting.
Alright, thanks. As for the following the instructions, I figured I would follow those exactly until I got the hang of it. I will try the reading method on my next batch.
Duffman, how did this batch turn out? I had the exact same thing happen to mine, started out with a nice golden color in the secondary and then after 4 to 5 days is got really dark and it left some dark sediment around the neck of the carboy.
Duffman & Scott504,
My honey weizen did the same thing. I haven’t bottled mine yet but I’m curious to know if yours turned out and if you’ve figured out what’ve might cause this.
NB’s Honey Weizen is a solid beer. I added fresh orange zest and coriander when I made it (about 16 months ago), but it turned out great. And yes, there’s no need to secondary a beer that style. If anything, I’d say give it 2 weeks in the primary then either keg or bottle. It’s an early drinker. There’s no benefit to aging any longer than that considering the low OG and style of beer.
