I recently brewed a 10 gallon IIPA. AG, very hop heavy. Boil went well. Transfer to 2 6.5 gallon primaries clogged up and literally had to siphon the whole batch into the carboys. Fermentation took off like crazy and blew through blow-off tubes. Made a small mess but never lost airlock. Due to mess and amount of hops in primaries I transferred after 5 days into secondaries. OG was 1.079, gravity at transfer were around 1.02 and 1.016. Colors identical. Now colors are different. Should I be worried?
The darkened one is oxidized. No doubt about it. It will taste different and much of the hops flavors will not be present. Maybe a bit more bitter as well. It may still be drinkable but you will need to decide.
My guess is the transfer and possibly the issue with the siphon causes the problem. Not sure why only one batch seems to be affected.
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The one on the left looks like it has a ton of yeast still in suspension.
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That’s one of the hazards of siphoning to a secondary especially with a lot of dry hops I would leave it in the primary.
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Did you use the same yeast strain on both?
Made 2 separate yeast starters with 2 separate packs of Omega DIPA.
That shouldn’t cause the change then. Maybe oxidization is the cause as mentioned above. I did a split batch last month with two different saison strains and they were still both the same color. Maybe try transfering with co2 with the heavily hopped beers from now on. I use the stainless racking cane with the orange top for carboys to transfer even though pressurizing carboys is ill advised.
Could it have gained to much oxygen from kettle to carbon? They both seemed to siphon fine and the same from primary to secondary.
No because the wort hasn’t fermented yet. Oxidation is only a real problem when transferring fermented beer.
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i disagree about it being oxidation. Your taste buds will tell us the truth on that. It looks like you have more trub still in suspension in one than the other. From the looks of it you transferred everything because thats a lot of trub for a secondary.
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Could be possible. Let it settle some more. What was the grain bill like for this beer?
Could be a bad picture and anything is possible but unless a dark malt was used. I’ve had oxidized beer and that was the color. And I’ve only oxidized beer transferring to a secondary without purging
Y’all make fun of me for my desire to see my beer in the fermenter 
That much volume skews the darkness 3 steps from my experience looking carboys and big mouthed bubblers
True but it’s the same beer same volume it should be the same color
Should be same kind of brew. Color wise. I would not worry about oxygen yet. Seems. One beer kicked in faster fermenting wise. On the left. Indeed yeast in suspension. Looks like it
Why wouldn’t you worry about oxidation?
Any recommendations on next step? I am thinking of smelling and tasting both this weekend to compare flavors and also thinking of transferring the cloudy beer to another carboy. Or should I just let them sit longer?
Thanks in advance.
I wouldn’t risk transferring it. With that much hops it may never clear but that’s okay. If you want some of the hops material to drop out cold crash. Why haven’t you tasted it yet. Curious to hear about it
The thing I noticed was the yeast. The one on the left has more yeast. It looks like the yeast has done its business. The tape is showing temp on one , but not the other.
