Did the sun ruin my Weinsteffaner . . ?

Hello Everyone . .

Well, I think I totally ruined my beer. I bottled it non-the-less, so only time will tell but I'm pretty sure its gone bad. Here's what happened . .

I did a PM of AHS Weihnsteffaner Heff. and I put it in a bucket of water in my family room with a black t-shirt over it with a fan blowing air down onto it. I kept it at around 69-72F for about 42 days in the primary. I thought that since the t-shirt is black, that it would keep all the light from getting into the fermenter.

So, I go to bottle today, and the beer is a dark dark color, and opening up the air lock left me with a non-heff smell. I didn't see any signs of infection at all during the fermentation, and the OG was 1.052 and the FG was 1.010, which was basically RIGHT ON. This beer has very little hops in it, and I remember it being a lot more heff colored. Any ideas as to what happened? Do you think the sun got through the t-shirt and just ruined my beer? Is it infected? I've bottled it last night and am just going to let it sit for a month or two and then crack one open and see how it tastes. I don't remember the Weihn being soo dark, and I may very well be wrong . . . but I would like some input.

No, the light didn't ruin your beer. The only thing light can do is skunk your beer, and only if it is in clear or light colored glass (specifically green) and you didn't have that issue. Your beer would smell like skunk if it was light struck, but it wouldn't do anything else.

It kinda does smell like skunk tho . . . this is just ODD! I'm reading around and my beer should look dark orange-ish. It was in the glass fermenter but it had a black t-shirt around it, but I don't know how well that stopped the light from getting in . . . .

The only thing that strikes me is that 42 days in primary is an awfully long time for a hefe. Anyone who has tried to wash & save Bavarian Hefeweizen yeast knows it has a short life & gets nasty pretty quickly. This is one style that really is best at a young, fresh age -- 2 weeks in primary is plenty; you could even do 10 days -- it's not like you care if it's clear -- it's a hefeweizen after all.

Yeah, wyeast 3068/wlp300 is a really stinky strain. It produced a ton of sulfur when I used it, and even at bottling it still smelled a bit off. A few weeks in the bottles took care of it though. I wouldn't worry.

I'm just afraid because of the color!! What do you think the color change is from? Could it be an infection? I thought this beer was supposed to be a cloudy orange like all other hefe's?

Here's the link to the AHS . .

AHS Weihn. . .

mkling said:

The only thing that strikes me is that 42 days in primary is an awfully long time for a hefe. Anyone who has tried to wash & save Bavarian Hefeweizen yeast knows it has a short life & gets nasty pretty quickly. This is one style that really is best at a young, fresh age -- 2 weeks in primary is plenty; you could even do 10 days -- it's not like you care if it's clear -- it's a hefeweizen after all.

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See, I was under the impression that 30 days was fine. This could VERY well be why my beers have been having such a STRONG yeast character to them. I'll be checking out the gravity at 2 weeks from now on, and see how that goes.

GLoBaLReBeL said:

See, I was under the impression that 30 days was fine. This could VERY well be why my beers have been having such a STRONG yeast character to them. I'll be checking out the gravity at 2 weeks from now on, and see how that goes.

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30 days is great for a lot of beers. In fact, you have less yeast character the longer things go. However, for hefeweizens much of their character comes from the yeast, so you don't want that to settle out/mellow out too much.

Well, I am going to begin brewing a Belgian white this weekend. Will be my first all grain with my new setup. I'll be sure to take a gravity reading after two weeks and see where I stand. I'll try bottling sooner this time, and maybe things will turn out better.

If worse comes to worse, and my batch is infected . . . will drinking one to test the taste hurt me in any way? And if it turns out to be good, but might be infected . . . is it worth it to even drink them or should I just toss them all?

Colour is never the same with bulk beer in a carboy vs in a glass. I'm sure it's fine.

PLus if you used liquid extract that could cause darkening. There's no way light can do anything to make the beer darker, and I've not seen any infections around these forums that effect color. Darker than average colors are normal when using liquid extract or Dry if you're scorching it. Also like Gremlyn said, It will appear much darker in the carboy. You're looking through 12-18 inches worth of beer versus 3-4 in a pint pint glass. Light doesn't pass through as easily.

Well, thank you EVERYONE for your help. I was going to just toss it, but I decided that I spent the $30, and hours making it, I might as well bottle it and see where it goes.

I wish I would have saved the yeast tho! I washed my last yeast (Blue moon clone, Belgian Wyeast 3944 i believe) and got 4 1/2 pint jars of yeast out of it! But then again, not many recipies call for the Weihnsteffaner yeast from Wyeast.

Absolutely bottle it! After all, even if something "bad" did happen, you could still come out with something you like. I've said this before: one of the greatest things about brewing is that if you screw up a beer, it usually just turns into a different kind of beer!

I made a wheat about a month ago (first wheat) and noticed that it got darker as well. In my case, it was because of all the suspended stuff began to drop out of suspension. I could tell because after I gave it a shake up to ensure a good fermentation, every day there was more darker coloured beer from the top down. And beer clears from the top down, so that was my logic behind it.

u know what . . . now that you mention it, the beer was actually lighter down at the bottom . . . I bet you that is the reason. It just sat for soo long that everything fell out of suspension. I'm going to stick now to the 2 week and then gravity test. I mainly brew wheats (actually . . . that's all I've brewed so far), so I should have a good turn around time with my beers hahaha.