First Brew Amber Ale Input

So i just transferred my first brew to secondary about 3 days ago. Its a Amber ale. It had a nice amber color after being in the primary for about 8 days. And then i transferred it to a Secondary carboy. After 24 hours of being in the carboy, i noticed about a half inch of black on top of the beer. Now 3 days later, about 3/4 of the Carboy's Beer is black and the very bottom portion is still a dark Amber/brown color. Is that normal for some beers to do that or is something wrong with the batch?

how well did you sanitize? got any pics, doesn't sound good

Your beer is fine. What you are seeing is the yeast clumping up and settling to the bottom. The nice amber color you saw earlier was from the light reflecting off the suspended yeast. Now that it looks dark its because the yeast don't reflect any more. When you pour it into the glass it will be amber again.

attached is a picture of it, not the best, but where my finger is at is where you can kindof see the split in color. its alot more in person.

Good point RM, "black" is not how I would describe what it does when the yeast settle out though. To me its more like the cloudiness gradually gets lower and the top gets more liquid looking.


yeah, pic looks fine

alright thanks. its my first batch so ive just been worrying since brew day. haha

mtr6188 said:

alright thanks. its my first batch so ive just been worrying since brew day. haha

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You need something to take your mind off this brew and how it is doing. How about you buy a plastic bucket fermenter and another kit and start the next batch. It's legal to have more than one brew fermenting at once, you know.

I brewed a half size batch of Belgian With on Tuesday and a half size batch of pale ale today and I have an Irish red in the third fermenter that I may bottle tomorrow. Did I mention this hobby is addictive?:rockin:

RM-MN said:

You need something to take your mind off this brew and how it is doing. How about you buy a plastic bucket fermenter and another kit and start the next batch. It's legal to have more than one brew fermenting at once, you know.

I brewed a half size batch of Belgian With on Tuesday and a half size batch of pale ale today and I have an Irish red in the third fermenter that I may bottle tomorrow. Did I mention this hobby is addictive?:rockin:

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Im trying. haha. As soon as i put that in the secondary i made a Double Hop IPA, and as soon as i put that in another secondary this saturday, well, time to start on my third one which will be a milk stout. haha. This is turning into a weekend thing already and i havent even drank my first homebrew yet.