St. Patty's Swamp Water (green beer thread)

So I brewed a Brewer's Best American Light Kit tonight. At flame out, I decided to make it a real green beer with food coloring. I added 15 drops of green coloring. I know that the sticklers, purists and prudes of the site are going to have nothing but negative comments. However, To each their own, I am actually very excited for this!

Anyway,

Here is a picture of Swamp Water.



Thanks and Flame on!
Jimmy

That's awesome, please post a picture of the first pint!!

tmurph6 said:

That's awesome, please post a picture of the first pint!!

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I will. I know this thread is going to be searched every St. Patty's day from here on out. I will post as many updates as possible.

Awesome! Well done!

I chose this recipe as I will be drinking a lot of beer, as will the friends who join me to drink this beer, on St. Patty's day. I wouldn't want to waste something as precious as a finely crafted Vanilla Java Porter home brew to get hammered. I will be cooking a meal of corned beef, cabbage and potatoes to accompany this beverage.

The recipe:

American Light
This recipe uses the traditional combination of
pilsner malt, rice and corn adjuncts. It is light bodied,
refreshing and thirst quenching. A very
easy recipe to brew and an excellent entry to
craft brewing.

FERMENTABLES
3.3 lb. Pilsen LME
1.0 lb. Pilsen DME
8 oz. Corn Sugar
8 oz. Rice Syrup Solids

HOPS
.5 oz. Bittering
.5 oz. Aroma

YEAST
Nottingham Ale Yeast

Additions
15 Drops Green food coloring

I used a stainless steel brew kettle and will be exclusively using a 5gal carboy for primary fermentation. I know these will not stain or be effected by the food coloring. I am however a little weary of bottling this beer. I am hoping that I do not have any staining of my bottling bucket, spigot and/or bottling wand.

I am planning on about 2 weeks in the Primary and about 2 weeks to carbonate this beer. I know this isn't really enough time but I had this idea a little too late but plan on seeing it through. A plus is that it will be green in flavor and color!


2/20/11 As of this morning I had some airlock activity so fermentation seems to have happily begun starting my green beer adventure!

Thanks,
Jimmy

Food coloring in beer! Ugh, only thing worse is putting fruit in your beer. You obviously have no class or dignity!!!

I'm kidding, I think this is awesome and should make for a great St. Paddies day brew. Any reason you decided on the food coloring at flame out, rather than at bottling/kegging time?

^So that you could mix the dye in with the whole beer?

RMitch said:

^So that you could mix the dye in with the whole beer?

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I would think a bottling bucket would give the same effect. I wasn't suggesting manually putting a drop in each bottle.

My question was mainly revolving around the curiosity of whether the heat of the wort, or the time spent in the fermenter, would affect the end green color at all. I don't know, just curious.

I guess its easier to get a good mix of the green color while pre-fermented. You wouldn't want to risk oxygenating the fermented beer.

RMitch said:

I guess its easier to get a good mix of the green color while pre-fermented. You wouldn't want to risk oxygenating the fermented beer.

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I figured that it was more practical to just add the color to the wort while in the brew pot. I knew it would lighten up when I added water to top off the wort. There was no real method behind the madness to my decision.

Stout > ****ty green beer

ODaniel said:

Stout > ****ty green beer

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I like the idea of going against the generally accepted parameters. So when I noticed there was a big debate on this forum about coloring light beer I decided that I wanted to do it, but not only do it, but document it for the community to see.

And to be perfectly honest, Its not going to be just a ****ty green beer. Its going to be a nice homemade light ale that happens to be green.

EoinMag said:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f19/its-not-st-patties-day-dammit-168568/#post1948148

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Thanks. Point taken. Add me to your list of ignorant American's that use St. Patrick and pseudo-Irish pride as an excuse to get belligerently drunk in public.

I am also curious to see how this looks in the glass, keep us informed.

TwoFortySX said:

Thanks. Point taken. Add me to your list of ignorant American's that use St. Patrick and pseudo-Irish pride as an excuse to get belligerently drunk in public.

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Added.

2/22/11 *UPDATE*

The fermentation slowed enough that I could remove the blow off tube and get an airlock on it. I learned that if you are going to use food coloring that you will undoubtedly end up staining your stoppers. I am currently soaking the one that came off but i dont know if it will be coming clean. The tubing I used for the blow off is soaking also but its just dirty and should be fine.

The color has lightened to more of a pale green and is noticeably more yellow in color. I would guess that as this beer sits that a lot of the green color is going to fall out with the sediment. I would not be surprised if the green color was almost completely gone by bottling time.

Well, when the bar runs out of green beer, they just put a drop into each pint, so you could always add a bit to your bottling bucket before you transfer the beer into that or put a drip into each bottle before the beer enters.

yeah I don't want to bash this idea but I will say that I "grew out" of wanting to drink green beer on St.Patty's day when I **** green the next day.

I agree with the statement Stout > Green.

I tend to associate green beer with that of drunken Frats/****** baggery now.

Gridlocked said:

Well, when the bar runs out of green beer, they just put a drop into each pint, so you could always add a bit to your bottling bucket before you transfer the beer into that or put a drip into each bottle before the beer enters.

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If the beer continues to turn more yellow then I think I am indeed going to add more coloring at bottling.

What I am going to do is bottle about 6 bottles as it sits without adding any more coloring. Then continue to add a little bit more color to the bucket and bottle in batches of 6. This should to help attain the amount of coloring needed at bottling to have a green looking beer.

I figure that I have already helped come to a conclusion about when to add coloring. It is definitely not desirable to add the coloring at flame out as I did.


Jimmy

TwoFortySX said:

Thanks. Point taken. Add me to your list of ignorant American's that use St. Patrick and pseudo-Irish pride as an excuse to get belligerently drunk in public.

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Patty, Paddy, what's the difference? It all sounds the same where I come from.

mhermetz said:

yeah I don't want to bash this idea but I will say that I "grew out" of wanting to drink green beer on St.Patty's day when I **** green the next day.

I agree with the statement Stout > Green.

I tend to associate green beer with that of drunken Frats/****** baggery now.

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I can understand your point of view. The idea that celebrating St. Patrick's day with a traditional Irish style beer is something I can agree with. And, yes, I know a lot of fraternity ****** bags will be coloring Miller Lite or Coors Light green and dressing like leprechauns.

I am not sure how other cities in America celebrate St. Patrick's day but Pittsburgh has always had a huge parade and made a huge day out of it. I would guess it is due to the huge amount of Irish immigrants that lived here. I wouldn't say they condone the amount of drinking in the streets that goes on but I would say that they dont try to hamper it.

As long as I have been able to drink and even before that, St. Patrick's day has been highly anticipated. My friends and I always celebrate with traditional types of food and drinks. I always make a huge amount of corned beef, potatoes and cabbage for people to eat. Last year we drank Jameson Irish whiskey and Guinness while we watched Boondock Saints.

So this year creating a beer that will be green out of the bottle is something that I want to be able to surprise my friends with. Its not going to be exclusively the only beer. I am sure that someone will bring a good stout to the party.

I have yet to understand how adding a slight bit of color to a beer that is essentially just an average homebrew can cause so many people to act is if I am breaking one of the ten commandments.

The reason I decided to even document the process or post information on this site about it was because I know there are a lot of people that want to try it. But they are too meek to ask on here for fear of being bashed to death without getting any real answers.

So, again, to each there own. I brew for my friends, family and myself. If green beer will will excite them and they will enjoy it then I am going to do it. This site has a wealth of information and I have learned so much from just searching and lurking here. It also has a lot of people who are stubborn and stuck in the "traditional" ways that beer should be made and consumed. If you want to split hairs, without people going outside of the realm of what is generally accepted there would have been very few advancements in the drink that we love. I am not saying that adding green food coloring is by any means a breakthrough in home brewing but you get the point.


Thanks,
Jimmy

Well said, Jimmy. Do what we homebrewers do best, making beer we like, for the people we like.

Good idea. Hopefully adding the color at the end will green it up and not make the end product look like early morning diarrhea. I hope it turns out OK. On the bright side, even if it does look like baby poop it should still taste fine.

I'm adding my coloring at secondary mainly because that's when all activity has stopped and dropped out also so I can see what the final color will be... I'm only gonna keep it there for a week before I keg it..

408Brewer said:

On the bright side, even if it does look like baby poop it should still taste fine.

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That was one of the thoughts that lead me to the decision to even try it. Even if it looks like swamp water, it is still going to be an okay beer in the end.



On a side note, I have been brainstorming my Easter beer. I think I have narrowed it down to an IPA of some sort that I am going to call Floppy Ear IPA because its going to have a lot of HOPS!

I really want to see how this looks in a pint glass

Probably should have waited until bottling/kegging to add the food coloring.

schweaty said:

Probably should have waited until bottling/kegging to add the food coloring.

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Probably.

At this point you probably want to get it as clear as possible and drop everything out before adding more dye. Have u considered cold crashing it for a few days, or adding some gelatin at secondary?

tmurph6 said:

At this point you probably want to get it as clear as possible and drop everything out before adding more dye. Have u considered cold crashing it for a few days, or adding some gelatin at secondary?

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The beer is still fermenting, I just put it in the primary on Saturday night. I really haven't considered cold crashing or using gelatin to clarify this beer.

Man, all your gear is gonna be stained green (along with your teeth, hah). (=

I have had luck bleaching my plastic buckets in the past. Just make sure you rinse out really well.

I decided to do the whole fermentation in my glass carboy because I feared staining my primary with the food coloring. As of right now the only thing I have that got a little stained is a stopped I used. The stopper has came fairly clean so I am not worried about it.

I am a little worried that I will stain my bottling bucket bucket when I bottle this. However, if I stain some tubing that's no big deal to replace and I figured I could always bleach the bucket if it stained.

On another note, the beer is towards the end of fermentation. A lot of the green color has dropped out. The beer is slowly turning a straw color like it originally should. I am unsure how much green coloring I want to put back in this at bottling. I am going to let it sit another week before I bottle.

As for all the people spewing garbage you said it reminds you of a db frat party, well you probably were at one of those in your life. Don't hate, this guy has done something most don't agree with but hell what would beer be like if others hadn't. Im not down for the green sh*ts but oh well. Keep us all updated. I might do this next year just because I can and all my buddies would get a rise out of it. As a matter of fact im gonna go one step futher, im going to do what you did but do pink for my buddies diaper party for his upcoming daughter in a month and a half. Thanks for the great idea! Brew on my friend.

mhermetz said:

yeah I don't want to bash this idea but I will say that I "grew out" of wanting to drink green beer on St.Patty's day when I **** green the next day.
...
I tend to associate green beer with that of drunken Frats/****** baggery now.

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You don't want to bash the idea, but you go right on to do just that... lol
People that can't handle ideas beyond their own narrow view should get off of internet forums and stick to traditional published works for their reading enjoyment. Wow - I think we can all point to the real evidence of ****** baggery in this thread.

brrman said:

You don't want to bash the idea, but you go right on to do just that... lol
People that can't handle ideas beyond their own narrow view should get off of internet forums and stick to traditional published works for their reading enjoyment. Wow - I think we can all point to the real evidence of ****** baggery in this thread.

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Like green beer is anything new and groundbreaking...

I would like the idea more if it was a decent beer. I'd rather have a green saison or something than a green "american light". Might as well get some green miller lite.

ODaniel said:

Like green beer is anything new and groundbreaking...

I would like the idea more if it was a decent beer. I'd rather have a green saison or something than a green "american light". Might as well get some green miller lite.

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I see that this thread has taken a negative turn which I really didn't want but I kind of expected it. But Mr. "ODaniel", that comment is such a joke that I can not even take it seriously. You get called out for your previous post so you decide to back off the original insult and shift your attempted bashing to the fact that its an american light style beer? Are you hoping that other members support bashing the style of beer since no one backed your initial insult?

Homebrewing is homebrewing regardless of the style of beer you are making, the equipment you are using or how experienced you are. If you really loved homebrewing you would spread knowledge not negativity.

ODaniel said:

Like green beer is anything new and groundbreaking...

I would like the idea more if it was a decent beer. I'd rather have a green saison or something than a green "american light". Might as well get some green miller lite.

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By the looks of the beers in your signature, you don't know what new and groundbreaking is... Just sayin

Like he said early on. Why waste a very high quality homebrew to get half in the bag. You can't call yourself a beer lover if you dismiss another style out of personal opinion. I personally hate wheats and saisons. Im not slamming you. If there can't be a positive comment made, move onto a different thread. There are plenty, let us enjoy a spirited holiday dumb fratboy tradition in our own way. Brew on.