Too dark?

Brewers Best American Pale Ale kit.
Two weeks in primary.
Photos are me racking to carboy and adding 1 oz Citra.


This is my second brew. My first was a Brewers Best IPA, which did not turn out well. There was no hop presence at all. Not during fermentation, and nothing in final (aroma or taste). I would best describe that batch as turning out very "yeasty", and also turned out to be very dark and cloudy. (darker than I would expect from an IPA)

The color of this for being an American Pale Ale, given the results of how my first brew turned out, has got me concerned. It is similarly dark. On the bright side however, this has a strong hop presence (even prior to adding fresh hops) so that has me feeling a LITTLE more confident about the final product.

I plan to secondary for 3 weeks, and I assume that I will get some more settling which might(?) help clear this up a little?

Seeking opinions from more experienced brewers. Does this seem dark for an APA? Is there reasonable cause for concern? Is this guy overreacting?

Thank you in advance

- Hoss

As far as color, it's always hard to tell from a picture. But, you can never judge a beer's final color from what it looks like in the carboy. It will be lighter in the glass when it's finished. It always looks darker in larger volume than it will in a smaller container.

If it turns out darker than you expected you may have caramelized the LME you added at the beginning of the boil. Adding it at the beginning of the boil you have to keep it stirred so the LME doesn't drop to the bottom. I personally don't add LME/DME till the last 15-20 minutes of the boil.

Can you list the ingredients? Even if it turns out a bit dark for the style if all went well in your process it should still taste great. As posted above a glass of it will obviously appear lighter than 5 gallons, and it may lighten some in the secondary. That said, the color was determined in the recipe and the kettle; nothing you can do about it now anyway! Looks nice to me by the way....

You can't judge a beers color by looking at it in a carboy. Remember in a pint glass you are looking through 3" of beer tops. In a carboy it's 12" min. Sounds to me like you are scorching your DME. You need to pull your kettle off the heat when you add it, and I recommend adding it late to reduce caramelization. One other piece of advise I will give you.... There are a lot better extract kits out there than Brewers best. When I first started that was all I used because the shop that carried them was 15 min down the rd and they were cheap. I recommend trying out northern brewers kits, I liked them much better than BB, and made way better beer with them.

Here is the link for his recipe

http://www.brewersbestkits.com/pdf/1013 2013 American Pale Ale.pdf

I feel like you may be onto something with the scorching. I will definitely try things as you suggested next time, adding later as well as removing from heat. I've also noticed with each of these batches, my hydrometer readings are coming out slightly outside of the range the recipe suggests, both OG and FG. Is it possible this is due to the same root cause?

Again, thank you guys, this is exactly (one of the many things) this place is great for. Newbies like me able to pick up VALUABLE information from helpful people!



- Hoss

Thanks for posting recipe for me BobC, the kit I have is slightly different however. It came with Willamette instead of Citra. I added this oz. on my own because I wanted to learn dry-hopping (and I LOVE Citra)

zjhoss said:

Thanks for posting recipe for me BobC, the kit I have is slightly different however. It came with Willamette instead of Citra. I added this oz. on my own because I wanted to learn dry-hopping (and I LOVE Citra)

Click to expand...

Yeah citra rocks! :rockin:

What was your OG? Have you tested it recently? Did you taste the sample? Did it taste of burnt sugar? You said your readings are "outside" the range but are they too high or too low? Are you using a standard hydrometer or a refractometer?

They were slightly lower, with a standard hydrometer.

Was at 1.048 OG (recipe said 1.051-1.055) and 1.010 (recipe said 1.012- 1.015) when I transferred it today. One thing I'm struggling with as someone new to the hobby, is reading this damn thing

The comforting fact in all of that though, is the readings although slightly off, remain consistent with recipe.

I did taste this one tonight, and it did have sort of a flavor I couldn't quite describe... From the sounds of things I think it's a safe bet I had some scorching going on.:smack: