Beet Red IPA color issues

[nimboden]

Hello, So with the end of my growing season I recently picked a ton of beets out of my garden and after eating what feels like a metric ton of beets I still seemed have a few pounds left over. So I decided to make a beer using some beets to color.

I started by boiling 1.5lbs of beets for about an hour, drain, let them cool, and grate them.

After reading some articles I went ahead and put it in the beginning of the mash because I solely wanted the beet color. Running it through my recirc system after the end of the mash I had an awesome pink color. My grain bill was super simple 50/50 us 2 row and maris otter to let the color shine through.

But as the wort came to a boil and I added my first addition of hops the color changed to this strange off brown/green color. Now in its 2nd week of fermentation most of the trub and yeast has settled out and it has a reddish amber hue to it. I have never had hops drastticly change the color of my beer even in the simplest of beers (sMasH, etc). The sample I pulled today smells and tastes like my usual awesome house IPA. What could have caused this color change from mash to boil?

 

[Homercidal]

I had a Beet Wheat at Right Brain brewing once. It was a pretty brilliant red with a pink foamy head. I'm not sure how much they used, or when they used it, but I think if I wanted the bright color I'd add in secondary or maybe last couple of minutes of the boil. It's possible some of the color got boiled out.

Or, the beer is still young and there is a bunch of yeast and sediment till suspended in the beer.

 

[cjhammel]

This subject perked my interest I had to look it up. I found that red color comes from the Betalain pigment. I found that Betalain is degraded by high heat and time. So it looks like a long boil would degrade the color. I would probably introduce this and the end of boil or use as top up water. From what I was also reading it is very light and pH stable down to 5.5 pH. And short exposure to high temperature is reversible on cooling. see here.

But there could be other compounds in the beets that react with the hops and heat to change the color.