Naturally Fermented Berliner Weisse turning purple

[mikeal]

I made a starter from the uncrushed grain. The grain bill was 2 row and wheat malt. I did a full 60 min boil, pitched, kept the carboy at 100 degrees for a few days, cooled and added Safale 05. It was blonde when it went into the keg but now it is slowly turning a very cloudy purple / fuchsia color. It tastes and smells sour and funky with nothing too weird.

Her sister beer was treated exactly the same except that she got a wit yeast and is still in the fermenter. She is not purple.

Has anyone heard of something like this happening before?

 

[statseeker]

Is it like a tint or are the yeast and solids in there turning it solid color? And how are you seeing it? I was thinking the fermentor might be breaking the light going into it causing like a tint? I've never seen that before without there being fruit involved.

 

[mikeal]

Is it like a tint or are the yeast and solids in there turning it solid color? And how are you seeing it? I was thinking the fermentor might be breaking the light going into it causing like a tint? I've never seen that before without there being fruit involved.

It's a tint. I'm looking at it in the glass, dispensed from a keg. Here is a pic, but it looks more golden than purple. It was hard to get a good shot.

I had a few glasses last night and I'm not dead, so there's that...

 

[Coff]

Ive heard of this before, I imagine your photo is not doing it justice though. A guy in my homebrew club talked about his turning purple. He claimed that traditionally it is supposed to be purple, I havent found anything to back up his claim (without syrup of course). Who knows, he could be right.

 

[ne0t0ky0]

My guess is oxidation. You can get darkening of wort without affecting flavor initially.

I had a 1L sample in a flask, it had formed a nice pellicle and stayed perfectly straw, yellow. After pulling a sample which broke the pellicle, which never fully reformed, it eventually (months later) turned purple and smelled like vinegar.

 

[Quaker]

I have had some purplish hot break/foam when using Belgian pilsner malt. If you did a real short boil, I wonder if its the same contributor (whatever it is) carried over into the beer and now coming forward with oxidation.

 

[TNGabe]

It's probably not oxidization. Here's another thread on the subject. Won't give you an answer, but still worth a read.

 

[mikeal]

It's probably not oxidization. Here's another thread on the subject. Won't give you an answer, but still worth a read.

I am not alone! Good link, thanks.

Luckily, this is the kind of problem that will go away ...one pint at a time.

 

[B-randt]

I too have had this issue. I've got a 60 Gal barrel with lambic in it and I pulled some out after a year to see a crystal clear beer and the most pale yellow of anything I've made. to move that much beer, some goes into kegs and some into glass and some into buckets, all cleaned by starsan or 1 step (several people involved).
out of all the beer that was siphoned out, everything that went in glass or plastic was fine, stayed bright yellow and clear. on the other hand, EVERY portion that went into a stainless keg turned a royal purple hue in about 2 days time...some went into kegs just until bottled, some served from the kegs, but all of it was purple. not much difference in flavor or clarity either, maybe the purple version is a little dulled down.
This has happened with equipment from several people that has been taken care of in different ways, the only common thread is that the vessel that turned the beer purple was a stainless keg 100% of the time. What could be happening with this highly acidic beer going into a stainless keg that is making them change colors and loose some of the complexity of the flavors where the same beer going into glass or plastic sees no change?? I can't figure it out for the life of me....

as a side note: I saw this one other time with a tripel I made and stored refrigerated in a keg for about 5 months for aging(waiting for someone's wedding)...totally different beer and yeasts, I guess here the common thread is time. never seen this in other beers that have been in kegs aging for long periods (barleywine for over a year, other strong Belgians for many months)?

anyone ever come up with other possible causes??

 

[dantheman13]

I had a sour beer go "purple".. it was definitely oxidation. These three sours were all brewed with the same wort. Later on I tasted it and confirmed the cardboard flavor/color was oxidation. Luckily it never turned to vinegar on me.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfPo_y2QZag&index=4&list=PLibE2BjPG_8Hd8ijiJI6ViBCZZwahsceQ[/ame]

 

[Yourrealdad]

So kinda reviving a dead thread, but I can't find any answers so I will just post what I found.

I made my first Berliner Weisse and it had a perfect color to it out of the carboy. I used White Labs Lacto in the primary. Transferred it to a keg and within a few days it had changed color to the peachy/purple color everyone's pics are showing, just like Mikeals.

It didn't taste like cardboard and while the taste wasn't exactly like a Berliner Weisse I can't say for sure that the taste was or was not compromised by this. It tasted the same until we finished the keg and we obviously drank it so it wasn't a horrible off flavor. Plus it happened almost immediately.

Cleaned out the keg yesterday and all the yeast and sediment was purple.
Here is a pic of the stuff on my finger:

 

[Owly055]

Instead of Berliner Weisse, its Berliner Lila...........

 

[TreAdidas]

So kinda reviving a dead thread, but I can't find any answers so I will just post what I found.

I made my first Berliner Weisse and it had a perfect color to it out of the carboy. I used White Labs Lacto in the primary. Transferred it to a keg and within a few days it had changed color to the peachy/purple color everyone's pics are showing, just like Mikeals.

It didn't taste like cardboard and while the taste wasn't exactly like a Berliner Weisse I can't say for sure that the taste was or was not compromised by this. It tasted the same until we finished the keg and we obviously drank it so it wasn't a horrible off flavor. Plus it happened almost immediately.

Cleaned out the keg yesterday and all the yeast and sediment was purple.
Here is a pic of the stuff on my finger:

Wait whoa... THAT IS IT! I am having this exact same problem. Anyone figure out the cause?

 

[Agkuba]

This thread is very old but this just happened to me!

The beer didn't touch stainless steel... Tested a half bottle today, 3 days after bottling, and it was purple. Since it was the dregs and I just bottled half a bottle to see if carbonation was going well, I can't rule out oxidation. There is some Berliner Weiss taste and another weird taste too. But not actually terrible.

When carbonation is fully complete I'll check some of the fully filled bottles and we will see if the issue held for the whole batch.

 

[OldStyler]

In the interest of continuing an old thread I just went to check on a keg of pilsner I'd had in the fridge for some months without getting attention. It was my first attempt at a pilsner, and somewhere along the lines I messed up causing the beer to never really clear - which resulted in me leaving it in storage for months longer than what other people likely would.

Either way, pulled a glass off the keg tonight to find the beer had not improved and decided the keg capacity could be better used for something else. Upon dumping the beer it was all grayish / purple! It also tasted a bit tart - almost Brett-y (there's never been brett in the keg before, and obviously brett doesn't turn beers purple.) I've seen elsewhere that pilsner malt resulted in some purple-ish hot break, maybe that's a contributing factor. Maybe oxygen. Maybe something in old kegs that is leaking into the new liquid?