Color Development Help

[WissaBrewGuy]

Hello all!

I am an all grain brewer with a keggle setup. I noticed that even though I design my pale ales, saisons, IPA's etc, to be very light in color they always end up an awkward lightish brown. For instance I'll be going for a 4SRM in a saison and I will get more like 7SRM. I usually do a 90min boil which most likely leads to this color development. I typically cold crash at 35F for a couple days then keg or bottle. I am looking for suggestions at producing light straw colored Saisons and other light ales while still achieving modestly high (~7%) alcohol. Thanks!

 

[Copbrew133]

On these lighter colored designs I would lower the boil time which should help to limit the Maillard reaction of the wort with the keggle (assuming the grain bill is correct). For instance if you designed a recipe for a particular malt from a particular maltster ended up with the "same" malt from a different maltster there could be a significant difference in the Lovibond rating of the two. 60 minutes of vigorous boil is enough for the beers you listed at a lighter SRM, unless the IPA had a crazy hoppong schedule. You would just need to possibly adjust the recipe for the lesser boil off to achieve the desired gravity.

 

[WissaBrewGuy]

I can lower boil time for some of these for sure but I brewed a Belgian style Tripel a few months back and at 9.5% it really needed a long boil to come out right. Of course now I have a brownish tripel instead of a beautiful golden one. Any suggestions on arresting the maillard reaction for longer boils?

 

[mikebanyai]

2 thoughts, first is the use of some kind of heat difuser for the bottom of the vessel as hot spots are part of your problem. second is that as I have been looking at molecular cooking, the advise is to make the surface more basic to speed the mallard reaction. You might check the Ph of the solution and consider a small adjustment toward acidity, I say this having never read anything like it in any of the beer stuff I have read, but then again most folks just take the color they get and have a homebrew (grin).

 

[Copbrew133]

Is it possible to adjust the distance of the burner from the bottom of the kettle? Might help if it is too close, but it is going to be really difficult to avoid using a direct heated BK and/or MLT. The nature of the direct heat in either is going to result in some caramelization (think that's an actual word,lol) of the sugars. I have had a similar issue in my system which is relatively new. I was used to mashing in a cooler and then switched to a direct recirculating mash in a keggle with a PICO (2.5 gallon dead space under it) false bottom. While I was getting used to the mashing system I was being too gentle and slow with the recirculation of wort during the mash. This caused wort, when heat was called for, to be sitting in the area under the false bottom for too long before being removed and circulated back to the top of the mash and causing slight darkening of the wort. Just throwing that out there if your direct heating the mash as it could be another option to look at besides the boil. In my opinion the options are to expect this stuff and adjust the grain bill accordingly (if using crystal types) and to make sure of the Lovibond rating for the malt directly from the maltsters information sheet. Like I said, a malt titled as Malt A from one maltster can vary in color from another Malt A from a different maltster as it can very slightly from batch to batch. Good luck with it.

 

[losMythos]

I'm no expert but I feel like you might just need to adjust your grain bill. The tripel I brewed not to long ago just had Belgium 2 row for "grain" and added corn sugar to get the gravity desired. I added hibiscus in the boil so the final product was light with a slight dark purple color but the first wort was extremely light in color.

 

[WissaBrewGuy]

2 thoughts, first is the use of some kind of heat difuser for the bottom of the vessel as hot spots are part of your problem. second is that as I have been looking at molecular cooking, the advise is to make the surface more basic to speed the mallard reaction. You might check the Ph of the solution and consider a small adjustment toward acidity, I say this having never read anything like it in any of the beer stuff I have read, but then again most folks just take the color they get and have a homebrew (grin).

Great comment. I have been working on a heat fin design for the keggle to spread out the heat a little better. I think this could help for sure.

Over the last few years of brewing I really haven't worried too much about the pH but I am beginning to lean toward that direction.

 

[WissaBrewGuy]

Is it possible to adjust the distance of the burner from the bottom of the kettle? .... In my opinion the options are to expect this stuff and adjust the grain bill accordingly (if using crystal types) and to make sure of the Lovibond rating for the malt directly from the maltsters information sheet. Like I said, a malt titled as Malt A from one maltster can vary in color from another Malt A from a different maltster as it can very slightly from batch to batch. Good luck with it.

I guess this could be possible but it won't come easy since I have the Blichmann burner which is pretty much fixed. I also should be paying better attention to the brand. I know that they differ but I guess I never really cared so much. I just bought a few sacks from a group buy so I will definitely know what the properties of these malts are. I think I may lower the burner intensity in the future and see how it affects color development.

 

[WissaBrewGuy]

I'm no expert but I feel like you might just need to adjust your grain bill. The tripel I brewed not to long ago just had Belgium 2 row for "grain" and added corn sugar to get the gravity desired. I added hibiscus in the boil so the final product was light with a slight dark purple color but the first wort was extremely light in color.

My Tripel recipe was from Gordon Strong's Brewing Better Beer book so its probably not the recipe but it could be the maltster's lovibond on the malt was higher than Gordon planned. That recipe used 4lb of clear candi syrup! It tastes amazing though.