Colour of boiled hops in just water seems wrong

[chris2012]

Hi,

I'm just wondering if anyone has got any ideas here. I boiled 30l of water (this wasn't wort, just plain water) for approx. 45 mins with 100g of pellet hops in a hop spider. I've extracted around 20l of water, but the water appears pretty dark brown, which doesn't seem right to me, as it looks like it would dramatically change light beers colour. The hops are from 2018 I believe, the pellets looked ok to me.

 

[chris2012]

The only ideas I can think of at the moment, is if the immersion element has possibly effected the colour of them somehow? But I'd be surprised if that was the case?

The fact my water is only around 30ppm or so in calcium shouldn't affect this should it?

I saw this interesting pH image here - http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/How_pH_affects_brewing where a higher pH results in a browner wort, but that wouldn't affect just hops in water would it, as I wouldn't think you'd get maillard reactions there?

Sorry, ignore this thread, turns out i'm an idiot, and should have just looked at the colour in a pint glass.

 

[brewbama]

I recently boil two qts of water and poured them into two separate jars: one containing whole cone hops and one containing pellets. The whole cone hops produced a beautiful golden color liquid while the pellets produced a bright green color liquid. The next day, the whole cone liquid was still a very attractive gold while the pellets settled to a dingy brownish/greenish liquid. It looks like what you have there.

 

[Dgallo]

The polyphenols extracred from the hops oxidized

 

[chris2012]

brewbama - That's very interesting that you found a difference in colour with pellets and hop flowers over night!

Dgallo - I hadn't thought about that! That's a good point, the bucket didn't have an air lock on or anything, so that would make sense I guess!

 

[Dgallo]

brewbama - That's very interesting that you found a difference in colour with pellets and hop flowers over night!

Dgallo - I hadn't thought about that! That's a good point, the bucket didn't have an air lock on or anything, so that would make sense I guess!

Yeah, ever leave a hydrometer reading out on a hoppy beer over night? It’s gets plenty dark. Could turn a 3 srm to a 8/9 in just 12 hours. That was when I really started focusing keeping o2 out post fermentation

 

[brewbama]

Interesting that it oxidized the pellets but not the whole cone hops.

 

[TechFanMD]

Curious - what are you going with this 'hop water'?

 

[chris2012]

The hop boiling was initially just to test a whirlpool paddle that I bought, to see how the whirlpool worked, however that failed rather miserably, as the drill I've got is ancient and doesn't
have speed control, so it ended up spinning the paddle so fast in the water, that it bent the paddle.