does boiling wort make it darker?

[kahless79]

I'm a bit confused, I did an all grain batch following a recipe I had made checking the RSM of different grains. The result should be much pale, 3.98, however I've just finished secondary fermentation, racking in a couple of days, and the beer is like a brown ale. It should be a pilsner, so after calculating the expected colour I'm again confused. The beer is pretty clear now, but dark. I read that boiling wort makes it darker, but was something about malt extract, so I'm wondering if the same applies to all grain worts too

 

[sandyeggoxj]

The darkening you see is from maillard reactions. They are the same ones thst make your toast brown. They occur at a lower temperature than carmelization. Carmelization occurs over 300°F whereas maillard reactions can occur during boiling.

If you are looking at the color of your carboy then you are being deceived. Once it goes into the glass it will look much lighter.

 

[mrdail87]

Not as big of an issue with all grain in my experience.

Keep in mind mind that extract has already been boiled down once. Extract is really essentially an all grain batch that's been reduced into a syrup.

Also if you're not doing a full volume boil, more of your extract is coming into contact more with the bottom of the pot, which can darken it further.

 

[kahless79]

Well, I boiled the whole wort, did a 3 step maching, and now is in the secondary, a glass demijohn.......I'll bottles it next week and then lager it, just as it is quite clear (after using cold crash and irish moss) I was just wondering if it is ever going to get really pale, because as far as I can understand lagering will clear it, making it say more transparent, but not making a brown colour golden. Am I wrong with this?

 

[user 19629]

Well, I boiled the whole wort, did a 3 step maching, and now is in the secondary, a glass demijohn.......I'll bottles it next week and then lager it, just as it is quite clear (after using cold crash and irish moss) I was just wondering if it is ever going to get really pale, because as far as I can understand lagering will clear it, making it say more transparent, but not making a brown colour golden. Am I wrong with this?

If it is brown it's going to stay brown.
Beer in the feremnter often times looks darker then it will in a glass.
Take a sample and see how it looks. What was your grain bill? Were there any dark grains?

 

[rorypayne]

What kind of yeast did you use? I realized yesterday that somehow this can make beer darker. I brewed up a 10 gallons of a white ipa, split into 5 gallon carboys.

1 got regular old wlp001, the other got dregs from a bottle of Orval.

The Orval is substantially darker not all the way to an amber but close, whereas the 001 is the color you would expect from a white ipa.

 

[kahless79]

I need to check my recipe, but I had I think 80% Pilsner malt, 9% munich malt and 1% crystal. Chekcing the RSM and the percentages the final colour should be ~3.90 but it looks more like an 12 at the moment.
yeast is a lager yeast, need to check if thre is anything else written. Sure it comes from France btw