IPA Turning Brown

[Oregon_beer_guy]

I've only brewed 4 times, two of those times were an attempt at a hazy IPA. The first time my beer turned Brown after about 12 days fermenting.
This latest batch was looking and smelling great but 2 days after transferring to a secondary fermenter, the beer appears to be turning on me again. The guy at my homebrew store thought it might be because I left too much room in the top of my fermenter(a 7 gallon Fermonster). He says that there are acids in the kruasen that need to leave through a blowout tube so they don't settle back into the beer. I thought it might be because of exposure to oxygen during dry hopping and transfer. Thoughts?
The1st pic is after 10 days of fermentation. 2nd is after the transfer on the 13th day.

 

[thehaze]

If you are still using a secondary, stop doing that. There are simply no benefits to using a secondary on hoppy beers or any other beers for that matter. ( except maybe if you are using extremely large amounts of fruit or similar additions - still so, I wouldn't use a secondary )

Any transfer or contact between your beer and air, will oxidize it, slowly, gradually. I would also recommend trying to minimize the trub you are transferring from the kettle in the fermenter. Are you kegging? If you are, then use CO2 every time you need to dry hop, take gravity samples, etc. Make sure to purge your kegs properly and do closed transfers, as well as you can with your process and equipment.

 

[Oregon_beer_guy]

If you are still using a secondary, stop doing that. There are simply no benefits to using a secondary on hoppy beers or any other beers for that matter. ( except maybe if you are using extremely large amounts of fruit or similar additions - still so, I wouldn't use a secondary )

Any transfer or contact between your beer and air, will oxidize it, slowly, gradually. I would also recommend trying to minimize the trub you are transferring from the kettle in the fermenter. Are you kegging? If you are, then use CO2 every time you need to dry hop, take gravity samples, etc. Make sure to purge your kegs properly and do closed transfers, as well as you can with your process and equipment.

[emoji678]. I was thinking it would help prevent problems by getting it off the trub. I have s cheap little 8 gallon brew kettle. No ports or anything. I'm not sure what I can do to minimize particulant matter from entering the fermenter from the kettle with the setup I have.
I intended to purge with Co2 but the gas leaked out of my brand new tank somehow so I wasn't able to. I just bought my first keg today with the regulator and a tap. I intend to keg tomorrow.

There is a layer of darker brown liquid at the top of the fermenter(add you can see in the picture). Do you think I should try to avoid putting that in the keg?

 

[thehaze]

The brown liquid is still beer. I think it's just a sort of seperation, but harmless. Some one else could chime in with a better answer.

Regarding trub: At least for hoppy styles, I would try to do a whirlpool using a paddle. So, the process would start by cooling the wort to around 150-170F, adding some hops there and then whirlpooling with your paddle for a few seconds. Gently, but enough to create a whirlpool inside the kettle. Let it rest for 10 minutes. Come back to it, make sure your paddle is properly sanitized and do another whirlpool ( whirlpooling the 2nd time will resuspend some of the hops and help with extraction ) and let it rest for 15-30 minutes. Transfer when ready.

This achieves a few things: the lower temperature will extract aroma and flavours from the hops, without adding a whole lot of bitterness. The whirlpool and the resting time will help the trub settle at the bottom of the kettle. Now to transfer it from the kettle to the fermenter, I would use an auto-siphon with a clip ( to clip onto the kettle so it does not rest on the trub bed ), to transfer from above the layer of trub. I know it sounds weird and I'm unsure whether an auto-siphon can withstand 150F, but if you get your wort down to 155F and start the whirlpool there, the temperature could drop to 145F naturally in those 30-45 minutes you let the wort rest. Use kettle finings: Protafloc, Whirlfloc, Irish Moss, etc. will help as well.

 

[RPh_Guy]

The "brown" layer at the top is clear beer. The bottom layer is lighter because of all the yeast or other haze particles suspended in it.

 

[RM-MN]

When you ferment the beer lots of trub and yeast get mixed up with the yeast activity. This ends up with a milky looking mixture because light is reflected from the particles. When fermentation ends the circulation slows down and some of the suspended particles begin to settle out. Now the light has to go through the beer instead of being reflected and the beer becomes brown looking. Because the light has so much farther to travel through the beer in the carboy, it looks much darker than it will in the glass. In other words, your beer looks fine and probably is.

When you move your beer to secondary you lose the CO2 that was captured between the beer and the airlock in the primary. That exposes your beer to oxygen and to any bacteria in your air. Most bacteria cannot survive and reproduce in beer but the few that can require oxygen to reproduce so one needs to limit the oxygen exposure and the way to do that is to fill the secondary vessel as much as possible so the CO2 dissolved in the beer can force it out. Unless you have everything just right, the best practice is to not move the beer until you are ready to bottle it.

You don't need to worry about trub. Many of us dump everything from the boil pot into the fermenter and leave it there. When fermentation is over we let the beer stay where it is long enough for that trub to settle out and compact somewhat so we don't end up with it in our bottles.

Now that you have transferred your beer to your secondary vessel the best thing to do is to let it set until it becomes "brown" all the way to the bottom. Then carefully rack it to the bottling bucket so you leave behind any trub that has settled to the bottom. If you do suck up a little it isn't much of a problem. Let it sit in the bottling bucket for a bit as you prepare the bottles and most of it will settle out again.

 

[Oregon_beer_guy]

The brown liquid is still beer. I think it's just a sort of seperation, but harmless. Some one else could chime in with a better answer.

Regarding trub: At least for hoppy styles, I would try to do a whirlpool using a paddle. So, the process would start by cooling the wort to around 150-170F, adding some hops there and then whirlpooling with your paddle for a few seconds. Gently, but enough to create a whirlpool inside the kettle. Let it rest for 10 minutes. Come back to it, make sure your paddle is properly sanitized and do another whirlpool ( whirlpooling the 2nd time will resuspend some of the hops and help with extraction ) and let it rest for 15-30 minutes. Transfer when ready.

This achieves a few things: the lower temperature will extract aroma and flavours from the hops, without adding a whole lot of bitterness. The whirlpool and the resting time will help the trub settle at the bottom of the kettle. Now to transfer it from the kettle to the fermenter, I would use an auto-siphon with a clip ( to clip onto the kettle so it does not rest on the trub bed ), to transfer from above the layer of trub. I know it sounds weird and I'm unsure whether an auto-siphon can withstand 150F, but if you get your wort down to 155F and start the whirlpool there, the temperature could drop to 145F naturally in those 30-45 minutes you let the wort rest. Use kettle finings: Protafloc, Whirlfloc, Irish Moss, etc. will help as well.

The thing is, this beer shouldn't be Brown. It's a hazy IPA with 2 row, oats and wheat. No dark malts. I only added 1 ounce of hops during the last 5 minutes of boil. All the rest were added at flame out and in dry hopping. The thing I'm confused about is how do I whirlpool when my coil chiller is in the kettle?

 

[CascadesBrewer]

He says that there are acids in the kruasen that need to leave through a blowout tube so they don't settle back into the beer.

Tip #1: Never take advice from this guy!

Tip #2: Do not transfer a NEIPA to a secondary (I have stopped using a secondary for all my beers). I am not positive what it is about these beers that makes them so fragile to oxidation, but they are. The transfer to the secondary exposed your beer to Oxygen which is what caused the browning. I have seen several canned commercial NEIPAs that have that nasty brown color.

I don't have any hard facts about trub into the fermenter. Trub is not that bad, but it does mean more stuff to deal with down the line. You can dump it all in, but it is probably better to separate out much of the hop debris, especially for beers with lots of hops. What I do is to let my beer settle for maybe 5 minutes, and then use my auto-siphon to transfer into my fermenter. Once it gets toward the bottom, shift around the pot and auto siphon to get a good amount of liquid out, leaving the majority of the hop mass.

 

[TGFV]

I'm going to have to side mostly with RM on this one. Its mostly the bulk content of the beer along with possibly minor oxidation.

That beer isn't that dark at all, even for that grist in the train bill. Its going to be 10x lighter in the glass.

As for why the difference in colour, like already mentioned, the initial cloudy isn't what the final beer will look like us active fermention with a hell of alot of suspended yeast, proteins etc.

What's your grain bill looking like?

And potentially stupid question but are you adding the hops during high krauzen? The buotransformation leads to a large amount of the haze in NEIPAs when compared to white IPAs.

 

[Oregon_beer_guy]

I'm going to have to side mostly with RM on this one. Its mostly the bulk content of the beer along with possibly minor oxidation.

That beer isn't that dark at all, even for that grist in the train bill. Its going to be 10x lighter in the glass.

As for why the difference in colour, like already mentioned, the initial cloudy isn't what the final beer will look like us active fermention with a hell of alot of suspended yeast, proteins etc.

What's your grain bill looking like?

And potentially stupid question but are you adding the hops during high krauzen? The buotransformation leads to a large amount of the haze in NEIPAs when compared to white IPAs.

Yes, I added 3 ounces of hops 24 hours into fermentation. As you can see in the first picture, everything was looking good. It was after transferring that things started to change.

My lovely wife "accidently" threw away my brewing notebook so I no longer know the exact grain bill or any of the info I recorded.

I think I used around 14 LBS Two Row, 1 pound malted wheat and 3 LBS of flaked oats.
Mashed at 153° for 1 hour, added 1 tbsp pH 5.2 , 1 tbsp calcium carbonate and 1 tbsp gypsum (I think).

I added an additional 10 oz of hop pellets around day 7 and 3 or 4 more of hop flowers on day 12?

 

[Oregon_beer_guy]

Yes, I added 3 ounces of hops 24 hours into fermentation. As you can see in the first picture, everything was looking good. It was after transferring that things started to change.

My lovely wife "accidently" threw away my brewing notebook so I no longer know the exact grain bill or any of the info I recorded.

I think I used around 14 LBS Two Row, 1 pound malted wheat and 3 LBS of flaked oats.
Mashed at 153° for 1 hour, added 1 tbsp pH 5.2 , 1 tbsp calcium carbonate and 1 tbsp gypsum (I think).

I added an additional 10 oz of hop pellets around day 7 and 3 or 4 more of hop flowers on day 12?

Btw, thanks guys. I really appreciate all the tips and suggestions.

 

[Kharnynb]

1. don't secondary, like others have said, it's not helping, but can definately hurt the beer.
2. this beer looks like it got all the sediment from the bottom kicked up by shaking or a very bad transfer.
3. not sure about neipa, but dryhopping normally should be done at the end of the fermentation, a few days before bottling, not in high fermentation.

 

[Bobby_M]

The thing is, this beer shouldn't be Brown. It's a hazy IPA with 2 row, oats and wheat. No dark malts. I only added 1 ounce of hops during the last 5 minutes of boil. All the rest were added at flame out and in dry hopping. The thing I'm confused about is how do I whirlpool when my coil chiller is in the kettle?

That is not brown beer. That is 12 inch thick pale golden beer without reflective particles. Why its clearing up like that is a mystery.

 

[shoengine]

My hazy IPA did that in the bottle (so, in a sense, in secondary). Still tasted fine. All you are seeing is clarification.

 

[Oregon_beer_guy]

1. don't secondary, like others have said, it's not helping, but can definately hurt the beer.
2. this beer looks like it got all the sediment from the bottom kicked up by shaking or a very bad transfer.
3. not sure about neipa, but dryhopping normally should be done at the end of the fermentation, a few days before bottling, not in high fermentation.

Yeah, traditionally that's how most people dry hop, and I did 80% of mine in the final 4 days, but there is some evidence that dry hopping during primary fermentation produces a reaction that produces more of the haze and certain desired flavors in a neipa. I kegged it up and it should be ready to test out in a few days so we'll see. Lol

 

[TGFV]

That is not brown beer. That is 12 inch thick pale golden beer without reflective particles. Why its clearing up like that is a mystery.

Got to agree. I've had 100% wheat beers look just as clear a few weeks in. It happens sometimes.

If youre wanting a really hazy beer I would also bump up the wheat % personally. I've turned to 80%wheat 20%oat for my WIPA and NEIPA style beer, and if I want a real haze and a bit of a thicker mouthful I also cheat and add some applesauce.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

I kegged it up and it should be ready to test out in a few days so we'll see.

I am curious to see a picture of how it looks in a glass.

I am also curious to know exactly how much the "browning" of NEIPAs actually impact the flavor -vs- how much our bias towards the color makes us think the flavor is bad.

 

[Cavpilot2000]

If you are not actively taking great pains to reduce or eliminate oxygen exposure (using purged containers, racking only when absolutely necessary (from primary to keg or bottle, no more), and resisting the urge to open your fermenter), you are oxidizing it. NEIPAs have been shown to oxidize and turn brown aggressively due to the greatly increased presence of hops compounds, so they are even more susceptible to oxidation. It may taste fine for a while with that browning, but it is indicative that you will lose volatile hops flavor very quickly once packaged.

 

[Oregon_beer_guy]

I am curious to see a picture of how it looks in a glass.

I am also curious to know exactly how much the "browning" of NEIPAs actually impact the flavor -vs- how much our bias towards the color makes us think the flavor is bad.

It actually turned out pretty darn good! No off flavors that I can detect. It's a bit on the boozy side and the hop flavors are a little green and strong, but I think it should mellow out over the next week or two.

 

[Oregon_beer_guy]

If you are not actively taking great pains to reduce or eliminate oxygen exposure (using purged containers, racking only when absolutely necessary (from primary to keg or bottle, no more), and resisting the urge to open your fermenter), you are oxidizing it. NEIPAs have been shown to oxidize and turn brown aggressively due to the greatly increased presence of hops compounds, so they are even more susceptible to oxidation. It may taste fine for a while with that browning, but it is indicative that you will lose volatile hops flavor very quickly once packaged.

I do purge with Co2 and minimize oxygen exposure as best I can. Something happened to my tank of Co2 and it was empty when I went to purge it. Thanks for the advice though.

 

[Soyben]

I hope it gets a chance to mellow. Mine would always start oxidizing around about 2 weeks after carbonation. I now use a beer gun to bottle in a closed system, have had no oxidation issues sense.

You mentioned using hop flowers, I have seen others suggest to avoid whole cone hops, remember anything green contains oxygen.

As far as whirlpooling with your chiller. Just stir. You are dealing with relatively small volumes of liquids compared to professional brewers. I tend to move my chiller to a 2nd sanitized pot, stir, and cover to hold in hop vapors (I don't know if this really helps). I will give it a good stir 4 or 5 times during the 30 minute hop stand.

 

[Jako]

The "brown" layer at the top is clear beer. The bottom layer is lighter because of all the yeast or other haze particles suspended in it.

this was exactly my thought as well. reminds me of cleaning yeast as it starts to settle.

 

[doug293cz]

I hope it gets a chance to mellow. Mine would always start oxidizing around about 2 weeks after carbonation. I now use a beer gun to bottle in a closed system, have had no oxidation issues sense.

You mentioned using hop flowers, I have seen others suggest to avoid whole cone hops, remember anything green contains oxygen.

As far as whirlpooling with your chiller. Just stir. You are dealing with relatively small volumes of liquids compared to professional brewers. I tend to move my chiller to a 2nd sanitized pot, stir, and cover to hold in hop vapors (I don't know if this really helps). I will give it a good stir 4 or 5 times during the 30 minute hop stand.

Be sure your wort is below 170°F, or what you could be holding in is DMS. Wort usually contains residual SMM at the end of boil, and DMS production will continue (at a slowing rate) down to about 170°F. You want the BK uncovered until that temp to let any post-boil DMS escape.

Brew on

 

[Soyben]

Yeah, I am aware of the DMS issue but I have never noticed in any of my beers. My wort is usually around 180 when I start my flameout hops.

 

[seatazzz]

Scrolled through too fast to see if anyone else said this, but fermenting beer will always look darker in your fermentation vessel. I've had perfect light lagers look like ambers before they were racked off. Conversely, I've had dark beers look like ambers before kegging that were dark as the night once kegged. It ain't over till the beer is in the glass (and then your tummy).

 

[Jayjay1976]

Looks awesome to me, beer always looks way darker in the fermenter than it does in the glass. I've seen that layering in several of my beers, its just the beer slowly clearing from the top down, or perhaps stratifying out for some other variable that impacts density; residual sugars, % ethanol, etc. IMHO, appearance has little to do with flavor qualities. Learn to brew delicious beers, and become accustomed to how your own delicious beers look, and then embrace that as your truth.

 

[shoengine]

Looks awesome to me, beer always looks way darker in the fermenter than it does in the glass. I've seen that layering in several of my beers, its just the beer slowly clearing from the top down, or perhaps stratifying out for some other variable that impacts density; residual sugars, % ethanol, etc. IMHO, appearance has little to do with flavor qualities. Learn to brew delicious beers, and become accustomed to how your own delicious beers look, and then embrace that as your truth.

Word.

 

[tc53]

I am on my third batch of NEIPA since switching to kegging. I use a 7 gallon FermZilla, and I am very, very careful about oxygen exposure (having had a number of brown batches in the past). On this batch, I transferred only clear wort, pumping it from my kettle (after letting it settle out well) into the fermenter. I added my dry hops on day three of active fermentation, putting them in through the top instead of through the collection jar at the bottom of the FermZilla (I've had problems with dry hop additions getting stuck in that jar). After adding the dry hop pellets, I closed the top again, then purged the head space several times with CO2 (filling and releasing the gas in the head space repeatedly). A few minutes after that, the bubbling from my reconnected blowoff hose began again and continued for another day or two. Once that bubbling was about done, I removed the blowoff hose and put the batch under 2-3 psi of pressure with CO2. After a diacetyl rest and a cold crash, I used the CO2 to do a closed transfer to the keg, which had been sanitized and put under pressure itself. Today, after two weeks of force carbonation (set it and forget it method), I poured the first couple of glasses. Much to my surprise and disappointment, the beer has that pale brown color typically caused by oxidation. Taste is okay, but the color is way off. Grain bill: 2-row, white wheat, oats, dextrin. Should have been a nice pale gold, but it turned out light brown instead. Any suggestions as to how?

 

[Dgallo]

If you’re looking to brew better NEIPAS here’s your thread. Lots to read but if you skim the last 10-20 pages that’s will propbabky cover everything you need and have the most current scientific and anecdotal research.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/northeast-style-ipa.568046/page-381#post-9155651

 

[CascadesBrewer]

Any suggestions as to how?

Did you purge the keg before the transfer?

 

[Bobby_M]

Did you purge the keg before the transfer?

To be more specific, you need to fill the keg to the brim with water, add 1oz starsan, then push it all out with CO2. NOW it is purged for real.

 

[Beermeister32]

Try suspending your dry hop bag inside the lid and drop it with a string of unwaxed dental floss. Sometimes magnets can be used on plastic fermenters. That way you aren’t opening the lid. Snip the floss and let it drop in.

You need to purge headspace 15 cycles to clear the space, several cycles still has O2 present.

If you cold crash, make sure you aren’t sucking air back into the fermentor as it cools. Some folks use Mylar balloons for this.

If you have to crack the lid open for any reason, hook up a CO2 line to it so you get the gas flow going outward away from your work.

I don’t cold crash IPA’s, I transfer at ambient then chill the keg. Here is a West a coast IPA of mine, no color issues...

 

[tc53]

Thanks for the suggestions. I did fill the keg with a StarSan solution, let it rest 5 minutes or so, then pushed it all out with CO2 and left keg under pressure before beginning closed transfer. I probably did not purge the head space enough after adding the dry hop addition. Also, thinking about it more, after I dumped the collection jar full of trub (just before dry hopping), I put the collection jar back on, then opened the bottom valve to allow more trub/hop residue to settle there. I normally purge the collection jar of O2 before opening that valve again. This time, I think I forgot to do that, which allowed a huge "burp" of oxygen to go through the beer.

 

[tc53]

To be more specific, you need to fill the keg to the brim with water, add 1oz starsan, then push it all out with CO2. NOW it is purged for real.

I'm pretty new to kegging my beer, and I have not been filling the keg to the brim (probably more like an inch or so below the gas-in fitting) with my Star San solution because I thought doing so might interfere somehow with the gas-in connector (by having the solution cover it on the inside), so this probably introduced some O2 as well. I dumped out the brown batch and have another NEIPA going now, heading into the keg in another week or so. I'll definitely fill to the brim this time before pushing it out with the CO2. Thanks for the help!