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Hey Gang,

I successfully made my first batch of beer! It was a Brew House Canadian Light Ale. I made 2 of them to fill up a 56L sanke keg. It turned out better than what I expected.

I decided to put on a second batch, to be ready once the first batch ran out. I chose the Brew House Pale Ale this time as I wanted to try something different. I put it in the primary fermenter tonight. I did everything the same as the first time. However, this time around one of the batches turned black/blue in the primary fermenter!! There is also more "stuff" at the bottom of the "black/blue" primary fermenter than there is in the other one, which BTW looks OK.

Is this one batch ruined? Or is there something else going on?

Thanks

Chris

That's a new one. It was fine when you put it in, and then it turned dark? Did you add anything different? What did you use to sanitize the fermenter?

You got kids that could accidently tamper with your brew?

Or are you just seeing clear beer in a glass carboy which looks black/blue to some extent?

Need pics.

I added nothing different than what the process called for. I use the standard pink chlorine detergent for cleaning my gear and aseptox for sanitizing. I did a search online and this happened to someone else during a clearing process. Apparently it is the yeast falling out of suspension, hence the extra "stuff" at the bottom of my primary fermenter. My question now is if the yeast has fallen out of suspension how is my batch of beer supposed to ferment? I looked this morning (10 hrs later) and it is still black but there is a little foam starting to form on top so I'm guessing fermenting is still proceeding.

I'll try and get pics posted later.

Chris

what are the fermenting room conditions? Sunlight? Temp? Humidity?

Does aseptox contain any iodine? Only thing I can think of to make it go black.

Stusbrews wrote:Does aseptox contain any iodine? Only thing I can think of to make it go black.

Iodine was my first thought aswell.

Does it smell/taset "bad"

Sandy

you mentioned primary fermenter, as in a plastic bucket? Did you rinse very thoroughly after the pink stuff? Do you make red wine also by chance? The aseptox could have possible stripped out residual wine traces in the micro-scratches of the plastic.

How dark are you talking about? Beer always looks considerably darker in bulk (i.e. in a carboy) than it will look in the glass

do you see a crayola magic marker on the yeast cake? just wondering

mr x wrote:Need pics.

This. We really need a picture. I'll be impressed if you've done something wrong that nobody else on the board has ever done.

HUGO!

As you can see from the first pic the two batches are side by side and definitely the one on the left is alot darker than the one on the right.
This picture shows the extra "stuff" at the bottom of the primary fermenter.
This pic shows fermenting 10 hrs later.

The batch is still fermenting although not as much as the batch on the right. I only use these two buckets for beer (you can see the 2 B's on the buckets). I have a seperate one for wine (I only make white wine). I cleaned and sanitized both identically and at the same time. You would think that if I had done something wrong then both batches would have turned darker. According to what I have read online, it will still taste the same. If I were to draw a sample and put in a glass it would look normal. I'll wait until primary fermentation is complete and I transfer to a carboy to test that theory.

Chris

All is fine.

Doesn't look so bad to me. Go with your plan and see where it takes you. Maybe it is a manufacturing flaw?

Doesn't look terrible to me either. I assume it's more than lighting though? Yeast can have a weird effect on beer colour - and maybe the manufacturing wasn't quite the same for some reason, I definitely wouldn't worry about it.

Yea, perhaps one box was labelled incorrectly and its not a pale ale?
These are BrewHouse kits? Did they both come with the package of pH adjuster?
I haven't made the BH kits for a while but they use to alter the pH of the wort when it was packaged to minimized the chances of fermentation during shipping/storage. Then you had to add the pH adjuster before you pitched the yeast.

Maltster,

These are Brew House Pale Ale kits. Both came with the ph adjuster and I used them both when making the 2.

I'm going to continue brewing both and see where this goes. If anything it will be a good story

Chris

like X said, it's fine.

RDWAHAHB

Where did you get those buckets? I'd love to have a fully graduated.

LiverDance wrote:Where did you get those buckets? I'd love to have a fully graduated.

Wine Kitz in Clayton Park sells them..I picked one up a while back and use it for all my water measurements!

Jimmy wrote:

LiverDance wrote:Where did you get those buckets? I'd love to have a fully graduated.

Wine Kitz in Clayton Park sells them..I picked one up a while back and use it for all my water measurements!

awesome, thanks.

Liquid extracts will darken over time. The longer the can has been sitting on the shelf, the darker the beer. I'm guessing you've probably bought an old can.

HopGrower wrote:Liquid extracts will darken over time. The longer the can has been sitting on the shelf, the darker the beer. I'm guessing you've probably bought an old can.

He was using Festa kits which are all wort, not extract kits.

Trying to see the colour through plastic is hard. What he was seeing was lack of yeast activity causing the wort to " look " black. Bet everything is OK now.

Any news to report ??????????