Beer Color

[Korigin]

Hello, I have brewed about 7 batches at this point and on the last batch I brewed, I was trying to make a bright yellow and clean IPA. What I ended up getting was more of a pale brown color and I am not sure why. On Beersmith, it estimated a nice yellow color.

My grain bill was

10.5 lbs 2 row
.5 lbs 20L crystal

And there is always this sort of sweet sort of not taste and the beginning of all of my beers. I am not sure if I am tasting the yeast? How can I get the crisp bright yellow color I want and also make the beer crisp and refreshing without that kind of off taste. It may be due to oxygenation(at least that is what I am thinking), but I am doing a single fermentation and I only opened it to dry hop once and to  bottle the beer. Not sure what else I can do to get rid of oxygen in the process.

Thanks for any help. Cheers!

 

[bobo1898]

What is the batch size? I brew 5.5 gallons and it's showing me 6.3 SRM which isn't amber really, but starting to lean that way.

Is it still in Primary? How long has it been fermenting? Was it pale brown before you added the yeast? Were the first runnings from the mash pale brown? If your first runnings were more like what BeerSmith predicted, then I think oxidation is most likely the culprit.

A lot of times if the beer still has a lot of yeast in suspension, or is in the early stages of fermentation, or overall murky, the color isn't necessarily true. After some time, the beer should clear up and give you a better idea. If you are cold crashing, I recommend fining with gelatin or biofine clear, if you're vegetarian.

Last question. Was this a New England IPA? These definitely go brown fast due to oxidation. West Coast IPA's can also be susceptible to oxidation (maybe not as much as NEIPA's, but still). If you aren't using secondary fermentation, another suggestion for dry hopping is to add it towards the end of primary, before gravity is reached. Yeast hopefully scrubs out most, if not all, the oxygen at that point. I typically drop hop as early as 24 hours into fermentation, or right after it's peak, before the krausen drops. Some people are worried that you lose aroma when co2 is pumping out. Don't know if you keg, but you can add more hops in the keg, purge with co2 and transfer the beer. But it sounds like you're bottling. In this case, I'd stick to trying to see if adding the dry hop charge(s) before FG is reached will help limit the speed of oxidation.

As for taste, your "beginning" off flavors---from grain til the day you bottle, how much time?

 

[Korigin]

To answer a few of the questions, the wort was a nice yellow when I took out about 120mL for my final gravity reading. The taste was good as well. Over the course of 2 weeks in the bottles, it became a brown color.

What I am thinking is that I exposed the beer to oxygen but more pressing is I bottled and stored outside and in the garage. It is currently summer and the temperatures have ranged from 80F to 95F and even higher. I am speculating that this high of a temperature accelerated the oxidation process and turned the beer brown, gave it the toffee/caramel flavor and it is already starting to stale. Let me know if you think there is anything else.

The next batch I will bottle inside and store inside where it is temperature controlled at about 70F to 72F.