Longer boil time color contribution

[KonservativeJay]

I am curious how much more color you would get in a beer if you boiled it for 2 hours (3? 4?)? Let’s say something simple like 12lbs of Maris Otter for a five gallon batch. Anyone have any insight on this?

 

[thehaze]

I've done 2 hour boils with Pilsner/Pale malt and no specialty malts and the colour was still pretty light. I imagine that at 3-4 hours, the colour will change with maybe 2-3 SRM. So if Maris Otter on its own will yield something like 6 SRM ( morrey ), after 4 hours it would probably reach 8 SRM, making it just about right for a bitter.

 

[dmtaylor]

It's not as much of a darkening as you might think. Only about 2 SRM maybe.

 

[KonservativeJay]

Thank you both for the answers, they are very helpful.
Now I wonder if I were to boil with less water if that would increase the color change? Let’s say instead of adding the extra boil off watery the beginning (~1.5 gallons/hour for me) I added it closer to the end or when it is time to add the hops. Would the higher concentration of sugar create more color or are we still looking at about the same? Would it need to get down to a syrup like thickness to have a noticeable effect (not really desirable). I have about a month before I will brew again and I am playing with some ideas so I really appreciated the insights.

 

[Smellyglove]

pH also matters a bit when it comes to boil coloration. Lower pH inhibits coloration while higher pH promotes coloration.

 

[dmtaylor]

Thank you both for the answers, they are very helpful.
Now I wonder if I were to boil with less water if that would increase the color change? Let’s say instead of adding the extra boil off watery the beginning (~1.5 gallons/hour for me) I added it closer to the end or when it is time to add the hops. Would the higher concentration of sugar create more color or are we still looking at about the same? Would it need to get down to a syrup like thickness to have a noticeable effect (not really desirable). I have about a month before I will brew again and I am playing with some ideas so I really appreciated the insights.

Yes, a concentrated boil followed by late dilution will increase the darkening rate and final color.

 

[KonservativeJay]

So I have decided to play with this idea. Today I brewed two batches of beer with 12lbs of Maris Otter and 1/2oz of magnum hops. For the first one I boiled for three hours and then added 3 more gallons of water and the hops then boiled for one more hour. For the second one I boiled for the usual one hour with hop addition at the beginning. I hit the same gravity and quantity on both batches (1.048 at 6.5 gallons) so the comparison should as good as I can do at this time in my brewing [emoji16]. I saved the gravity samples so I could compare the color (and taste), two pictures attached. Not a dramatic difference but definitely noticeable.

 

[KonservativeJay]

Time for a preliminary update as I have now bottled the two beers. Both ended up at 1.008 and I am priming them to 2.5 volumes. I collected 63 bottles of the long boil and 60 2/3 bottles of the regular boil. Observations so far are based on the last bottle from each batch so clarity issues are likely irrelevant and taste might be hindered but there is a noticeable difference with the long boil unsurprisingly having more flavor. And here is a quick photo to show the difference.

I’ll update once they have carbonated