"Pale" Ale?

[paul7218]

Just moved my second batch of beer to my secondary fermentor. It is a kit, pale ale. Damn, it's dark. I thought this should be more of a golden/amber color? It's only like four days old. Will it lighten as it continues to settle? Any thoughts?

 

[lschiavo]

It is probably just the effect of looking through such a large quantity. In a glass or your sample tube, it will look much lighter.

 

[EyePeeAy]

edit: i misread the question, sorry.

 

[bruin_ale]

as posted above, looking through the entire batch doesn't tell you what color it is. I've got a belgian golden strong fermenting right now, the grain bill was all begian pils. The thing should be damn near clear but it looks like a pale ale when looking through a carboy.

 

[JonK331]

Yup don't worry. THey always look darker in the carboy.

 

[cshamilton]

Just moved my second batch of beer to my secondary fermentor. It is a kit, pale ale. Damn, it's dark. I thought this should be more of a golden/amber color? It's only like four days old. Will it lighten as it continues to settle? Any thoughts?

Yes relax, the diameter makes it look darker - also you should get a lot more settling yet. Most people on this board leave the beer in the primary for 3 weeks. If you want to read all the reasons search some older threads.

 

[unionrdr]

The fact that the airlock stops bubbling is no indication that fermentation has stopped. Racking to secondary at 4 days tells me initial fermentation was over. But far from reaching FG. Let the yeast have time after FG is reached to clean up their by-products. You'll get better,clearer beer.

 

[Germelli1]

And if it is too dark in the final product, saving half the extract for and adding it at 15 mins left in the boil will help you lighten the beer a bit!

 

[Yooper]

Keep in mind that "pale ale" doesn't really mean light colored. The name came fron England, when "pale ale" was simply a lighter colored beer than a "dark beer" like a stout!

American Pale Ale guidelines call for an SRM (color measurement) of 5.0-14 SRM. 5.0 is pretty light colored, but 14 SRM (still a pale ale!) is almost a dark amber!

 

[SailorTodd]

It's also worth mentioning, that some darkening probably occurred during the boil. Extract kit, right? Depending on how/when you added the extract, it can have a tendency to darken and caramelize, making the beer a darker color than it necessarily should be. When that compounds with the volume of the liquid it becomes a much darker product.

 

[NWMushroom]

Can you post your recipe or a link to the kit you used? Maybe the malt you used is darker than you expected.

 

[birvine]

A pale ale will go from cloudy and light-ish as light is reflected from the suspended yeast cells, to clear and darker-looking since you are looking through a lot of beer. If transferred to a small bottle you'd find it much lighter. Chances are, though, it will not be as light as you're purchased bottle of BMC or BExC (Blue-Ex-Cdn).

B