Used only pale malt, turned brown after boiling

[kojinakata]

Hi everyone,
Did my first bottling today and remembered a question that I had when I was pouring my cooled wort into the primary. Because it was my first all grain batch ever, I only used pale malt and homegrown Brewers Gold hops that were sealed in a plastic container in the refrigerator. After mashing the color was light brown- dark yellowish, however at the end of boiling it was certainly brown.

My question is what is the source of this problem? Anyway to fix it?

 

[user 108580]

It's wort caramelization. It causes it to get darker from heating it. Not too much you can do about it. You need a good vigorous boil to get rid of dms and have good hop utilization.

 

[JoppaFarms]

It's also darker because of the volume of liquid you are looking at. When you pour it into a 12 oz glass it will be a lighter color.

 

[shtoive87]

I've also heard that if you start boiling the first runnings while you sparge, you can get more carmelization... Not sure if you did this, but the longer you boil, the more carmelization you will have. Also, you just need a rolling boil. You don't need to have it be incredibly vigorous.

 

[eastoak]

I've also heard that if you start boiling the first runnings while you sparge, you can get more carmelization... Not sure if you did this, but the longer you boil, the more carmelization you will have. Also, you just need a rolling boil. You don't need to have it be incredibly vigorous.

this (starting the boil with the first runnings) might matter if your total volume was a quart of wort but in a 5 gallon batch it makes no difference.

 

[kojinakata]

It was actually a 1 gallon batch and I started boiling when whole mash was in the kettle. I guess I just made the boiling a lot vigorous.