Wort double the darkness expected ?

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mongey

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Just cubed a saison.have Made the same recepir before with success. 70/20/10 Pilsner/wheat/Vienna.all the numbers are good but the wort is double the darkness what i expected

Brew day was a little bit of a shambles. My wife is out all day and I waslooking after 3 year old at the same time and also did a couple new things. But still not sure why it’s come out so much darker than before boil was vigorous at times . but no more than usual.

New things

1 I bought some campden tablets and used half tab in mash water,35l , for first time.
2 had a new hop spider that 30 min I Realized was clogged and not working so I tipped the wort back into the pot and threw it across the back yard.

Everything else was by the book. Is the campden a potential factor or did I introduce too much oxygen pouring from the spider maybe ?

Wort smells ok. But it’s way dark for sure. It smells sweet . As wort does , but it doesn’t smell or taste burnt to me.
 
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Campden tablets are just sodium or potassium metabisulphate aren't they?
Doubt if that would affect colour.
I've used potassium metebisulphate before with no noticed change in colour.
How much hops did you have in that spider? I've used a fine and coarse mesh one and the fine struggles with a stack of hops
Saisons aren't very hoppy though are they?
eg. I managed English styles ok with the fine mesh one but it struggled with the extra load of an IPA
That's why I got the coarser one.
Sometimes for very hoppy brews I'd use both of them and split the load but now I'm doing smaller batches
no need.

Were you using the same Vienna as before? The colour can vary quite a bit on that and you sure you didn't get the weight wrong
I've managed that with less distractions than a 3 year old might give you.
 
Only my 12g 60min addition in the spider when it clogged.

My local HBS mills my grain after I call it through my order. so it spossibe they something different may have been used.
 
I'd say mislabeled grain. M2c. Crush and hops shouldn't make a big difference.
I think it must be grian mix up . cleaned the kettle yesterday and no trace of any schorching or burning .

wort def smells more caramel than it should . its not really a saison any more. wondering if I should ferment with a different yeast and abandon it as a saison
 
Meh. Unless you are entering it into a comp, just go with the original plan and see what happens. You could end up with a one-off "bewdy".

As far as Saison goes, the traditional definition is a seasonal beer intended for farm hands. A real saison isn't limited to a narrow range of pale colours, even though that's what you mostly see these days. Be adventurous, mix it up and see where it takes you. That will make it a Real Saison, rather than just a saison.
 
Ok to close this off.

So eventually got this into fermenter and color looked fine. Weird.

Next day did a batch of pale ale. All good. Go to take my end of boil hydro sample and notice the first flow out of the tap was also really dark at first Stop it half full. Tip it then open tap again and it’s fine , right on expected colour

Guessing some wort is sitting in the tap recess during the boil and is darkening ? Didn’t happen on my first 8 batches , but last 2 it has.
 
I brewed an amber and pale ale yesterday. Both look same color in the cube but i know the end product will be vastly diff.

Dont stress, just ferment it
 

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