Do hops change beer colour?

RATM

Just wondering about this. I'm doing a run of Muntons Gold Pilsner. After 1 week fermenting I did a gravity test and the beer in the tube was definitely a lager colour. I left it for another 5 days and then added a teabag solution of Saaz hops 2 days before bottling. I left the teabag of hops in the wort as well as throwing the boiling water it was steeping inside into it too. When bottling I had a sample and it was very brown and quite bitter to taste. When held up to light you could still see through it but it was a good bit darker than a pilsner should be and certainly darker than it was a week previous.

I was quite surprised by the colour, at first I though that perhaps the online shop had given me the Muntons Bitter by mistake but then thinking back I'm positive I saw a glass of pilsner on the box label. I'm also thinking it wasn't the Saaz hops as AFAIK they are commonly used in lagers. Scratching my head here.

Also is it normal to have a good bit of gunk stuck to the bottom of the fermenter at the end of the brew or should this have dissolved into the mix ?

mayto

RATM wrote: »

Just wondering about this. I'm doing a run of Muntons Gold Pilsner. After 1 week fermenting I did a gravity test and the beer in the tube was definitely a lager colour. I left it for another 5 days and then added a teabag solution of Saaz hops 2 days before bottling. I left the teabag of hops in the wort as well as throwing the boiling water it was steeping inside into it too. When bottling I had a sample and it was very brown and quite bitter to taste. When held up to light you could still see through it but it was a good bit darker than a pilsner should be and certainly darker than it was a week previous.

I was quite surprised by the colour, at first I though that perhaps the online shop had given me the Muntons Bitter by mistake but then thinking back I'm positive I saw a glass of pilsner on the box label. I'm also thinking it wasn't the Saaz hops as AFAIK they are commonly used in lagers. Scratching my head here.

Also is it normal to have a good bit of gunk stuck to the bottom of the fermenter at the end of the brew or should this have dissolved into the mix ?

I suppose hops could add a bit of colour but it would be very slight I would think. The hops can make the beer look a bit cloudy as they break up and settle to the bottom, but probably less so if using a fine mesh hop bag. There is usually a lot of trub at the bottom of the fermenter after fermentation and the hop bits that escape the muslin bag will settle there too in time.

slayerking

Nope, hops cant/wont add any color at all. If you're just dry hopping, they will add mostly aroma and also a little bit of hop flavour. If you're using a large amount of hops, you can get some 'hop haze', but that's it.

It also seems you might have boiled the hops and thrown in the boiling water and hops into the fermenter, I wouldn't advise this as you could get off flavours from temperature shocking the fermenting beer or maybe even killing some yeast and maybe some unwanted bitterness. Its called dry hopping as the hops are meant to be added dry.

Regarding the colour, when taking a gravity reading, the beer always appears a slightly lighter colour as you're looking at much thinner amount of the beer. I've often brewed beers that look quite dark in the fermenter, and really light in the trial jar, but they usually end somewhere in the middle color wise.
As its a kit, the colour should be as expected come drinking time unless you boiled it or brewed it up short. Leave it conditioning and it should be fine.

Gunk at the bottom of the fermenter is completely normal