Two hits and the wort turned brown

Hey all, odd issue. Attempting to brew a hazy - 25% oats a pound of malted oat and 1.5 some 'quick' oats I had toasted a while back. Some Viking Euro sweet malt (green malt) MO, 2 row and 2.5 lbs of golden promise.

2:1 Chloride/Sulphide and 4gm ascorbic acid in the mash with 4 ounces of Cascade whole cone hops - I have an embarrassing surplus to use up and running out of rice hulls.

Mashed and sparged with phosphoric acid adjusted RO water around 154 F and the wort was a nice golden color.

Boiled an one hour - my volume a little low but oh well. Amarillo in the last ten minutes with Wai iti, Wakatu and Idaho 7 at flame out - two ounces each. My chiller is copper and I wanted to minimize getting oxygen damage later so I no-chilled the batch, wrapping the brew kettle with Saran wrap and into a cool-ish space.

My intention was to make a mid 6% beer and 'dry hop' with another 4 ounces of Idaho 7 getting it into a keg as fast and O2 free as possible I was going to do something I've pulled off before - toss the hops in with Voss yeast, ferment 5-6 days and transfer to the purged keg.

The problem? When I got the wort into the fermenter it was brown like toasted graham cracker. I don't think this is hop detritus and didn't think it's maillard reaction so I'm left thinking the toasted oats (they weren't burnt, I toast them routinely) threw off color when the wort boiled? Or could I have screwed up my water chemistry?

To top things off the Voss got off to an uncharacteristically slow start which had me bugging.

Here's a pic, but what could I have done so wrong to make my hazy look oxidized before fermentation?

 

eh, imgur failing me now.
https://imgur.com/a/uQAEDKB

 

Did not measure mash ph this time.

 

I had read that elsewhere and presume malt can produce some as well, especially dark malt. I started with RO water that I had dosed with Sodium Metabisulfate (not potassium) in the jugs I went to the store to get it a couple days prior. It was almost an immeasurable amount, like 1/2 of an eighth teaspoon per each 3 gallon jug then I boiled it prior to the phosphoric acid addition - I'll prep eight gallons on brew day, the other gallon is to mix up starsan.

I didn't whip out the pH meter this go round although I followed the same process that typically gets my mash/sparge water to around 5.5/5.4 - with the hot-fermenting kveiks and their reported ability to drop beer pH lower than US05 or S04 I don't add acidulated malt here. I took a picture of the mash wort pre-boil but the photo looks darker than I recall. At the moment the beer is still actively fermenting and lightened up. Since all the hoos apart from the mash hops were pellet - while not a heroic amount much more than I usually throw in - maybe I am seeing hop residue in suspension? The four ounces that went in before I sealed the fermenter are in a hop basket so I hope that keeps it a little more contained - it worked for me in the past but I wonder if the hazy aspect will hold the hop bits in suspension forever. I didn't use enzymes in order to arrest hop creep but I'm hoping given enough time it'll calm itself. Tomorrow will be day three, the keg I attached the blowoff tube to has pushed out all it's sanitizer and I'll be disconnecting the liquid line to keep things sealed.

Worst case I'll have a dark hazy I'll drink all by myself. I'll pull some off the keg an measure final pH to figure it out. If my fears are overblown I'll chalk it up to RDWHAHB, otherwise I'll try again in the future using untoasted oats, maybe a little white wheat if I have it (I didn't) and checking the pH throughout which I didn't do this time.

 

I thought I'd close out this post with what I observed: even though the fermenter was in a bathroom at the north end of the farmhouse I was somewhat horrified to check on the beer late afternoon and the sun was fully on the uncovered fermenter which I hadn't anticipated when setting it up. The beer turned out pretty bad and though I gave it the opportunity to 'recover' once kegged just in case it never did and was one of my rare dumpers.

I've changed locations and haven't had significant problems since except struggling with my pH readings being all over. Calibrating my meters proved futile so I replaced the tips. Totally my negligence there, I didn't use cleaning fluid and the tips dried out (not in storage fluid). Going to take another crack at a hazy and it seems pH has a role in biotransformation.