Index: src/java/org/apache/nutch/indexer/IndexerMapReduce.java
===================================================================
--- src/java/org/apache/nutch/indexer/IndexerMapReduce.java	(revision 1740062)
+++ src/java/org/apache/nutch/indexer/IndexerMapReduce.java	(working copy)
@@ -351,13 +351,10 @@
 
     if (content != null) {
       // Get the original unencoded content
-      String binary = new String(content.getContent());
+      String binary = base64
+                ? Base64.encodeBase64String(content.getContent())
+                : new String(content.getContent());
 
-      // optionally encode as base64
-      if (base64) {
-        binary = Base64.encodeBase64String(StringUtils.getBytesUtf8(binary));
-      }
-
       doc.add("binaryContent", binary);
     }