Gold/Light Colored Pale Ale

Somerville · 08-07-2005, 06:54 PM

Hi, Im kind of new to brewing. Below in my signature are the only ones I've made. I was wondering, how do you make a gold colored pale ale? I attempted to do this with my California Pale Ale, yet I look at it in the secondary, and it is still dark...My first brew was a Dusseldorf Style Altbier which included Chocolate malt and I thought that if I didnt use that in my pale ale it wouldnt be dark...I didnt use any dark colored grains...just Caravienne and carapils...any thoughts? Thanks

Sir Sudster · 08-07-2005, 08:08 PM

If you use more than 2 lbs. of Caravienna your SRM value starts to turn amber. I assume from your post that Caravienna was your base malt. Try an American or British Pale Ale Malt and you will be able to get the color your looking for.

Somerville · 08-08-2005, 12:27 AM

Well, heres what was in it (that would affect the color):

6lbs of Coopers Light DME
1lb of 20L Belgian Caravienne and .5lb Carapils (steeped)

Why is it dark?

Sir Sudster · 08-09-2005, 12:17 AM

I honestly don't know Somerville . You shold be getting the color right on. Sometimes suppliers make mistakes. You may have thought you were getting Caravienne but it sounds to me it was something else. Just my guess though.
Did you pour the malt extract in with the heat still on. If so, you probably scorched the malt giving a darker color. It doesn't take much scorching to change your color.

Somerville · 08-09-2005, 12:33 AM

Hmm, its possible. I turned it off, started pouring...and you know DME, it started getting a tad chunky and sticky and then I put it back on the heat before it was fully mixed in as to try and quicken the DME mixing in...I was reading about Bud Clones and other gold colored ales and most of them didnt even have grains being steeped in them...