Did a blue moon clone question about final color...

I hit all the gravities and temperatures.
It is got a nice action going on in the carboy but its really dark
and looks like a brown ale. Is there much hope for it lightening to a proper blue moon color.
The pic below shows my fat tire clone which is going crazy and my blue moon clone which is active for sure but not as crazy. The blue moon is on the right. Fat Tire clone is in the middle. The far left is a brown porter which is nearly ready to bottle.

The brew typically looks lighter in color when it is out of the carboy. Those things make everything look a few shades darker because of the concentrated volume of beer. However, that is looking like it is way too dark for a blue moon style Witbier. No worries though, just tweak your grain bill next time and enjoy this brew. Maybe tell people it is a different clone though!

Was this an extract batch? It looks like it was extract, and that the extract was boiled in a small volume so it darkened.

It will look lighter in the glass, but probably never as light as Blue Moon.

For next time, add the majority of the extract at the end of the boil instead of at the beginning, and the end wort will be a lot lighter in color!

Yooper said:

Was this an extract batch? It looks like it was extract, and that the extract was boiled in a small volume so it darkened.

It will look lighter in the glass, but probably never as light as Blue Moon.

For next time, add the majority of the extract at the end of the boil instead of at the beginning, and the end wort will be a lot lighter in color!

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I started with 6.5 gallons of water in my 10 gallon kettle and steeped some flaked wheat in the kit. It was all extract. Then I had two full jars of wheat LME and i dissolved it all and then went to the boil. Where did I go wrong.

PastorofMuppets said:

I started with 6.5 gallons of water in my 10 gallon kettle and steeped some flaked wheat in the kit. It was all extract. Then I had two full jars of wheat LME and i dissolved it all and then went to the boil. Where did I go wrong.

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No where really, extract will always be darker no matter what you do. You can add it in the last 10-15 mins of the boil to lessen the darkness but even that will make it darker

PastorofMuppets said:

I started with 6.5 gallons of water in my 10 gallon kettle and steeped some flaked wheat in the kit. It was all extract. Then I had two full jars of wheat LME and i dissolved it all and then went to the boil. Where did I go wrong.

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You didn't go wrong! It's just that boiling extract causes it to darken, due to maillard reactions (similar to caramelization). That's why it's darker than you expected. Also, LME tends to be darker in color anyway than dry malt extract (DME).

Next time, if you add the first jug of extract at the beginning, and the second jug of extract at the end, it will preserve the lighter color somewhat. If you use wheat DME, it would be even lighter.