Wheat beer colors way off?

I have tried brewing a couple of blue moon and the like wheat beer clones. The problem i have is all my wheat beers have a very bright yellow color where most of the commercial wheats are more orange. So far the recipes have been very similar with ranges between 40-60% 2 row and 60-40% malted wheat. I also feel that most of mine come out crisp and a little tart where the commercials come out sweater. So my question becomes, should i add some crystal or should i try a decocation? Most of the websites for the beers i like say they use 2-row and wheat.

add a little crystal

thats the thing about homebrewing. if you don't like the result you can change the recipe. if you want a sweeter taste and a darker color add the crystal.

should i use just 0.5 lbs crystal 40? for a 5 gal batch

I've done two all grain wheat recipes and both have turned out to be great. Overall I used 16 pounds of grain which included two pounds of Crystal 10. (7 lbs pale, 7 lbs white wheat, 2 lbs Crystal 10, 1.5 lbs rice hulls)

is that for 10 gal?

Sorry, I should have been more clear on that - both were for 6.5 gallon brews.

I think that 0.5lbs of crystal 40 might be a little too dark. I'd maybe try 0.5lbs of crystal 20 first.

thanks ill toss that in once i finish the keg im on now

All of mine are more on the yellow side I think. Am I doing something wrong? Just kidding, I kind of like the color.

what kind of wheat malt are you using? white wheat? red wheat?

any 2-row or other base malts with the wheat lending some SRM to it?

you can use a darker wheat malt. red or dark wheat malts will add a bit of color.

i am using briess white wheat malt and briess 2 row (SRM 1-1.5). I could get MO for which is 3 SRM. I think by color i really think of flavor. The bright yellow wheats (eg hoegaared) taste very crisp and tart where the more orange wheats (ex blue moon) tend to be more malty and sweat. Mine have been yellow and tart where i would like to make them sweater without that tart taste. I was wondering if the darker color was cause of added grains like crystal or added sweatness from decocation.

As a side thought. I hear alot of people say if you can get MO it is by far much better than breiss 2-row and they replace all 2-row with MO. would you agree with this comment?

well you might get a little darker with mo but you sound like you want more malty sweetness with your color so you are basically describing what caramel malt does. definitely add some.

i have a pic in my gallery of my GBH inspired recipe next to the original. I used 1 lb 40L and red wheat...recipe in my blog. I'd go with 10% on the 40.

Maybe try mashing a bit higher too (but certainly add the crystal).

I recently did a wheat using the beecave bavarian effeweizen which Had a nice and white color

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f70/bee-cave-brewery-bavarian-hefeweizen-35679/

I used the canadian belgian yeast instead his one and it already taste soooo nice !