Darkness

I have made about 10 different beers since beginning to brew. I love dark beers generally (Stout and Porter). Recently i have been trying to make lighter beer (IPA, Hef, and Red's). They all seem to come out too dark than i really want. I traditionally do a brew in a bag method. Any suggestions on lightening them up in the future? I have all the recipes on my computer if you want to see them. If you need more information to give me some input ill be more than happy to provide!

Yeeeeaaaah we're definitely going to need more information... considering you provided none I kid, I kid.

The answer is probably going to be "stop using such dark grains" but let's see.

You would want to use light grains, but that is the obvious answer. If you are using light extract I would use extra light not golden light. If you are all-grain try pils rather then 2-row. Also if you are doing grains/extract with specialty grains steep at a lower temp like 149.

If you are an extract brewer, add 1/3 the extract in the beginning of the boil. Add the other 2/3 at the last 15min of the boil. That will help if there is any burning.

But more information would be great.

I only do all grain brewing.

Here are 3 of the recipes i have been toying with. These are 3 gallon recipes (just grain bill)

Hefeweizen
3 lbs. German 2 – Row
4 lbs. German Wheat Malt
5 oz. Munich Malt
4 oz. Caramel 10
4 oz. Cara-pils

Nicoles Birthday Red
Marris Otter Pale – 6 lbs.
American Caramel 60 – 3 oz.
American Caramel 80 – 3 oz.
Caramel 40 – 3 oz.
Roasted Barley – 3 oz.

IPA

6lbs. American 2 row
8 oz. Victory
8 oz. Munich
2 oz. Carapils
4 oz. Crystal 40
2 oz. Crystal 60

Spencecore24 said:

I only do all grain brewing.

Here are 3 of the recipes i have been toying with. These are 3 gallon recipes (just grain bill)

Hefeweizen
3 lbs. German 2 – Row
4 lbs. German Wheat Malt
5 oz. Munich Malt
4 oz. Caramel 10
4 oz. Cara-pils

Nicoles Birthday Red
Marris Otter Pale – 6 lbs.
American Caramel 60 – 3 oz.
American Caramel 80 – 3 oz.
Caramel 40 – 3 oz.
Roasted Barley – 3 oz.

IPA

6lbs. American 2 row
8 oz. Victory
8 oz. Munich
2 oz. Carapils
4 oz. Crystal 40
2 oz. Crystal 60

Click to expand...

When I plug those into BrewTarget I get these values:

Hefe -- 5.0SRM (Weizen range is 2-8)
Red -- 15.9SRM (Red range is 9-18)
IPA -- 8.9SRM (Am IPA range 6-15)

You're about midrange for all of your brews. Just ease back on the crystals to lighten it up. Drop munich on hefe, 80L on red, munich on IPA.

I think Sierra Nevada just uses some 60L for the color in their Pale Ale, you could probably drop the 40L from your IPA and use 60L (11% of grain bill) only and, yes, replace the Munich and the Victory in the IPA with American 2 row (89% of grain bill)

Thank you for the input gentleman. Now my Ipa seems kind of flat on the malt side lol. Any additions you would put in any of my beers to set them apart?

Could also be a mash pH issue. I always forget the direction, but I believe too high a pH will result in a darker wort/beer.

To follow up on my above post, here's a photo from wort collected from the same grist but two different pHs - the lighter one had a mash pH of 5.5, the darker one had a mash pH of 6.5. The darkening is explained to be a result of increased Maillard (browning) reactions at higher pHs.



Source: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.ph...ity_and_efficiency_in_single_infusion_mashing

I agree with Jlem... look at your ph. Another quick check, are you crushing your grain with the same mill you did your darks with? Sometimes some of the darker crushed grain will hang around and mess slightly with the color.