Dark color of my Belgian Wit

This is only my second extract brew and its about 4 days in the primary. I used 2 3.3# cans of Munton's Wheat LME, one added at the beginning of the boil and the second at 30min. I used 1oz of Saaz hops at beginning of the boil and the second oz of Saaz at 20 min. The last 10 min I added 1oz of bitter orange peel and 1oz of corriander. Pitched WLP400 Belgian Wit at 70 degrees and fermentation started in about 12 hours. Everything has gone well except for one thing....The color of my beer in the carboy is about as dark as a nut brown ale and doesn't resemble a wit at all. I'm worried about what went wrong that would cause it to be much darker than expected. I know LMEs can be darker than normal but this is much darker. I used the same exact malt extract in my first brew (bavarian hefeweizen) and it turned out great with the color I expected. Any help or ideas on whats going on is much appreciated!

Full 5 gal boil or concentrated?

it's to be expected. welcome to extract brewing.. I had the same question a few months ago.. Do a search and you'll find plenty more in the same boat.

The upside to this, it will be just as good if not better than what you can buy..

+1

FWIW the color won't affect the taste too much...unless you really scorched some LME on the bottom of your brewpot. Even then it'll probably be fine.

My pale ales look amber in the fermenter, but are usually a light golden once they're in a glass. The volume of the 5 gallons makes everything look darker.

It was a 1.5 gallon boil, which from what I've read maybe needs to be bumped up to 2 or 2.5 gallons to help lighten the color?? I'm fairly certain I didn't scorch any LME as it was off the burner and I had a helper to pour as I stirred. Thanks for the help....

adx said:

My pale ales look amber in the fermenter, but are usually a light golden once they're in a glass. The volume of the 5 gallons makes everything look darker.

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This is part of it. As you already said increasing your boil volume will help, but read up on late addition of extract. This will lighten your color a lot.

I'd do both full boil (or as much as you can) and late additions, which you have done to a degree. I've done 3 extract wit batches and the last one was the darkest, even with DME.

I would suggest going with DME for a lighter color. Also, my Wit was 50/50 barley malt and wheat.

PHillbrewer said:

It was a 1.5 gallon boil, which from what I've read maybe needs to be bumped up to 2 or 2.5 gallons to help lighten the color??

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Exactly.

2.5 or higher (3 would be better) would lighten your beer quite a bit.