Darkening Kolsch

I came up with a recipe which can best be described as a honey kolsch. It is as follows:

Orange Honey Kolsch (2.5 gallons)
Prebrew Tea:
8oz Briess Carapils
6oz Rahr 6-Row
4oz Briess Wheat
Boil:
3oz Whole Leaf Hops (see below) @ 60
3.3# Munton Light LME @ 30
0.25oz Dried Sweet Orange Peel @ 15
1 Whirlflock tab @ 15
1# local-made clover honey @ knockout
Safale US-05 Yeast

The hops were fresh picked from a friend's yard. He wasn't sure what breed they were, but he and I each ate one and thought they tasted somewhere between Hallertau and Cascade.

I was planning on this turning out very light colored. Like a Kolsch should, really. Instead, it turned out dark... very dark. Here's a picture of it in the secondary:
(in the foreground)

I'll be working on this recipe until I can get it just right, but I'm wondering where all this darkness came from. I think next time I'll use pellet hops, extra-light DME (and less of it), and orange blossom honey. That should make it lighter.

Where did this darkness come from?

What yeast did you use, because I really don't see many Kolsch ingredients on that list at all. Regardless, you are not really going to be able to get the beer as light as you want using extracts, especially if you not doing late additions with it, and I would ALWAYS go with the lightest possible extract. The extract has already been boiled once, and you are doing it again making it even darker. It won't be that dark once it is in the glass though, carboys always make things look darker because there is much more beer in there, allowing less light to get through.

I added the yeast into the recipe above (Safale US-05). As per calling it a Kolsch - I suppose a kolsch was my inspiration, but at this stage of the experimentation, I'm not sure what to call it.

I was aiming for it to be as lightly colored as a kolsch - or thereabouts. However, this is a dark beer - even poured into a glass. I suppose my question can be restated as which of the ingredients I listed caused the most darkness?

I added the LME at 30 minutes into the boil since I've heard that the longer you boil it, the darker it gets, but you still want about 30 minutes of boil time to ensure it's clean. I also thought possibly the whole leaf hops added the color - since it's a reddish hue and hop oils add that. I've never used whole leaf hops before. My other thought is maybe the dried orange peel broke down and added a lot of the color.

Im must have missed the yeast when I was looking. So ya, that's like an American Amber with orange peel and a touch of wheat, and no flavor or aroma hops. Also, steeping that wheat and 6-row is going to add a lot of haze and not much of anything else.

As for the color, I'm sticking with the extract. If they have light and ex-light, then the light will most likely be a blend of base grain and crystal or something else to add some color, the ex-light will be made with just base grain. And you really only need to boil for a couple minutes, I always did the last 10-15 when I was doing extract, but it really only needs 15 minutes above 180, so the higher the temp the less time it needs to pasteurize. Hops will promote a red hue, but you will need a lot to get anything really noticeable.

SchwarzKolsch!

Kolsch NEEDS a kolsch yeast. Otherwise its a blonde ale (or in your case a very dirty blonde)