Belgian blonde color

So I'm attempting my second beer, a Belgian blonde. My first beer, a Cali common, never finished fermenting and I decided to dump it.
Any way the blonde has been in primary for 3 days an had a nice krouzen(sp?). Only thing is its a darker brown then I was expecting. Almost like a brown ale color. Think it will lighten some in secondary? If not what do you think would have caused it? Thanks.

It will become more translucent with time making it appear lighter in color but it won't really change shades. It is tough to really tell color from the Carboy anyway because it is a large volume. Look at your hydrometer tube when you take a gravity reading to get a better idea.

Don't dump this one either. There is very little time won't improve when it comes to beer.

Thanks man. I really didn't want to dump the last batch either, but it sat in primary for 2 months and went through 2 wyeast packets and only dropped to 1.030 gravity. I could have bottled but didn't want to risk making 2 cases of bottle bombs. Although that does sound some what fun.

Is it an extract brew?

I have an extract hefe that looks like an amber ale.

yea its an extract. bought it as a kit at my LHBS.

BFitch said:

yea its an extract. bought it as a kit at my LHBS.

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Boiling extract causes it to darken quite a bit. There are some ways to get around this- using the lightest colored extract and adding it at the end of the boil (instead of all at the beginning) keeps the color lighter and helps avoid the "cooked extract taste" from maillard reactions.

If you post the recipe, we can see what the cause of the dark beer is, but as was mentioned it will look lighter in the glass even if it is darker than expected.

Yooper said:

Boiling extract causes it to darken quite a bit. There are some ways to get around this- using the lightest colored extract and adding it at the end of the boil (instead of all at the beginning) keeps the color lighter and helps avoid the "cooked extract taste" from maillard reactions.

If you post the recipe, we can see what the cause of the dark beer is, but as was mentioned it will look lighter in the glass even if it is darker than expected.

Click to expand...

6.6lb Pilsen LME (half in the beginning, half 15 minutes from the end)
3lb Pilsen DME
3oz aromatic malt
1oz kent goldings hops


I'm sure it'll come out fine, but it'd be nice to know if we did everything correct.

Here's a pic of it so you can see the color

Probably not adding much more than what others have said, but I think a lot of that is a combination of volume and the yeast still in suspension, doing it's thing, that blocks a lot of light. I had a witbier kit that looked very similar to that while it was fermenting. Now, 6 weeks later, it has a nice golden color like a Witbier should. It's darker than commercial, but not that far off. When it clears some and in a smaller volume of a glass, I'm pretty sure you'll notice it being distinctly lighter. Heck, I have an Amber ale that has lightened considerably since it became clear. It's become a genuine amber color now, while fermenting it looked like a porter.