1st Brew - Wheat Beer, Amber Color

[Papa_Legba]

So I finally took the plunge and brewed the AHS Summer Wheat Mini Mash (Safbrew wb-06).

Everything went very well and I hit the OG of 1.049. It's in a chest freezer bubbling away between 60 and 63F.

Only question I have is that the wort was caramel colored vs the golden/yellow I was expecting for a wheat. Will this change during fermentation/conditioning?

Thx

 

[dkennedy]

Are you judging the color based on how it looks in a kettle / fermentor / other big vessel, or from a sample? I've made a lot of beers that looked wayyyy off on color in bulk, but were spot-on in a glass, when you're not looking through 5 gallons at once.

A potential source would be caramelization of the wort- can happen with an extra-hard boil, especially with extract.

 

[mrgrimm101]

Are you judging the color based on how it looks in a kettle / fermentor / other big vessel, or from a sample? I've made a lot of beers that looked wayyyy off on color in bulk, but were spot-on in a glass, when you're not looking through 5 gallons at once.

A potential source would be caramelization of the wort- can happen with an extra-hard boil, especially with extract.

^^ This!

It always tends to looks different depending on the volume. I made a Black IPA that was really black in the fermenter..but my samples were brownish. In the glass it ended up mostly black..slightly brown but still really dark.

It also looks different when all the trub/yeast is in suspension compared to after that all settles out.

 

[NCSU_Brewer]

So I finally took the plunge and brewed the AHS Summer Wheat Mini Mash (Safbrew wb-06).

Everything went very well and I hit the OG of 1.049. It's in a chest freezer bubbling away between 60 and 63F.

Only question I have is that the wort was caramel colored vs the golden/yellow I was expecting for a wheat. Will this change during fermentation/conditioning?

Thx

I've brewed two wheat ales in my short homebrew career. Both times the beer looked caramel-to-amber colored in the carboy, and both times the finished product turned out much lighter and more true to color in the glass. For reference, see the pics below showing my Blue Moon clone (commercial beer is on the right in the first pic). This beer looked walnut brown in the carboy.

 

[Papa_Legba]

Thanks - that's the color I was hoping for. Yes, I was referring to the color of 5 gal. in the bucket - but the sample in the thief was also fairly dark. Sounds like I'm ok.

One more question - if I were to "lightly" dry hop this beer, would 1 oz. at 3-5 days after cold crashing be the way to go? (I'm thinking something citrusy like Mosaic or Citra)

 

[NCSU_Brewer]

That should be fine. My personal preference is to not cold crash wheat beers since cloudiness is true to the style.