Beer color is off?

[clemson51]

Recently brewed the Midwest supplies extract kit for Belgian witbier and it came out much darker than expected. It looks like a pale ale after 5 weeks in bottle. I followed directions like instructed and added all the wheat extract at beginning of boil. I will be brewing an amber ale this weekend and wondered if adding half of the liquid extract up front and half at 30 mins would help the color but not affect the taste? The instructions say to add the LME and the DME At beginning of the boil. Any suggestions that would help keep correct color?

 

[XombieDeath]

Don't add extract to water that is on an active burner/heat element. Take the pot off the burner/heat, add the extract, stir it in good, then go back on the burner/heat and bring it to boil. Adding extract directly to heat will darken it up some.

 

[duboman]

Typically all extract recipes will be darker than an All Grain recipe or even partial mash. One way to minimize this is to add all the extract towards the end of the boil. Boiling the extract for the full 60 minutes is not necessary. Some people have even added it in the last 5 minutes.

 

[yancydc]

A lot of extract beers will come out darker because you're essentially boiling the sugars twice. Late additions are the best thing you can do to fight that, so for your amber, putting the extract in early will only make it darker. Darker beers are just a fact of life for extract brewers, there's only so much you can do. Luckily, it usually doesn't affect the taste.

 

[ludomonster]

If you add DME late, I recommend giving it some time to dissolve. You have to work a bit a mixing it in. I usually add a little at a time starting around the 15 -20 minute mark and do a lot of stirring. It also depends on the hop schedule and if you use a chiller because you have to get all of those things in as well.

 

[alexdagrate]

Add just 1/6 of the extract at the beginning of the boil. Add the rest at flameout. Boil as large a batch as possible with your equipment.

If you upgrade to equipment that lets you do full boils (like a propane turkey fryer, for example) that will help as well.

 

[adamjackson]

So, this explains why my beers have been darker than I expected. Primarily using DME on my recipes.

 

[XombieDeath]

If you put the extract in late, know that the gravity of the boil is used to determine hop utilization. The higher the boil gravity, the lower the hop utilization (i.e. how much water and how much extract are in the pot when you are boiling the hops determines how bitter it is going to be.) If you are trying to follow a recipe or match a style, you will have to account for deviations.

Here's a good link talking about the math involved.

 

[clemson51]

Ok so if I up my boil size I should get better hop utilization if I understand correctly? I have a 7.5 gallon pot but recipe calls for a 3 gallon boil. I might up it to 4 just to see how it turns out. Thanks

 

[alexdagrate]

Ok so if I up my boil size I should get better hop utilization if I understand correctly? I have a 7.5 gallon pot but recipe calls for a 3 gallon boil. I might up it to 4 just to see how it turns out. Thanks

With a 7.5 gallon pot, i think you should just go for full boils.