Keeping color to style.

[SkylerChaBro]

My last PM went well, but I seem to have one consistent problem dating back to my first beer. Every beer has turned out much darker than the style/recipe would indicate, and I mean a lot darker.

In this case I had a Belgian Wit PM recipe with an estimated SRM of about 5.8-6. From this I would expect the wort to resemble a dark golden color. The SRM as it currently ferments looks to be closer to 13-14, a medium brown. I know extracts tend to darken a beer but I would assume Beersmith would account for this a bit. About 55% of the grain bill was extract in this case.

I found no scorching of the wort in the brewpot, the extract was added at the start of the boil, pilsner 2row, white wheat malt, and flaked wheat made up the rest of the grain bill.

What might I have done to darken the wort to such an extent? What might I do to alleviate this problem next brew day?

 

[SatelliteGuy]

Extract is boiled during its production, so, during your brewing, you only need to boil it enough to make sure it's sterile. do a search on "late addition".

 

[92greenyj]

yeah its from your extract. I've never done an extract or PM, I've always done AG but from reading and speaking to others extracts tend to come out a few degrees darker due to the extract production process

 

[storunner13]

I'll second satelliteguy. If you add all (or most) of the extract at 15minutes, you should avoid darkening the beer from caramelization (especially prevalent in partial boils, as I'm guessing you're doing). If you do, be sure to adjust your hop additions accordingly. You'll have a much lower boil gravity at the start.

 

[Smokeater233]

+1 on the late addition comment...

 

[SkylerChaBro]

I do in fact use a partial boil, but not by much. I generally top off the fermenter with <1 gallon of pre boiled water in order to reach my 5 gal mark.

I guess late addition it is. I was unaware that extract could darken it by nearly 10srm during the boil!

One other thing for Storunner13, you said adjust my hop schedule accordingly. I presume you are referring to my slightly lower boil volume right? or does the gravity make a difference since next time the extract would be added later in the boil.

I will be making a move next time to use about 7lb of grain since that is what my setup can accommodate, the rest will just be filled in with 1-2lb of extract depending. This should also help to mitigate the darkening and produce a better beer.

 

[storunner13]

It's the gravity that makes a difference. The higher gravity in the boiling wort, the lower the hop utilization.

I've done a number of partial mashes, and I would usually mash 5-9 lbs. of grain so that my boil volume was averaging about 3.5 gallons (4 to start, 3 to finish...thereabouts). To calculate IBUs I'd use a java program like this. It gets a little complicated, but I'd put in 3.5 for "boil size", 5 for "batch size" and then adjust the "target OG" so that the "estimated boil gravity" at the bottom was the same as mashing my grains in 3.5 gallons of water. I'd then put in all of my pre-15 (or 10) minute additions to calculate their IBUs. Next I'd put in my real target OG into the box and calculate the remainder of the additions. This way, I'd get a fairly accurate IBU estimate. Again, it's complicated, but it worked for me.

Then again, I'm a little anal that way. If you calculate it all with your lower boil gravity, your estimate will be high by only 2-3 points, unless you have a lot of additions within the last 15 minutes.

 

[SkylerChaBro]

Curious as I was not aware of this. I'll make sure to take this to heart and adjust accordingly in order to use a late addition with an accurate IBU rating.