I brewed a belgian wit this weekend and noticed two problems right off the bat. Here's my recipe:
6.6 lbs. Northwestern wiess LME
.75 oz mt. hood (60 min)
0.2 oz cascade (10 min)
0.8 oz crushed coriander (10 min)
2 oz fresh orange peel (grated) (10 min)
White Labs 400 Belgian Wit yeast
1. I know with LME I can expect to get a darker color than one might hope, but this stuff is DARK. Even in the hydrometer tube it was difficult to see through. It was darker than most ambers I've had. Is this a product of the type of LME I used? I added all of the extract at the beginning of the boil, will holding some of it off really help the color that much? I've been told that boiling all of the extract for the hour produces a better tasting beer than holding some extract for the end, but I'm not sure it matters that much. Is there anything else I can do to get a lighter color?
2. My OG was much lower than expected. I corrected for temperature, and still got an OG of 1.035. Is this typical for this type of beer? I topped off to exactly 5 gallons, so it shouldn't be too diluted. One possible explanation is that I didn't use a grain bag for the orange or corriander, so there was a thick sludge mixed in with the trub in the bottom of the brew pot. So, I left about 1/2 inch of sludge in the bottom of the pot. Could that have contributed THAT much to the low OG?
6.6 lbs. Northwestern wiess LME
.75 oz mt. hood (60 min)
0.2 oz cascade (10 min)
0.8 oz crushed coriander (10 min)
2 oz fresh orange peel (grated) (10 min)
White Labs 400 Belgian Wit yeast
1. I know with LME I can expect to get a darker color than one might hope, but this stuff is DARK. Even in the hydrometer tube it was difficult to see through. It was darker than most ambers I've had. Is this a product of the type of LME I used? I added all of the extract at the beginning of the boil, will holding some of it off really help the color that much? I've been told that boiling all of the extract for the hour produces a better tasting beer than holding some extract for the end, but I'm not sure it matters that much. Is there anything else I can do to get a lighter color?
2. My OG was much lower than expected. I corrected for temperature, and still got an OG of 1.035. Is this typical for this type of beer? I topped off to exactly 5 gallons, so it shouldn't be too diluted. One possible explanation is that I didn't use a grain bag for the orange or corriander, so there was a thick sludge mixed in with the trub in the bottom of the brew pot. So, I left about 1/2 inch of sludge in the bottom of the pot. Could that have contributed THAT much to the low OG?