3rd times a charm (hopefully)

So I've got two brews under my belt. The first was a pale ale that came out kind of tangy, sweet, and almost cidery. I'm guessing it was mostly because the fermentation temperature was between 70-76. My second batch was a pumpkin beer and it tastes a bit better but there's still a tangy off flavor that makes it funky tasting. I kept my fermentation temperature below 70 most of the time, but one day it did get about 74 before I started using a swamp cooler.

I'm thinking that the tangy flavor is from the malt being scorched and caramelized. I suspect this is happening because both beers were much darker than they should have been. Tomorrow I plan on brewing another IPA and I've been reading about late malt additions. I'm using LME and I plan to add 1/3 at boil then add the rest the last 10-15 minutes to sterilize. I'm only making one gallon batches right now so I'm working with 1.5lbs of LME. Will I see an improvement in the taste and color of my beer? Do my assumptions make sense?

 

If your doing a full volume boil which im assuming you are, you should beable to add all of the lme at the start of the boil. When you are doing a partial boil and adding top up water later on, you may want to leave some of the lme for the end of the boil like you stated. My dme beers also seem to appear darker.

As far as fermentation temp goes you should be aiming for under 70. Mid 60s generally seems to be the go to temp.

 

How much time are you allowing for fermentation and conditioning?

 

I'm fermenting for 2 weeks and conditioning for about 3 weeks.