Beer color question

[ausmith]

I have brewed my second batch of beer tonight and I thought it was going to turn out with a light or golden color. It is more of a brown color. I started off with mashing 1 lb of Crystal 10L and added that to my pot which had 6.6 lbs of Briess DME Golden Light. Once the boil broke I add 1oz of Willamette hops and then 1oz Willamette hops at 30 minutes. After it cooled down I found that the wort was more of a brown color.

What did I do wrong to get such a dark colored beer?

Thanks for any help you can give.

 

[Greyhound]

You don't mention adding top-off water, so I'm assuming you did a full 5 gallon boil. There goes one theory.

I'm curious to hear a response too, because my last batch came out a little darker than I had planned.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

Extract can darken in the can with age. Intense heating can also cause maillard reactions in the kettle.

 

[TheMan]

I've never had as light a batch with extract as i have with all-grain. Extract is tough to get lighter colored beer. I would just blame it on being extract.

To get lighter color with extract you can add it late in the boil. Longer boil of it increases the darkness, as gila mentioned.

 

[rcreveli]

My Irish red and wheat beer both looked way to dark 1 problem is 5 gallons of liquid looks a lot darker than a glass full. Both my beers also lightened during fermentation.

 

[waldoar15]

Try holding at least 1/2 of your extract until the end of the boil.