Belgian Wit

[aackerm]

Ive been brewing for a couple months now and have moved onto all-grain. Two weeks ago I tried my hands at a Belgian wit, recipe posted at the bottom, and everything went fairly well besides dealing with my first stuck sparge and low OG. Anyways the color looked good and the wort tasted pretty fantastic. After two weeks in the primary, fermenting in the low 60's, my white beer has turned to a caramel color.

My question to all you experts is why? My first thought is some sort of infection but there is no residue, or anything, on top of the beer and I would like to believe I do a decent job sanitizing. Sorry I don't have any pictures but any advise/suggestions would be appreciated.


Ingredients:
4.5lbs Pale Malt 2-Row
4.5lbs Flaked Wheat
1lb Flaked Oats
1oz East Kent Goldings
1oz Bitter Orange
.5oz Sweet Orange
1oz Corriander
WLP400 Yeast

Mashed at 152 for 60 Min

 

[Rugrad02]

I just brewed a Wit as well and the recipe is almost identical to yours. The exact same thing happened to me. Not to worry!!!


After a few days of fermenting, the yeast will have done most of it's job and the beer will start to settle. That beautiful cloudiness associated with Witbier will almost start to clear from the beer leaving what appears to be a cloudy amber. When you transfer the beer for bottling or kegging and then cool, chill haze cloudiness and that Belgian Wit color should return.

I never use any finings or clarifiers when brewing witbiers. Did you use Irish moss?

 

[slarkin712]

Are you describing the color of a sample taken from your fermentor or from looking at the beer in the fermentor? When looking at a large volume of beer in a fermentor it will always look darker that it is. If you're talking about a hydometer sample or a smaller volume sample and it's darker I can't say. But, it is probably less white and cloudy because most of the yeast has dropped out and your beer is clearer. If this is a 5 gallon batch then I'm sure your color is fine. There is nothing in your grain bill that will give your beer a lot of color. And an infection will not change the color of your beer. I think paranoia is getting the best of you.
Also, your beer should be a pale straw yellow color, so it will have some "caramel" like tones. My suggestion is bottle, wait, and then drink.

 

[aackerm]

Thanks for your replies, I am looking at 5g worth and no I did not use any clearing agents. I figured everything was normal but I also didn't want to take the time to bottle if it was a clear cut case of catastrophic failure .

 

[Gduck]

It's the yeast in suspension that will give beer that white color, and in a 5g carboy it is going to make it look like a fairly light beer. As it settles, as it has been noted above, the color will apparently darken, but that's merely that there is less light reflecting off the yeast in suspension.