How'd I do? First brew!

[jdiddy1212]

My first brew, a "Hank's Hefeweizen" from Midwest, just finished carbing! How'd I do?!


Its a lot darker then I was anticipating (the pictures are much lighter then it actually is, the first shot of the initial gravity reading is pretty close to the actual color) and the flavor is MUCH different then I was expecting. But its still great! I ended up doing a late extract addition of 75% of the LME at 15 minutes remaining in my boil to try to keep the color a little lighter. I also ended up getting a fantastic deal on gigantic, 4 tap kegerator, so I put this puppy straight to keg and force-carbed. A few questions though:

Is this about the correct color for a Hefeweizen? What about clarity? I know Hefes are supposed to be somewhat cloudy.
My head retention is awful, but the beer is carbed pretty good, i think. What could the cause of this be? Could my tap water be a likely suspect?


I can tell I've already gone down the rabbit hole with this hobby....got a grapefruit IPA in the primary, and a liberty cream ale in secondary

P.S. Sorry for the sideways pictures...i can't seem to make them right side up!

 

[schatzke]

Looks like you made beer! Mission accomplished!

 

[thekraken]

I'm perplexed as to how you were able to hold your beer sideways like that.

 

[jdiddy1212]

Looks like you made beer! Mission accomplished!.

Houston, we've got suds!

I'm perplexed as to how you were able to hold your beer sideways like that.

You have too many of these babies and the beer does that all on its own..