Low volume boil produces darker color?

[thornton33]

I just brewed a Hefeweizen on 9/4 with a 2 gallon boil. I steeped .25 lbs Crystal 20L and .5lb Carapils for 30 minutes @ 155 F. When I was finished there was a yellow/orange color to the wort. By the time I added the DME it was probably down to 1.5 to 1.25 gallons (it took me forever to get the boil rolling on my mom's electric stove) and once the bubbles cleared from the surface it was a dark brown color. It lightened up a little when I added the top off water to the 5 gallon mark but it is still much darker than a normal Hefe. Any thoughts/advice?

 

[wonderbread23]

Using lower volumes will create a more vigorous boil and aid in melanoiden formation in the wort (which adds more toasty notes and darkens the wort). Also, depending on the brand / type of malt extract you used, the color can vary quite a bit.

 

[thornton33]

Is there anything besides brewing larger volumes that will prevent a lighter style from coming out darker than it should? I was told to go with DME instead of LME, which I did. It looks like it's going to come out a burnt orange instead of the cloudy golden straw color I was hoping for.

 

[IrregularPulse]

Extract brews will tend to be darker than an AG recipe. Search for Late Extract additions. You can add the majority of the extract in the last 15 minutes or even at flameout to help prevent/minimize the darkening. This will affect your hop utilization so do the search to read about adjusting for this. You'll be able to get nice lighter beers with this method.

 

[TipsyDragon]

also the color of the brew will change during fermentation and the beer always looks darker in the carboy than it does in the glass.

 

[thornton33]

Just bottled the brew and FG is 1.013. My target was 1.010. Can anyone tell me how great of a difference this is going to create in my fininshed product? Also, I attempted to avoid the sediment in the bottom of the carboy when I bottled (seems to be standard practice). I'm thinking about the traditional style of Hefeweizen, and the sediment in the bottle is supposed to be poured into the glass for consumption. Have I negated this part of the brew style by avoiding the sediment in the carboy? Finally, I tasted the small amount left in the bottling bucket and it seemed a little more banana sweet rather than clove. Any thoughts on how I can be sure this beer ferments out completely and contains the entire bouquet which is characteristic to the style in the future?

 

[TipsyDragon]

the higher FG will result in slightly lower ABV and slightly higher residual sweetness. avoiding the sediment at the bottom of the carboy was a good idea. there is still plenty of yeast in suspension to coat the bottom of your bottles with yeast. if you want more clove in your heff lower the fermentation temperature. heff yeast produce more banana flavors at higher temps and more clove at lower temps. also there is more than one strain of heff yeast some produce more banana than others. the only way to tell if a beer has fermented out is to check its SG then check again 3 days later. if the value has changed then there is still some fermentation going on. of course you have to adjust both readings for temperature. you also have to remember that every yeast strain has an attenuation range not a specific value. brewing software always takes an average of this range when calculating the FG. just because you are off by 3 points doesn't mean that the beer didn't ferment completely. also extract beers tend to finish high anyway.

 

[thornton33]

Good to know about the Attenuation range. I took a reading when racking to secondary and it was about the same (actually it was 1.011-1.012 which only seems attributable to temp variance). I used Wyeast 3068 which I've heard is heavy on the banana. Two weeks fermentation should be plenty before bottling, right? One week in primary and one week in secondary. I did my best to aerate the wort before pitching but we'll see. The sweetness could just be the combination of my use of extract and a little under attenuation.

 

[TipsyDragon]

actually i would give it 2 in the secondary. gives the yeast more time to clean up after themselves. as far as the taste goes its way to early to judge. the beer is flat as a board and still very green. also if you leave the beer out at room temps the taste will change slightly over the course of a few weeks as well.