New brewer!! with questions

[irishbrew26]

Hello, i just made my first two brews, one an american pale ale, the other a belgium wheat in which i am going to add orange in a second fermentation.

In both brews, the beers turned out much darker than expected, and both had low original gravities (supposed to be 1.05 and were 1.04). I was wondernig if anyone might know why this might be??

I also have a question about my second brew of the belgium wheat with orange. I was supposed to leave a gallon out of the first fermentation and add the last gallon when i heat the orange. Should i take a gallon out after the first fermentation, use it to heat the orange, and put it back in? Or should i take out a gallon, use regular water to heat the orange, and put that into the second fermenter??

Thanks!!!!

 

[Lucky_Chicken]

Welcome,
I assume those were extracts? Extracts will be darker than all grain most of the time because of the process of making the extract.

As for the gravities have you calibrated your hydrometer? and what temperature did you measure at?

I take it from your comments that you did not leave a gallon out, at this point i would just add the orange and as little water as possible to the fermenter. If you pull beer out you will boil off the alcohol and hop oils. If that beer was low OG it probably because it was intending you to measure it with 4 gallons.

 

[BillyBock]

First of all, Welcome!

Secondly, this post would be better suited for the Beginners Forum. You might get a better response that way. Also, post the recipes and instructions that you used for each, including gravity readings, so that people may better understand what you are dealing with.

Lastly, RDWHAHB!