Andreas
Active Member
About 5 weeks ago a brewed a partial mash pilsner recipe, which has now been in a secondary carboy for 2 weeks. It looks way too dark to me!
I've been searching the forum for answers to my questions about this but haven't found the right search terms. I'm sure that the topic has been discussed before but I'll need to ask unless someone can point me to the relevant topics:
-- My method is to steep a "teabag" of grains in about 2.5 gallons of 160 degree water for 45-60 minutes. After that, I rinse about a gallon of hot water through the bag (in the future I plan to steep it in a separate fresh pot of water) into the pot. Then I add my malt extract (usually about 6 pounds of LME, in this case I think that it was Munton's "extra light") and bring to a boil, adding hops according to the recipe. The boil takes 60 minutes. Then I chill the pot and add it (usually about 3 gallons) to 2 gallons of cold water in the carboy. The brews turn out well, they just seem too dark for what I'm aiming for.
-- My questions regard two aspect of my technique:
1. Is the long boil time for the LME "darkening" the color of the beer?
2. Does the fact that I'm only boiling the ingredients in 3/5 of the water make a difference for the color of the final result?
The funny thing about this pils is that it looked dark but not outrageously dark until this last week in the secondary. However, it has clarified and I plan to bottle it soon. I'm sure that it will taste fine (samples during hydrometer readings have been tasty) but in the long run, I'd like to be able to brew a "straw-colored" pils, so please let me know what I could do to improve this aspect.
-Andy
I've been searching the forum for answers to my questions about this but haven't found the right search terms. I'm sure that the topic has been discussed before but I'll need to ask unless someone can point me to the relevant topics:
-- My method is to steep a "teabag" of grains in about 2.5 gallons of 160 degree water for 45-60 minutes. After that, I rinse about a gallon of hot water through the bag (in the future I plan to steep it in a separate fresh pot of water) into the pot. Then I add my malt extract (usually about 6 pounds of LME, in this case I think that it was Munton's "extra light") and bring to a boil, adding hops according to the recipe. The boil takes 60 minutes. Then I chill the pot and add it (usually about 3 gallons) to 2 gallons of cold water in the carboy. The brews turn out well, they just seem too dark for what I'm aiming for.
-- My questions regard two aspect of my technique:
1. Is the long boil time for the LME "darkening" the color of the beer?
2. Does the fact that I'm only boiling the ingredients in 3/5 of the water make a difference for the color of the final result?
The funny thing about this pils is that it looked dark but not outrageously dark until this last week in the secondary. However, it has clarified and I plan to bottle it soon. I'm sure that it will taste fine (samples during hydrometer readings have been tasty) but in the long run, I'd like to be able to brew a "straw-colored" pils, so please let me know what I could do to improve this aspect.
-Andy