What am i doing wrong

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Staghead556

Active Member
Joined
Feb 21, 2011
Messages
35
Reaction score
1
Location
Wilmington
Ok so heres what happened last brew day. Ive been trying to make a light i mean yellow colored ale for awhile now. First off they always come out too dark. Last recipe was AG 5 gal. With 11lbs 2row. Half lb of munich and half lb of carapils. Mashed at 147 for 90 minutes to try and dry it out. Soon as i started sparging i new it wasnt right. The wort was amber colored. Im talking yuengling color. And sg was supposed to be 1.044 and was 1.030. Needless to say i was disgusted and dumped it. How is it getting so dark?! Brew before that was all pilsner malt and also was darker than desired


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
ImageUploadedByHome Brew1403673783.852900.jpgthis is what im trying to achieve


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
if I knew what style you were going for that would help. most "light" beers have sugar added with food coloring. what SRM are you going for?

12lbs should put you at a 1.063 not 1.044 mush less 1.033. 147deg is a bit low, I always keep mine at 157 and let it cool to 150ish then reheat.
 
Maybe sub some grain for rice or maize, which will lighten the color, but also the body
 
With the grain bill that you posted, you're looking at 1.059 OG with a color of about 5 SRM... assuming the Munich you used is around 9 SRM. Could it have possibly been a dark Munich? Those are usually around 15 SRM, which would darken things a little.

If you're looking for a very pale ale, like a cream ale, listen to what MattGuk says: add some adjuncts like flaked corn, rice, or dextrose. That will add to the body while not contributing any color or altering the flavors much.

Mess around with a recipe app or something like Brewology101's Ale Abacus to see where your color is coming from and what results you should expect from the grains you're using.
 
What is your brewing water like? Are you treating it with an acid or acid malt? Your beer is displaying a classic sign of mashing with too high a mash pH. That extracts more color from the grain (even when they are pale) and the wort ends up darker than expected. In addition, beers made with that wort sometimes have an astringent 'bite' to the finish and the hops tend to be overly bitter or harsh.

A simple acid addition can make a huge difference to the beer...in color and taste!
 
At what temperature did you take your reading? If you took a hydrometer reading at 147F and got 1.030 per calculations from this site, your gravity would be around 1.046 @ 65F. This is about 55% efficient. I think you may need to work more on your efficiency than color. Others will get different gravity reading because of their efficiency.

http://www.brewersfriend.com/hydrometer-temp/

I would not judge the cooler of your final beer by the cooler of the sparge, there is a lot of stuff in the mix that will give it a darker appearance from the final beer.

I think I am more upset you dumped your beer…
 
if I knew what style you were going for that would help. most "light" beers have sugar added with food coloring. what SRM are you going for?

12lbs should put you at a 1.063 not 1.044 mush less 1.033. 147deg is a bit low, I always keep mine at 157 and let it cool to 150ish then reheat.

What recipe are you following that uses food coloring??
 
Ok so heres what happened last brew day. Ive been trying to make a light i mean yellow colored ale for awhile now. First off they always come out too dark. Last recipe was AG 5 gal. With 11lbs 2row. Half lb of munich and half lb of carapils. Mashed at 147 for 90 minutes to try and dry it out. Soon as i started sparging i new it wasnt right. The wort was amber colored. Im talking yuengling color. And sg was supposed to be 1.044 and was 1.030. Needless to say i was disgusted and dumped it. How is it getting so dark?! Brew before that was all pilsner malt and also was darker than desired


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

I just put the numbers into beersmith. I'd agree with with one of the other posters that assuming 1.044 for this grain bill seems pretty low. I get about 68% efficiency with my setup and beersmith computed 1.060 for this grain bill, my setup and a 5 gallon batch size. What sort of efficiency are you assuming?

While your mash temp is low (I wouldn't go any lower than that) I've mashed light bodied beers at 148 for 75 minutes with success. Your OG problem has got to be an efficiency problem and it's hard to say what that is without knowing how you're mashing and sparging. Also, I have to ask. Are you taking your reading with a hydrometer and are you cooling the wort down before you read it?

So when I punched in the grain bill into beersmith I assumed the worst case and darkest version of the malts you described, not sure exactly what you're using

Pale Malt (2 Row) Bel (3.0 SRM)
Cara-Pils (2.0 SRM)
Munich Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM)

I hit a 6.6 SRM, Maybe not quite a Yuengling color, but getting close and certainly darker than the pilsner color you're looking for.
 
Reading was done with a refractometer that accounts for temperature and estimated efficiency is 70%


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
I get 'it', that was not the beer you were shooting for.

I dumped 10 gallons last night and was about to dump 10 more today (I brew a lot) when I tried the Fermentis yeast instead of WLP300. Long story short, a friend I am trying to get into homebrewing came over and liked the (bad) stuff just great (sorta like a tasteless American Wheat) so I sent him home with 5 gallons with a promise for the other 5 if he drains it in a reasonable amount of time. He was thrilled and said his wife would also love it.

Long story short...even your 'bad' beers taste great to a 'yellow-fizzy' guy!!

If you experiment...you will certainly have a few results less than your targeted beers...I like your attitude regarding quality and expectations!

Brew strong!
 
Also the tap water is pretty solid here. Absolutely fine to drink.

Unfortunately, that criterion is absolutely meaningless in brewing. Taste and drinkability do not make a water suited for brewing. Treatment is still likely needed. For mashing a pale grist, that does mean that an external acid is needed.
 
Back
Top