Help a novice out?

Extract beers, especially liquid malt extract (LME) beers, tend to be darker than equivalent all grain beers. You could do full volume boils instead of partial volume (and topped off) boils. You could make sure you are getting fresh LME, or you could use dry malt extract (DME) instead of liquid. That would help. And/or you could try cutting back on the specialty malts, but that's not really the best solution. For the best control of color, flavor, and mouthfeel, all grain is the way to go.

 

Unless the volume is much less than intended, I wouldn't expect Caramel 20L and Light LME to produce that dark of a beer. You could always try subbing the Light LME with Extra Light LME if you want a lighter color.

 

I agree with VikeMan, although I'll also add a suggestion regarding the LME (or DME for that matter). Add just 25% of the extract at the beginning of the boil so that it does not stay in the kettle so long and potentially scorch and darken. Secondly, for LME, cut your heat when adding it because it is so heavy that it goes right to the bottom of the kettle and will sit there and scorch if your flame is right under it. Stir it well before restarting your flame.

I think if the sweetness of your previous beers is too much for your taste, you can cut back on the caramel malt.

 

As stated, extract will be darker than all grain. LME, especially if it is old is going to be unacceptably dark. And also foul.

• Substitute DME whenever possible, avoid LME.
• Use full wort boils.
• Avoid old and stale LME/kits.
• Consider perhaps 10% Dextrose addition to lighten the body and increase abv, or substitute accordingly. Adjust hop additions.
• Add most of the extract at the last 10 minutes.

Off the top of my head for extract IPA.
6# extra light DME
3# light or maybe amber DME
2 ounces high AA hops at 60 minutes
1 ounce same hop at flame out
US-05.
Avoid specialty grains for now.

Enjoy.

 

LME is notorious for its ability to ruin your brew. I think it's fair to say most of us avoid LME. Sure, some DME is used by all grain brewers from time to time. But LME has no place in the brewery. Those kits that are sitting on the shelf can be God knows how old.

Final hop addition can be what you prefer for aroma. It is simply easier to use the same hop as your bittering hop to avoid conflicts in that department. But if you care to explore good hop combinations go for it.
Cheers.

 

When I brewed extract, I used Morebeer's proprietary ultra light LME because it produced better tasting results than DME. Didn't have a problem with wort darkening and I dumped the whole bag of LME at the start of the boil.

Now, I'm not saying all LME is good to use. I'm just saying this was consistently good LME:

https://www.morebeer.com/products/ultralight-malt-extract-syrup.html

 

It's the LME. Switch to DME, and be sure to use distilled water, and your extract beers will improve.

You can also hit this link for way more information. Once it's up, copy and paste into Word to print or save it.

http://i1022.photobucket.com/albums/af341/dmtaylo1/extract-beginnerrulesofthumb2.png

 

Yeah, I avoid LME, but if I did it would be from a high turn over shop. Good beer can be made from fresh LME, but moving to DME is just one more possible problem eliminated.Cheers

 

Lots of good advise above. I just wanted to add two things regarding your beers' sweetness issues...

Many kits just add too many specialty grains, IMO.

Sweet beer can be the result of poor yeast practices, like pitching old yeast, under pitching, or not properly aerating your wort.

If you use fresh ingredients, baby the yeast, and follow the advise above, you can make good beer from LME.

 

For an IPA your only steepable grain options, unless you are up for a minimash, are crystal malts. You're kind of starting a sh!tstorm though with that question, since opinions are all over on whether to use them or not, which ones to use, and how much. Using dark crystal malts or too much crystal malt will make your beer taste sweet, however, which is something you stated you wish to avoid.

 

I Also use extract and I have found that keeping 60 to 70 % of either the LME or DME until the final 15 min of the boil reduces the darkness by a lot and so far i am very satisfied with the results . As For grains it all depends on the style of beer you are doing .

 

well not exactly , you would ad approx 40 % of your DME or your LME at the beginning and keep 60% for the final 15 min .
if you have a total of 7lbs of DME that would mean 2.8 lbs at the beginning ant the remaining 4.2 lbs in the final 15 min of the boil . You will have a lighter color with this technique even if nothing else changes in your recipe it will not affect OG or IBU simply color .

 

I added in bold a phrase that I inadvertently omitted in the original post that made it confusing to read.

@Jduche17 has a good explanation, but the percentages are not so critical that you would need to measure out 4.2 pounds of DME to add 40%. Whether it's 40% at the beginning of the boil or 25% as I used in my post, it's only important that you use the total correct amount for both additions.

 

I Agree percentages are not relevant , i wanted to make things as clear as possible