Beer Forum

I'm going to be brewing an American wheat this weekend with my gf. this will be her first time brewing and i want to make sure she has positive results. i need some ideas about brewing temp, hop selection (if any), flavor additives (which work best and when to add to brew), fermentation temp, etc. if anybody has some tips for me i would greatly appreciate it. thanks.

I think we'd need some more Ringo to be specific. What type of beer are you trying do? Sweeter? Malty? Hoppy? Do you want to add fruit? Do you have recipe already?

American Wheat is pretty straight forward:

6 lbs Wheat DME (or 6.6 lbs Wheat LME)
1/2 lb Crystal 10 (or 1/2 lb Caramunich II (57L) for a tasty amber version)
1 oz Mt. Hood or Sterling or Crystal or Hallertaur of Tettnanger or Saaz hops (1 oz at 4% AA)
White Labs WLP320 or Wyeast 1010 or the Kolsch strains Wyeast 2565 or WLP029

(You can also add a 2 to 3 lbs of Orange Blossom Honey at flame out for a really nice twist.)

Steep the crystal or caramunich at 150F for 30 mins in about 2 gallons of water
Top up to your boil volume, bring it to a boil
Take it off the heat, add malt extract
return it to the heat until it comes to a boil
it will begin to foam up at the beginning of the boil. when the foam collapses in on itself, that's called "hot break".
At hot break, add the hops and start your timer for 60 mins.

Boil for 60 mins, kill the heat, and chill it down to 68F or a little cooler.
Aerate well, pitch your yeast. Ferment at 65 to 68F for about 10=14 days or so until it is finished
prime with 7/8 cup priming sugar and bottle (or keg and carbonate to 3 volumes).
Give them a couple weeks at 70F or so to fully carbonate
Chill and enjoy!

HTH-

More than making sure she has positive results (beer), make sure she has a positive time brewing with you. Let her do as much as she wants, only explain as much as she is interested in, and make sure you're not being a controlling ass during the process (not saying you normally are...). Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew!

spiderwrangler wrote:More than making sure she has positive results (beer), make sure she has a positive time brewing with you. Let her do as much as she wants, only explain as much as she is interested in, and make sure you're not being a controlling ass during the process (not saying you normally are...). Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew!

Words of wisdom. I've found this is pretty much true for anything I do with my wife. If she has a good time doing it, she doesn't particularly care how good the end result is, she'll want to do it again.

Cody wrote:I've found this is pretty much true for anything I do with my wife. If she has a good time doing it, she doesn't particularly care how good the end result is, she'll want to do it again.

That's more information about your lovemaking that I care to know.