Success! SWMBO at bay

So, in what I am sure was not the first of desperate attempts to get a female excited about beer, I brewed up a blue moon style wheat beer.

I am not big on wheat beer, but it turned out well. I thought that my version had much less orange flavor that blue moon, a little more coriander, and a sharper yeast taste. There is also very little head retention. I am thinking that next time I will use fresh orange peel instead of Whole Foods dried orange peel. Anyone tried this?

Also, I brewed it before having read the 4 books I picked up on brewing and didn't really understand that oats needed malt to be converted. As a result I basically just steeped the oats and strained the resulting "oat water" into the wort boil. So I am guessing those starches are still just starches in the finished beer. Still, I don't think it hurt the flavor very much.

Anyway, the story ends with my wife saying. "Mmm.. this tastes like something I would order at a bar. Wow. I'm impressed. I was getting a little nervous with all the beer books, and crap you have been buying that it was going to suck." .....I guess I'll take whatever compliment that was meant to be. Back to my IPA's, Stouts and Barleywines.



Here's the recipie:

5 lbs 11.8 oz Wheat Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 92.00 %
8.0 oz Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 8.00 %
1.00 oz Liberty [4.30 %] (45 min) Hops 13.0 IBU
1.00 oz Liberty [4.30 %] (5 min) Hops 2.8 IBU
0.5 oz Coriander Seed (Primary 7.0 days) Misc
0.5 oz Orange Peel, Bitter (Primary 7.0 days) Misc
0.75 oz Coriander Seed (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
0.75 oz Orange Peel, Bitter (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs Belgian Wheat Yeast (Wyeast Labs #3942) [Cultured] Yeast-Wheat



Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.052 SG
Measured Original Gravity: 1.052 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.013 SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.012 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.15 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 5.21 %
Bitterness: 15.8 IBU Calories: 231 cal/pint
Est Color: 6.9 SRM Color: Color

Ha, I went with a extract raspberry extract kit batch which did the trick for me.

petep1980 said:

Ha, I went with a extract raspberry extract kit batch which did the trick for me.

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Yes, I suppose any fruit would work. It should take her about 6 months to get through the 2 cases this batch made at her near acoholic 1 drink a week pace. :cross: So I guess I have some time to come up with a new idea. ha

Well done. My SWMBO was sold after an APA I made. Whoohoo!

Although it is a double edged sword that she enjoys what I enjoy...

SWMBO likes it when I brew 'cuz then I have less time to beat the children.

osagedr said:

SWMBO likes it when I brew 'cuz then I have less time to beat the children.

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That's just wrong man. Just wrong.

osagedr said:

SWMBO likes it when I brew 'cuz then I have less time to beat the children.

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mdgtarheel said:

That's just wrong man. Just wrong.

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i have to agree with mdgtarheel, that is wrong. With a proper workflow created in advance, and utilising those long handled spoons and paddles, it should be very easy for even a beginning homebrewer to brew a beer and beat his children at the same time. Make sure to add in more time than you expect to need in advance.

Don't forget to sanitise after each paddling.

My recipe was like 3 lbs of light malt, 3 lbs of light wheat. I also have only used fresh orange and lemon zest. It has turned out very nice. Could probably do even better now that I'm treating my water and doing AG.

I think I've used 1 oz oz orange and .75 oz of coriander.

My wife tends to like her beer hoppy and not overly dark, so I tend to make full batches of APAs, IPAs, etc. for both of us to enjoy and more adventurous (stouts, porters, etc.) in half batches...

gak27 said:

My wife tends to like her beer hoppy and not overly dark, so I tend to make full batches of APAs, IPAs, etc. for both of us to enjoy and more adventurous (stouts, porters, etc.) in half batches...

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Thats pretty cool. My wife hates hops. (or any thing the least bit hoppy). I wish I could enlighten her, but I don't think she is coming around any time soon. Oh well. To each their own.

I'm lucky my wife has tried every one of my beers, most times she says they are OK or good, occasionally she says that it is something she would drink (never did more than a little) but believe it or not the brew that sold her on home brew was this https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f74/johns-red-english-barleywine-97485/ she loves it. And now since then I am all grain, have a home built electic 4 gallon brewpot for small batches, refractometer, home built MLT, counterflow chiller and she has no problem with my telling her I will convert the area under the porch to a brewery.

mdgtarheel said:

Thats pretty cool. My wife hates hops. (or any thing the least bit hoppy). I wish I could enlighten her, but I don't think she is coming around any time soon. Oh well. To each their own.

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mdgtarheel,

Yeah, I'm pretty lucky in that regard. She really likes SNPA, DFH60, etc., so I have pretty much free rein in making APAs and IPAs. She even likes Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald; her big dislike in darker beers is the roasted barley flavor/bitterness...

What types of beer does your wife like? Is it the hop bitterness or flavor that she disagrees with? If you can narrow that info down, you might be able to tailor a beer recipe to reflect the hops characteristics she does like...

I JUST started figuring out all these acronyms you guys have been using.

at first, I just assumed SWMBO was some guy's wife and that was her username on here, but noooowwwwwwww I get it.

Mine "doesn't like beer" and basically refused to taste my first batch. Oh well, more for me.