first beer turned out okay / what to brew next

I bottled my weiss beer 8 days ago and 1 of my bottles ended up half full. I decide to taste that one today and it simply tasted a little flat but still pretty good! I was already expecting that so I am happy with the results! I plan on letting it sit another week before trying another.



So now that I'm happy with my results so far, anyone have any recommendations for a beginner for my 2nd brew? I would like to try something just a tad more advanced but I don't know the processes for brewing different styles of beer.

congrats on your first beer! are you brewing extract recipe kits? that's the beginner level im at now. the brew process for most ales seems to be pretty straightforward as far as the process. steep specialty grains if the recipe calls for it, bring whatever amount of water your using to a boil, kill the flame and add the malt extract (dry, liquid or both) restart the flame or return to burner depending on how your boiling and start the 60 minute countdown. be careful of a boil over at this point. different hops are added at different times again depending on recipe. after 60 minutes of a rolling boil chill your pot down as quick as possible in an ice bath in the sink and pour it into your fermenter. top off with water to get to 5 gallons and when its under 80 or so degrees pitch your yeast. close your fermenter and be sure to use an airlock. let it sit in the dark for a couple 3 weeks and you got beer! now im leaving out a bunch of details but that's the jist of the brewing process. oh yeah, clean and sanitize the heck out of anything that will touch your beer after the boil. now as far as what to brew next? well that depends on what you like! for me, ya cant go wrong with a nice irish stout!

What kind of beer do you like? Maybe pick up a clone kit of one of your favorite commercial beers and see how close you can get!

As far as process for different types of beer, with several exceptions, the process is usually about the same. Recipes, mash conditions, boil times, fermentation conditions, lagering, etc is where the variability comes on but you still make a wort, boil it while adding bittering/flavor/aroma ingredients, cool the wort and then ferment it.

My best advice is brew what you like to drink. Also, I think the biggest thing for new brewers to improve your quality is to control your fermentation temperatures and pitch enough yeast. Welcome to the hobby!