Can I add extras to an extract wheat kit?

Hi all, I have read and read and lurked and lurked and finally decided to take the plunge. I have gleaned all sorts of great stuff from all of you, so I'm hoping you will give me great advice on this one too. I am going to do a basic extract wheat and was hoping to add a lil something something to make it more me... I wanted to add a orange peel, cardamom, clove feel to it. Suggestions on if this would be doable, what type to use and when to add? Thanks so much. Also, totally open to other suggestions if ya'll feel like something else might go better. I just wanna spice it up a lil and hopefully have it ready to go for Christmas! Can't wait....thanks for everything!

well, if you use a Bavarian style hefeweizen yeast you'll get a lot of that flavor automatically, but you can add some of those kinds of things to the last 5 minutes of the boil to add some more flavor. Its common in Belgian wit's to add an ounce of coriander and bitter orange peel the last part of the boil also. You can definitely add anything you want and see how it comes out. Experimentation is some of the fun of brewing

we/ve added orange zest before to a bb wheat kit. used the zest of 2 oranges and wished that we had added one more orange. read a post the other day about someone adding the actual fruit at some point. you might be able to find that using the search.

i'm sure you'll get some more detailed answers from the more experienced. GOOD LUCK

Yea you can add anything you want to your kit, my christmas beer is a spiced brown ale that uses 1 gallon of apple cider, cinnamon, cloves and a generous amount of biscuit malt in the steeping grains in a 5 gal batch. But i don't think it'll be done by christmas, even if you rush from primary to bottle. It usually takes 3 weeks to carb fully. Luckly wheat beers generally taste good young, so it should be drinkable as soon as it carbs, how long it takes to carb is the real question.

Being your first brew, I recommend you just follow the recipe. Wheat beer yeasts provide their own fruity and/or clovey characters. You'd be surprised how fruity and spicey a "plain" wheat beer can be from just the malt and the yeast, specifically.

I recommend you ferment it in the low 60's if you want it drinkable by Christmas, and that's if you brew it tonight.

Fletch78 said:

Being your first brew, I recommend you just follow the recipe. Wheat beer yeasts provide their own fruity and/or clovey characters. You'd be surprised how fruity and spicey a "plain" wheat beer can be from just the malt and the yeast, specifically.

I recommend you ferment it in the low 60's if you want it drinkable by Christmas, and that's if you brew it tonight.

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Actually the op should just ignore what i said and go with this. My american hefe (look at "scarecrow" below) has a really (delicious) clove and orange aroma from both the yeast and the hops (Mt. Hood). But yea, it'll be lucky if you can get it drinkable by christmas, unless you keg and force carb it.

It's very rewarding when someone comments "Wow, what did you put in here, oranges, spices?" and you can say "Nah.... ain't nuthin' but barley, wheat, and yeast... fermented by an expert."