Some questions

Hi,
yesterday I brew my first beer and I have some questions. (I brew standard wheat beer with both grains and malt extract)

1) I thought I had to add the hops for 10 minutes and then take it out so I put it in a net (the net I used for cooking the grains) and took it out 10 minutes later. I saw someone in a video doing this and the recipes I saw does not mention anything about this. So what did I have to do? Did I do right? Will it taste good?

2) In the same video the man said you can cool the wort by mixing it with cold water (to achieve 5 galons), and I did so and it cooled down to about 45-50C (113-122F) degrees! I sealed the fermenter (the wort container) and after 2 hours it cooled to about 40C degrees and I needed 28C degrees or less so I went to sleep and in the morning (about 11 hours after I finished cooking the wort) I could add the yeast. Is it ok? Will it taste good?

3) Do you have some nice malt extract wheat beer recipes? also any that use oranges?

Thanks very much!
Yuval

1) The way you did it will work great. The results will be similar to a 10 minute addition and then cooling the wort rapidly.

2) Adding cold water is also fine. Cold distilled or RO will generally give the best results especially for extract brews. It doesn't have any added minerals and the process ensures that the bacterial content is insignificant. But I've had fine results with cold tap water and tasted beers that came out fine with spring water.

3) instead of oranges try a couple of ounces of coriander seeds in the boil. You can normally find it fairly inexpensive at Indian markets. The flavor holds up better during fermentation than orange peels, and much better than juice or pulp which, despite any stabilization attempts, ends up tasting a little rotten in my experience. There is a hoegarrden clone recipe on my blog and in my book.

My question regarding your hop addition would be when the hops were added and taken out? Ten minutes at the start of the boil will give you more of the bitter side of the hops, while ten minutes at the end of the boil will add the flavor and aroma.

Usually hop addition timing is how long they remain in the boil. So a 10 minute addition goes in with 10 minutes left.

Most recipes use a 60 min. boil and the hops are added at the appropriate time, then, if bagged they are all removed after the boil is finished.