Adding a lil something

Im what you would call a noob in beer making. I got a cooper's beer making kit for christmas and made my first beer which is still in the bottles but is comming along without a hitch. Im looking forward to making an Amber beer next from the same package MakeBeer.net - Order Now

Now if all goes well I want to start adding touches of this or that. I want to keep it simple and use the coopers stuff that im used to but then add some new flavors (for instance: Strawberry, lychees, tea, etc).
What is the best way to do this?

Don't.

Beer is a "Less is More" art, wherein less additional flavors make it more drinkable. If you start dumping stuff in, you'll soon hate what you made. Stick with the kits until you have some confidence, then if you want a strawberry beer, do a search here for a recipe that has follow up notes that are favorable.

I agree with Cheese wholeheartedly. It's hard, whenever you start, you want to jump in with both feet and do all kinds of experiments and add all kinds of new flavors. But, concentrate on learning how to make good BEER first. I blew a couple of early batches by trying to do too much, too soon.

Plus, a lot of these things have been done before, so as you read (and you should read as much as you can on beermaking), you'll learn techniques that have worked well for people, as well as those that have not been successful.

my LHBS guy gave me a great piece of advice when it comes to experimenting with additional flavours. "It may take 100s of thrown out beers until you get the right mix of ingredients and a beer that is drinkable. Why should you go through the trouble of making brew after brew that must get turfed because it went south, when you can go online, find one of thousands of recipes that you will enjoy, and just use that. Those guys have done all the throwing out of bad recipes for you allready!"

http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipes

If you like wheat beers, fruits are said to go well with them. I have had success with a chocolate cherry stout. Like what others have said, it is improtant to start with a solid recipe.

- magno

AquaPuppy377 said:

then add some new flavors (for instance: Strawberry, lychees, tea, etc).
What is the best way to do this?

Click to expand...

Lychees? As in Lychee nuts? Wow what a concept... Interesting but you might want to vary your malt versus hops a little first before going to the lychee nuts. When you get that dialed in, I say go for it. But lychees, not leeches. Leeches are not good in beer.

I admire your desire to experiment. My recommendation is that you begin by experimenting INSIDE the box.

Go to your local beer shop. Pick 3 beers of the same style that you like. Some examples include: IPA's, ESB's, Porter's, Stouts, American Pale Ales, Hefeweisens, Wit biers, etc. Pretty much any Ale you want. Stay away from lagers for at least your first few batches.

Pick three that you like, then look up "clone" recipes for those three beers and try to figure out what you like and dislike about each one. Find the recipe that you think is closest to your ideal, then tweak it, just a little bit, to suit your tastes. If you need advice on the tweaks, just post up here and someone WILL help you.


The result will be a fairly uncomplicated, unstressful brew session which will teach you a LOT. And the result will definitely be more than merely drinkable.


My first beer.... an ESB... with Cascade as an aroma hop. Slight variation on a theme can teach you a lot about what goes into the style. For instance, I'm learning why you don't put Cascade into an ESB. But it still will be more than drinkable.

-Beer shops??? I dont know of any beer shops around here, I have done all my shopping online and will probably get another beginner type amber brew next from the same coopers site. I have yet to try my first brew which is a light ale but I am very excited. It has been in it's secondary fermentation for about a month now and am just binding my time till it gets better.

treehouse said:

Lychees? As in Lychee nuts? Wow what a concept... Interesting but you might want to vary your malt versus hops a little first before going to the lychee nuts. When you get that dialed in, I say go for it. But lychees, not leeches. Leeches are not good in beer.

Click to expand...

-Well I live in Florida and we have 5 acres of lychee trees, and I wanted to use them in some way when they are in season. I was thinking making a lychee wine and/or lychee beer. Lychees are a type of fruit, though it is true that they do have nut shaped seeds in them. Heres a pic:

Here's another idea:

Pick a flavor you're thinking of brewing. Say it's strawberry. Run out to the store and buy 2 cases of a random strawberry ale, one you've never tried before. See how long it takes you to get through those two cases and THEN decide if you want to brew a strawberry ale.

Im pretty sure strawberry ale would taste pretty strange comming back up

Cheesefood said:

See how long it takes you to get through those two cases and THEN decide if you want to brew a strawberry ale.

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I once got into drinking Cellis (a microbrew outfit out of Austin Texas) Raspberry Beer and drank way more than 5 gallons. Then again, they were a professional brewery and that wasn't homebrew.

On the lycee nut idea though. Interesting for sure and another idea is to just brew a 2 gallon split batch with half with and half without the nuts. Mini-batches are a good way to experiment. I used to use eight litter laboratory roller bottles as experimental small batch fermentors. But I worked in a lab and they used to throw those things away.