Just a message for the first batch brewers out there.

I am still a very novice beer maker, but i just wanted to give a little pep talk to the first timers out there who's first batch of brew did not turn out all that great. My first batch was an Amber Ale extract kit from True Brew. I missed my FG by close to 8 points and thanks to all the knowledgeable folks on this message board i was able to discover why my first batch was not that great ( Because i did not Aerate my wort properly). We'll needless to say my Amber Ale is drinkable, but not very enjoyable. Good enough not to dump, but not really something i wanted all my friends to taste. So i picked an easier recipe for my second batch and went for a Muntons American Wheat kit. This time i remembered to aerate my wort and it made a world of difference. This beer tasted great before i added any priming sugar and i ended up drinking two of them on the day of bottling leaving me with 50 of 52. They have been in the bottle now for about 8 days so i decided it would not hurt to try one now. Man let me tell you.. It is one of the best wheat beers i have ever tasted kinda puts the famous bluemoon to shame in my opinion. So now i have 49 left and i can not wait to take this over to my friends and show them how much it improved over my first batch! I have obviously had a few homebrews tonight and just wanted to post a little something to folks out there who just filled there first primary and are wanting to rip the top off every 5 minutes to check the FG ( leave it alone!) and listen to the guys in this forum. This message board is great and i thank every single soul on here who has ever replied to one of my post's. No matter how many times my question had been asked previously in other posts. We'll anyways good luck to all the first time brewers and stick with it! Tonight i sleep to the sound of a soothing Airlock bubbling next to my bed.


Primary 1: Fat Tire Amber ale Clone
Primary 2: Waiting for Apfelwein
Drinking/Conditioning : Amber Ale/American Wheat

Congratulations from a fellow Noobie. Keep on brewin' .:rockin:

Did you have any other indications that the brew was less than perfect other than your hydrometer readings?

Blue moon is a wheat beer, but also has coriander and orange peel in it, so I'd expect it to be different, although I do like the additions myself.

Making decent beer is not hard, but there are many little details that can make it go smoother and make better tasting beer.

I started with kits from my LHBS, and have been following their directions since they're my primary source. In short, they say nothing about aerating the wort, so I haven't on either of the two batches I've made up so far. Batch no. 1 was bottled yesterday, and it tasted ... well ... less than perfectly wonderful though better than a sharp stick in the eye.

So the original post to this thread is gonna keep me up at night. Not really. But maybe.

BTW: First batch is "Flat Tyre', supposedly a Fat Tire clone.

Nice going! I fretted the not getting enough O2 in my first beer, but the last SG I took it was wonderful.
Wow you have been busy brewing having 2 more in the pipeline! That's awesome.
Cheers

Homebrewing is like anything, practice makes perfect. As the OP has said do not be discouraged by a mediocre first batch, all will improved with time and practice.

im fermenting the same american wheat right now, i hope it turns out as well as yours. i did aerate a little, but since none of my instructions mentioned it i wasnt 100% sure i was supposed to at that time so i quit early. hopefully it was enough, if not i may know what issue i have!

I was worried about over aerating mine. I hope I did enough. I had some splash as I poured the beer through my funnel into the better bottle and then I gave it a couple swirls after that. I didn't want to do more after I read too much was a bad thing.

I'm petty new to this ,but i've learned so far that beer is hard to screw up!If anything I'd suggest staying away from kits.Fresh grains/hops/yeast make awesome beer.No matter how bad the brewer is The SWMBO bought me a Mr. beer that came out kinda crappy due to old yeast and priming with table sugar.After that i found a LHBS and have been making delicious beer for the last month and a half.Thats right i drink all my beers to early.But I have a case of each aging though