Belgian Honey Wheat

Good news! Last night when i got home (was kinda late) I was able to pitch the yeast. I took a OG reading before i did and i measured 1.049 - 1.050. Does this mean i got good conversions?

Before i pitched my yeast i used my siphon tool to aerate the wort a good bit. Then i just poured my liquid yeast into the primary fermentor and closed her up.

Its been almost 11-12 hours and i don't really see any bubbles coming through the airlock... from what i read it can take up to three days to see activity however, good brewing practice should see activity in 12-15.

What you think?

Yeah, you got about 70-75% efficiency which is about average for mashing and excellent for only your second AG batch.

If you didn't make a starter (i.e. you activated the slap pack and poured it in once it was bloated) then it can take as long as 24-48 hours to see activity. Even with a starter it can take 12+ hours. I've had it as quickly as 2 hours and as long as a day even using a stir plated starter, so it's mostly a matter of being patient and letting the yeast get acclimated to their new environment.

If you're really getting into it I'd suggest to start looking at the DIY stir plate designs around HBT and the web (like this one. They're actually very cheap, easy to build (even with a modest amount of handiness) and all you need other than a few RadioShack parts are an Erlinmeyer flask and stir bar which I ordered from Amazon. They save a lot of money in yeast and extract and you can use smaller starters:



BYO also has an excellent DIY stir plate project guide here. I just got a plastic project box from RadioShack when I was getting the rheostat, knob and switch since they make it easy to fit everything in. I also got a universal 1000mA universal power supply and it made fine tuning the fan speed much easier versus using an old cell phone power supply as some others have had great success with.

Sweet! I will most certainly give that a look

I got up this morning to find my primary just exploding with life! In fact the carouse (sp) is all the way to the top and now I am afraid I am going to have a over flow. Is it possible to move this beer into larger bucket at this time? My local brew shop told me to keep it in a clear container to be able to watch how the wort is acting. He also mentioned once it gets going, not to disturb the wort and let it finish.

Do I just put something under it and let it go?

See picture

Instead of using an airlock during your initial primary fermentation I would suggest instead to use a blowoff tube, which is basically just a length of tubing running from your stopper to a jar with a few inches of water or sanitizer. Airlocks are great for secondary or post-krausen, but they have a tendency to clog which builds up pressure in the fermenter until it ruptures from the top like a volcano. Blow off tubes help to minimize the risk of a mess and/or infection. Case and point, this is what I found the morning after I brewed a brown ale before I started using blow off tubes when starting in primary:

I think I read your mind... I had a tube that I bought for the brewing process but it never fit anything, so I just put it to the side. I used the same tube and inserted it into my airlock neck. Then put some sanitized water into the Rubbermaid tub and run the tube into that. I used the paddle to hold down the end of the tube.

Will this do ok? It's a little bigger then a mason jar....

So will this hurt the out come of the beer? Will it take from the FG?

Sorry, here's some eye candy lol

You should pull the whole airlock out and push the tube through the hole in the carboy bung. The krausen tends to get clogged in the tip of the airlock and it looks like the same thing would happen with the way you have it now.

You also may want to just put the sanitizer in an empty, clean spaghetti sauce jar or a glass next to your fermenter so that there is a few inches of liquid between the end of the blow off tube and the surface. The way you have it now is acting kind of like what is known as a swamp cooler which may reduce your fermentation temp.

Ok sounds good!

I took your advise... see picture

I put some Sani water into a milk jug and use that.

I hope this don't take from the flavor of the beer or hurt the FG.

Looks good, except keeping the jug on the floor will prevent a gravity siphon as the beer cools after fermentation (cooling will create a vacuum in the carboy which may pull sanitizer into your beer).

Using a blowoff tube won't affect the outcome of the beer one bit, so no worries. In fact it's safer since there is little chance for a clogged airlock to risk an infection. Once the krausen dies down you can switch back to an airlock since there is no risk of a clog post-krausen.

Nailed my FG!

Beer has a great color, and taste just great... Well for flat beer any ways

However, I thought I would have got more then 4 gallons out of it... Sucks because I primed for 5 gallons. I hope it don't hurt the beer being a little over carb'ed

I used about a half cup of corn sugar which is around 3.6 oz. I don't have scales yet so I had to guess

Looks nice! 3.6oz of corn sugar isn't too bad for 4 gallons of beer. It'll be a little fizzy, but should be good.

If you need a good scale, the one I use is here. Does up to 2 kilograms (4.4 lbs) and weighs in both metric and standard. I use mine all the time (the tare function is especially useful) and it measures in 1/10th of an ounce units. Can't beat the price for a good digital pocket scale either.

Nice scale. A good scale is my next investment in this wonderful hobby. I like yours, it's pocket size too! I was going to attemp to wash my yeast this go around but I think I will save that for another go around.

Here's a picture of the final product!

This one I didn't fill up as close as I did the others. Some I got within 1- 1.5 inch of the top

Going to cross my fingers I don't have an explosion and mess on my hands.

That's a fine looking home brew! As long as you reached your FG and it held there for a few days you shouldn't have any bottle bombs. To be on the safe side, my first few go arounds I put my bottles in a large Rubbermaid bin. I only had 1 bottle leak due to a fracture in the glass, but better safe than cleaning up a mess.

I have a friend who uses the Mr. Beer kits and on his first one he primed and bottled it only 3 days after pitching (because the air lock stopped), then put it in his 85F closet to condition. That resulted in a $200 dry cleaning bill, lol. He learned to be patient after that.

Well, you just taught me something then. I have been on travel to Connecticut this past week so I had my wife time the bubbles for me every night. This morning when I got home, I timed the bubbles again and it was at 1 min and 17 sec intervals. Not sure how long it's been sitting at the FG. I know better now for next time.

I will put them in a Rubbermaid container tonight. I store them in our nook area in a box that the bottles came in... This keeps it out of the sun light and kinda protects it if one were to bust.

Yeah, air lock activity pretty much means squat. When your FG holds for about 3-4 days then you're ready to bottle. I've had plenty of brews drop 10 points or more after air lock activity ceased in secondary.

So you recommend only using the air lock to prevent the nasties from getting in?

Also, is there a better method of getting samples from the fermenter, other then removing the airlock and taking a small sample? I would think this method would give a much large risk of infection.

Yeah, airlock activity is exciting because it's something immediately tangible to the brewer, but as far as when the beer is done or not comes down to gravity readings.

I use a refractometer (this is the one I use) to track the activity and once it stabilizes I'll use a hydrometer to get a true FG reading.

Refractometers are nice because you only need 3-4 drops of beer to take a sample reading but the alcohol content of the beer will throw the reading off. There are compensation calculators out there, but even then they tend to be inaccurate by several gravity points. So, like I said, they're nice to track a steady march to FG until the activity plateaus off, but a good hydrometer is really the best method of getting an accurate FG reading to record, though the downside is that the hydrometer uses a lot more beer. I find a combination of the two tools limits how much I lose to the "scientist's share."

To pull reading for the refractometer I use a 25mL glass Mohr pipet (like this one) and for the hydrometer I use a 2oz glass turkey baster, both of which I sanitize in iodophor before taking a reading. The pipet is long enough that I can pull the sample from anywhere in the column of liquid in the fermenter, but it's unnecessary to fill it since you only need 3-4 drops of beer for a refractometer . The baster has the advantage of pulling a lot of beer quickly for the hydrometer test jar, limiting how much exposure the beer has to the outside world. As long as you follow sensible sanitation precautions there is little risk of infection.

Btw, if you're looking for something new to try, here is a recipe for a Scottish Heavy I developed for a friend of mine from Scotland. He loves it and it's the reigning favorite among my ilk. It has a really nice floral aroma and flavor to it thanks to the combination of adding hops to the mash and the use of treacle at flameout. If you have an international food store near you I use Lyle's Black Treacle imported from England. You can also order it from Amazon. It comes in 1 lb cans and is pretty inexpensive.

Donald's Scottish Heavy
Type: Scottish Export 80 Shilling
Size: 5 gal
Water Needed: 7.75 gal
Pre-Boil Vol: 6.25 gal
Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.035 @ 75% eff.
Carb: 2.1 vol
SRM: 16
IBU: 19
OG: 1.046
FG: 1.012
ABV: 4.4%

Water Treatment
I use a combination of different water treatment chemicals based on the water profile of my area, but for you I would suggest just using a single

1 oz pkg of Burton Water Salts; Mix in with all 7.75 gal of water before starting mash

GRAIN (7 lbs 14 oz Total)
6 lbs -- Pale Malt, Maris Otter (Munton's) 71.6%
1 lb -- Aromatic Malt (Dingemans) 11.9%
8 oz -- Carapils (Briess) 6%
4 oz -- Special B Malt (Dingemans) 3%
2 oz -- Roasted Barley (Briess) 1.5%

Mash Schedule (Medium Body, Single Infusion)
Mash-In: 12 qts water @ 166F (152F Step Temp) for 60 minutes
Mash-Out: 7 qts water @ 200F (168F Step Temp) for 10 minutes
Sparge with 3 gallons of water @ 168F

Hop Schedule
0.50 oz -- Sovereign (5.5% AA) in Mash for 70 minutes (Add to grain when mashing in)
0.50 oz -- Sovereign (5.5% AA) Boil @ 60 minutes
1 oz -- Fuggles (4.5% AA) Boil @ 10 minutes

Other
1 tsp -- Irish Moss @ 30 minutes
8 oz -- Lyle's Black Treacle @ Flameout (8 oz by weight, not volume)
3.25 oz -- Priming Sugar (Dextrose); 2.1 vol @ Bottling

Yeast
1 pkg -- Wyeast Scottish Ale (1728); 0.75L Starter on stir plate (or 1.25L simple starter) @ 65F for 2 days

Fermentation Schedule
Chill and Pitch @ 65F
Primary: 7 days @ 60F
Secondary: 14 days @ 55F
Cold Crash: 2 days @ 40F
Condition 30 days w/ 3.25 oz Dextrose (2.1 vol) @ 65F

This recipe will introduce you to more refined methods of controlling temperature, cold crashing, water treatment as well as mash hopping. For this beer to really shine the temps must be held very stable (this recipe was the reason I built my temp controlled fermentation chamber). Scottish Ale Yeast has a temp range of 55-75F, but the really clean, crisp flavor of Scottish heavies happen at the low end of the spectrum. Like I said, this is one of my favorite ones to make and it's so smooth that Donald and I tend to get ourselves in trouble with them.

Interesting that you use both a refracto and hydrometer. I have a saltwater aquarium and I use a refracto to measure the specific gravity of the water every so often. I am fairly sure it might have the brick scale on one side too.

That recipe looks intense! I have never heard of a heavy ale before. What could I compare it to?

Refractometers for salt water are calibrated to measure salinity where as those for brewing are calibrated to measure sugar content. Each has a different refractive index since salt bends light differently than sugar (I think 1.5:1.38 respectively). But I suppose your salt water one would work just to watch the activity and once it stops the hydrometer would give you a real gravity reading.

"Scottish Heavy" is a bit of a misnomer because they are lower ABV session beers. The closest thing I could compare them to would be a Newcastle Brown Ale, but they are less carbonated, more malt forward and much "heavier" in mouth feel (maybe something in between a brown ale and a porter). Scottish heavies also tend to have a slight smokiness to them in the background.

Well my three week bottling time is quickly approaching!

I have taken some bottle out and tested them over the past few weeks to experiment with how the beer is developing over this time.

Week 1 - beer had a great flavor! Carb was decent but not ready, the head was not as thick as I thought it would be. The color was amazing and could not taste any harsh bitterness or bad after taste

Week 2 - again beer had great color, however I am sensing a slight change in the flavor and a after taste is starting to develop. The carbonation looks to be complete but we will see what the following week brings.

Week 3 - update around march 1

On a side note... I was on travel this week for work and it lead me to a small town in Rhode Island named providence. Apparently providence is known for its micro brewers around the area. Though not a local brewery, Harpoon seems to be a big name up in to area. Harpoon has a limited edition coffee porter that's absolutely to die for. Smooth, semi thick, and had a nice medium body with a nice balance of coffee , vanilla, and toffee. What I think made this beer so good was it wasn't over powering with the coffee. I was heart broken when I googled this beer and found it was only a 100 barrel limited edition. So I have set a new goal...I want to duplicate this beer and I have no clue where to start. what makes a porter? Is it the ingredients? Is it the yeast? Are their special fermentation requirements? I could go on.

There are a ton of coffee porter recipes on here and around the web, but a good place to start would be the BJCP guidelines for porters here. I would imagine, since you said it was a bit heavy, that you should base the recipe on either a Baltic or Robust porter rather than a brown.

When formulating your recipe, you may want to keep to a simple, straightforward grain bill for porters and adjust from there. Chocolate malt will add color and some coffee taste, but you don't want to use too much or you'll be entering stout territory. Since you said it had a "semi-thick" mouthfeel, you may want to mash high (156F mash in temp) so you have a higher final gravity which will give that thicker sensation. You may also want to add about 5% Briess Carapils malt in your grain bill as it will help to create a silkier head. As far as hops, I would use the subtler English hops like EKG and Fuggles so the coffee flavor isn't masked by the stronger American varietals. For yeast I would use Wyeast London Ale (1028), Irish Ale (1084) or Scottish Ale (1728; my personal favorite) or any of White Labs' British, Irish or English Ale yeasts.

There are a few different methods for adding the coffee flavor, but they all involve introducing it during either secondary fermentation or at bottling. One popular method is to "cold steep" coffee in a French press overnight, push the plunger down to separate the grounds and add it at bottling. Another is to crack whole beans, put them in a hop sack and let them dry hop 7-14 days in secondary before bottling. Generally you don't want to boil grounds or beans or add them during primary as they'll leave some harshness behind.

Here's an easy Coffee Porter recipe I just came up with:

Style: Robust Porter (12B)
Boil: 60 minutes
Size: 5 gallons
Pre-Boil Vol: 6.25 gal
Pre-Boil Grv: 1.054
OG: 1.061
FG: 1.017
IBU: 35
SRM: 30
ABV: 5.7%

Grains (Single Infusion, Full Body)

8 lbs -- Maris Otter Pale Malt (Munton's) 69.6%
2 lbs -- Crystal 40L (Briess) 17.4%
8 oz -- Chocolate Malt (Briess) 4.3%
8 oz -- Roasted Barley (Briess) 4.3%
8 oz -- Carapils (Briess) 4.3%

Mash-In: 15.5 qts water @ 169F (154F Step Temp) for 45 minutes
Mash-Out: 7.6 qts water @ 202F (168F Step Temp) for 10 minutes
Fly-Sparge with 2.1 gallons water @ 168F over 45 minutes

Hops
1 oz -- East Kent Goldings (5% AA) @ 60 min
1 oz -- East Kent Goldings (5% AA) @ 30 min
1 oz -- Fuggles (4.5% AA) @ 10 min

Yeast (Chill wort to 70F and pitch starter)
1 pkg -- Wyeast Scottish Ale (1728) (2.75 L Starter w/o Stir Plate; 1L Starter w/ Stir Plate)

Fermentation Schedule
7 days Primary @ 65F
14-21 days Secondary @ 65F
Prime with 3.5oz Dextrose (2.25 vol)

Flavoring
Method 1: Make 24oz of cold steeped coffee in French press by steeping coffee grounds in cold water and refrigerate overnight. Filter out grounds by pressing plunger and strain coffee through paper filter. Add at bottling.

Method 2: Coarsely grind or crack in a zip-lock bag with a rolling pin 1/2 cup of whole coffee beans. Securely tie in a fine mesh muslin bag and dry hop in Secondary for 7 days before bottling.

WOW! how did you do that? i got the brew smith software... did you use that? i need to review and noodle over your ideas. Your should be a master brewer!

I think a Baltic Porter is going to be right on point!

I am just thinking out loud..

I think a chocolate, carmel or Toffee, and coffee flavor with hint of roast. I want to to start off sweet and but not lack in a coffee flavor.

more to come...

Yeah, I use BeerSmith which makes it pretty easy to put stuff together. It takes a while to learn but once you do putting together recipes is pretty quick. Most of the BJCP guidelines also include an "accepted" ingredients section which help determine base and specialty malts of a particular style.

Like I said, I just rattled that one off pretty quick so it may be worth seeing if someone has come up with a clone of the beer you're looking to replicate and compare it to this one. I usually try to adhere to the Keep-It-Simple-Stupid philosophy, so less is better, especially while learning.

Your numbers may vary a bit from mine since my equipment is different from yours (you'll need to make an equipment profile in BeerSmith for your particular gear), but it will be close enough to not matter.

BakerBeer said:

I think a Baltic Porter is going to be right on point!

I am just thinking out loud..

I think a chocolate, carmel or Toffee, and coffee flavor with hint of roast. I want to to start off sweet and but not lack in a coffee flavor.

more to come...

Click to expand...

Baltics usually use either a lager yeast or cold fermenting ale yeast, so there will be some temperature control issues to deal with. The Robust style will simplify things, but if you can keep stable cold temperatures for 5-7 weeks I'd say go for it.

Interesting

I have been googling a Baltic porter and doing some research on the brewing how to's

I think a stupid simple recipe is a good idea for my first one attempt. I am thinking of a small batch incase i need to toss it.

It's cooler outside, is using a garage good for keeping a lower temp for fermenting? I would say my garage is above freezing. Or maybe under my stairs where my hot water heater is.. That's pretty cool area too...

What is your method of temp control?

I built a fermentation chamber out of a 1.8cf dorm fridge I built a collar for using an "eBay Temp Controller" as seen here. It holds both my 3 and 5.5 gal carboys at the same time, but is too short for my glass 6.5 gal one. I have a larger fridge I'll be turning into another fermentation chamber one of these days with larger capacity, though.

For temp control of a lager in your garage, it will work well, but you will need to control temp shifts by placing the fementer in a large, covered styrofoam cooler with some frozen 2L soda bottles in the cooler with the fermenter. You will need to change out the bottles every couple of days, but that should keep the fluctuations to only a few degrees in either direction. As always, stable temps make for happy yeast.

I would strongly suggest setting it up before you brew (i.e. without the fermenter in the cooler), put a thermometer in there over night and check the temp in the morning, when you get home from work and before you go to bed. Record the readings over a couple of days and be sure that the ambient temp in the cooler is going to be in the range your yeast is happy with as well as whether or not there are large fluctuations in the ambient temperature. Lager yeasts generally prefer mid 40s to mid 50s, but the strain you choose may vary. Many people use this method and have great success with it, so it isn't as "MacGuyver-esque" as it sounds.

So today was my last day for my bottle conditioning...

I opened up a chilled beer and poured it in my favorite frozen mug... I have to say I am displeased with how much this beer has changed over the last 3 weeks. The first week of this beers life after bottling was amazing. Great flavor, no harsh after taste, cloudy like a true wheat beer, and smelled great!

Now the beer still has a decent smell, however the color has definitely cleared up a tad, the taste is nothing like it was the first week or two, and the after taste is amazingly long lasting and very harsh. I am quite upset how it turned out. I thought I nailed this recipe right on the head.

What could have happened?

What do you mean specifically by "very harsh?" Is it a mouth puckering, tannin kind of quality? A cooked vegetable taste? Sulfur-like? Metallic?

Likely it just needs to sit for another couple weeks to a month. I've made plenty of brews where it tasted like manure right out of conditioning (such as a ginger beer that was so bad I almost threw it out) but, given an extended aging time, turned out fantastic (the ginger beer became everyone's favorite). The hardest part for most brewers, as I've said before, is learning patience and giving the beer time to mature.

Sorry it took me so long to reply, finials are this week! Lol

Umm... To be honest with you i don't know how to describe it. I asked my wife to give me her opinion and she could not either. What is tannin? It don't smell bad, the color is becoming more clear, and its developing a bite to the after taste. I don't taste a metallic flavoring. To be honest with you I think this is where I need to develop my taste buds. It's just upsetting that this beer has a kick butt flavor the first week or two then develops into this. Hell, I drank 10-12 of my beers in just the first 2 weeks, that how good it was.

I will put 6 aside and label then with what they are and see how they react to aging.

Now... I absolutely have no intentions on giving up. I am going try a Baltic porter this go around...

I will put together a recipe and maybe you can help adjust it. Next week I think the temp out side is going to be in the upper 40s so my garage might be a good place for it. Using the box idea you had I hope I can make it work.

If you've ever had a really dry red wine, that mouth puckering, "dry" sensation in your cheeks and tongue that you experience is from tannin. I doubt it is tannin, however, because you would have experienced it all along.

There are several things that can cause off flavors, but as I said, beers mature and develop as they age and hence the flavors change. If it is a hot, alcohol flavor it may be that the yeast is finally starting to eat the honey after getting through the simpler sugars and causing a "heat" to the after taste.

I would just let it sit and try one every week until it evens out. This may actually be a good thing because you can see for yourself how the process works with maturation.

I'd be happy to check out your recipe when it's done.

OK well i was starting to build my own then i stumbled across a recipe online that sounds so good!

I think it might be a little over my head and the recipe says its an 8gallon batch at 75% efficient

I would like to add some coffee to this list of ingredients also...

What you think? think this is over my head or you think i can pull it off? its going to be an expensive list of ingredients so if i get this i only have one shot at it... LOL

Honestly, for what I believe you are intending to make, that recipe seems a bit inappropriate for a coffee porter. And at 14% smoked malt (which would be fine for something like a Rauchbier) it would seem to me to be a bit overwhelming (put some Liquid Smoke in your coffee tomorrow if you don't believe me ). It's a very good base, though, and I would modify it in this way:

Baltic Coffee Porter

Size: 5 gallons
Est-Eff: 72%
PreBoil-Vol: 6.25 gal
PreBoil-Grav: 1.063
Boil Time: 60 minutes
SRM: 28
IBU: 33
OG: 1.077
FG: 1.020
ABV: 7.5%

Grains

5.5 lbs -- 2-Row Brewer's Malt (Briess)
1 lb -- Crystal 40L (Biess)
1 lb -- Munich 20L (Briess)
0.75 lb -- Barley, Flaked (Briess)
0.75 lb -- Barley, Roasted (Briess)
0.50 lb -- Carapils (Briess)
0.25 lb -- Chocolate Malt (Briess)

Mash Schedule (Full Body, Single Infusion)
Mash-In: 13.75 qts water (1.3 water:grain ratio) @ 172F (156F ST) for 60 minutes
Mash-Out: 5 qts water @ 207F (168F ST) for 10 minutes
Fly-Sparge: 3 gallons water @ 168F over 45 minutes

Other Fermentables
3 lbs -- Briess Golden Light DME @ 10 minutes left in boil
1 lb -- Clear Simplicity Candi Syrup @ Flame Out

Hop Schedule
0.50 oz -- Magnum (14% AA) @ 60 minutes
0.50 oz -- Hallertauer (4.8% AA) @ 30 minutes
0.50 oz -- Magnum (14% AA) @ 5 minutes
0.50 oz -- Hallertauer (4.8% AA) @ 5 minutes

Other Additions
1 tsp -- Irish Moss @ 30 minutes

Yeast
2 pkgs -- Wyeast Scottish Ale (1728) (2L simple starter or 1L Starter w/ stir plate)

Fermentation Schedule
Primary: 7 days @ 55-60F
Secondary: 21 days @ 55-60F
Bottle with 4oz Priming Sugar (Dextrose); 2.45 vol for 30 days


The few reasons I went with the Scottish Ale yeast for this is that lagers are finicky creatures. Any lager yeast you went with would require strict temperature controls, a massive starter (about 2 gallons without a stir plate), a diacetyl rest (we can talk more about that later) and a much longer time to ferment than I think your garage method of temp control would permit (well into mid to late spring). The Scottish Ale yeast permits cold temperature fermentations (as low as 55F) while still giving a clean, lager like profile without all the hassle and time of a lager yeast.

As far as the coffee flavor addition I would simply use the cold steep method and if you want to add some complexity to it, add about 2 tbsp of Cafe du Monde Chicory Coffee to some ground Starbucks Italian Roast. You don't need a French Press either if you don't have one; just mix the ground coffee with cold water in a sealed mason jar, shake, refrigerate overnight and run it through a paper filter or gold permanent filter before you bottle.

That sounds like a decent recipe too!

I was trying to use my beer smith to put together a recipe but I guess I am still on noob level. Lol, Beer smith offers so much it's a little overwhelming.

I think I am going to try your recipe! Sounds just as good as the other I posted.

Yeah, I've been using BeerSmith for a while and I'm still finding new stuff in it. There's a guy on YouTube that has posted some great tutorials here. They're the ones from about a year ago; just run down the list.

I figured mine was simple enough to do easily while still making a Baltic coffee porter like you wanted. I would certainly look at all the ingredients, though, and customize it to your personal tastes. Once you get it into BeerSmith it will be a lot easier to tweak.

That recipe is pretty much middle of the road which is where I tend to stay, at least while I'm learning. Sometimes I'll make something a little more off the beaten path; like the 15% ABV Ginger Barley Wine I'm planning for my girlfriend's best friend.

Well, I know you're technically looking for an all-grain recipe, and you're technically looking to make a wheat beer... but since it looks like you've basically got a spiced "holiday" ale on your mind, I'll at least share with you a recipe of mine that has probably been the biggest hit of everything I've made.

I'm kind of sheepish about having to admit that it involved a canned beer kit, and thus wasn't entirely my own original creation... but oh, well. So do some of Charlie P.'s best recipes:

North Drive "Honey Brown" Ale

4 lb. can Mountmellick Brown Ale liquid malt extract (hopped)
3 lb. Briess CBW Traditional Dark dried malt extract
¾ lb. honey
1 medium-sized oranges (for zest only)
4 whole cloves
4 whole cinnamon sticks
¼ tsp. ground nutmeg
4 tsp. gypsum
0.50 oz. UK Kent Golding hop pellets (finishing; final 20 minutes)
0.50 oz. UK Kent Golding hop pellets (aroma; final 2 minutes)
15 grams dry ale yeast (2 packets)

1. Clean two pots. Simmer all spices in 1 quart water for 45 minutes while also boiling the malt extracts, honey and gypsum in 1-1/2 gallons of water for 60 minutes.

2. Once the timer reaches 20 minutes, add the finishing hops in a bag.

3. After the 45 minutes are finished (i.e. the timer reaches 15 minutes), remove the whole spices from the spice water, then add the water to the large stock pot containing the malt extracts, honey, gypsum and finishing hops.

4. Once the timer reaches 5 minutes, remove and untie the hop bag, and add the orange zest to the bag. Retie the bag, and boil together for the next 3 minutes.

5. Once the timer reaches 2 minutes, remove and untie the hop bag again, and add the aroma hops to the bag. Retie the bag, and boil together for the final 2 minutes.

You know what to do from there - chill the wort, and take 'er away! Like I said, I can promise you that this one was one of my most popular beers I've made to date, and it was very winter/holiday appropriate.

That's a very interesting recipe Gray. I will keep that on the side, I may very well try that one.

Quick question, i am thinking of maybe putting some beer in a keg to see if there is a difference in taste. I found these on line...

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/mini-keg.html

What do you think? good keg? i am looking for some inexpensive, but will do the job.

i would say up to 4.5g nothing bigger