As promised, the results! Tapped it last night and it really came out great!
The girlfriend says it's her favorite beer I've made. Even better than my English Chocolate Porter I asked?? Yes... make this again. !!
So I upped the grain bill a bit from the original recipe:
5 lb White Wheat Malt
4 lb Pilsner 2 Row
1 lb Flaked Wheat
1 lb Honey Malt
I added citra to the original recipe and used yeast nutrients:
0.50 oz Tettnang 60 min
0.50 oz Tettnang 10 min
0.50 oz Citra 10 min
1.00 tsp Yeast Nutrient 10 min
Zest of 4 Navel Oranges 10 min
The end result is delicious! It's rich, smooth, cloudy, and refreshingly citrusy.
Up front it reminds me of a Bluemoon with an orange slice in it... then the extra alcohol kick and the honey leave an aftertaste similar to Merry Monks.
ABV came to 6.5%
I also used my newly constructed stir plate and made a starter with White Labs WLP300. Started bubbling under an hour!
Fermented for 18 days then cold crashed for 24 hours before kegging.
Very.. Awesome.. Beer.
Next batch this summer I will try a little bit more Honey Malt to see if I can get a sweeter aftertaste.
Let me know if anyone tries this variation!
[Just a tip, if you follow these exact steps use a large fermenter... my carboy sadly lost a bunch of wort due to pretty violent foaming through the blow off hose in the first 24 hours... lame]