Honey Orange Wit - Critic

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beerspitnight

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Folks-
We are brewing up a honey orange wit this Sunday and I put together what I think is going to be the recipe - critics welcome.
We don't have access to unmalted wheat, so we are using carawheat.

All in KG
Pale 6 52%
Caramel Wheat 3.5 30%
CaraPils 500g 4%
Vienna 500g 4%

Honey - 1kg - 10 min before flameout
14g of corriander
20g of orange zest
5g of chamomile
2 tablespoons of flour

Perle 1.5 60 6.0% 15.43
Spalt 1.5 30 5.8% 11.46
Spalt 1 5 5.8% 1.98


Yeast - Chimay yeast harvested from bottles

We will throw in oranges (5 medium?) soaked in vodka after 7 days in primary - 14 days in fermentation all together.
 
How long are you soaking the oranges? Are you planning on adding the vodka too? If not (and depending on how long you soak), you might not get much flavor from them due to the booze extracting all the goodness. You might want to consider just juicing them, boiling the juice, and adding the zest to the juice at flameout. That way everything's sanitized and you won't lose any orangey goodness :).
 
How long are you soaking the oranges? Are you planning on adding the vodka too? If not (and depending on how long you soak), you might not get much flavor from them due to the booze extracting all the goodness. You might want to consider just juicing them, boiling the juice, and adding the zest to the juice at flameout. That way everything's sanitized and you won't lose any orangey goodness :).

Good idea smagee! Thanks. I have heard that the orange juice flavor might get scrubbed out during fermentation. I would add the vodka as well, if we go that route. We are looking for a refreshing, citrus beer here, so I don't want to lose any of the orange flavor through fermentation. Decisions decisions...
 
The orange flavors and aroma can definitely blow out during initial fermentation; I'd give it a few weeks in the primary before adding any of the orange to it. After re-reading your post, 14 days seems a bit of a fast turnover for me; I'd give it at least 21, including secondary time. After 2 weeks on the cake, do your orange action (however you decide to manage it) and rack the beer onto the orange in the secondary. Since the vast majority of the fermentation is finished at that point, you won't get as much blowout of the flavor/aroma.

You should note, however, that the sugar in the oranges/juice *will* ferment, so you'll still get some bubbles and a bit of the aromas will escape. If you're using the juice/zest method, you'll still definitely have some citrus to your beer.

To make an overly long post even longer, I'll mention that the last witbier I made, I boiled the coriander and some orange zest for the last 10 minutes of the boil, then simply dumped both into the bucket along with the wort at the end. Both flavors came through extremely strong in the finished product, even with only 1oz of Coriander and 2oz of orange zest. So be careful, as both of those can be pretty overpowering in large quantities. Good luck!
 
Noted! And thanks again. We are rushing this brew as we are both leaving Beijing for the summer in 30 days...
Good insight on the coriander and orange zest. We are doing a 10gal batch so I will double what you put into yours.
Thanks again for your help!
 
Glad to help out :mug:.

Incidentally, I should note that I was using dried/crystallized zest from the LHBS, so fresh zest might not have the same impact. I'd suggest increasing it a bit, just to be on the safe side.
 
carawheat is definitely not a subsitute for unmalted wheat and 3kgs of it is waaaaaaaay too much. is there any other wheat you can get?

if you can get it, id consider using a lil summit hops to enhance the orange since it gives off a tangerine/orange flavor/aroma
 
carawheat is definitely not a subsitute for unmalted wheat and 3kgs of it is waaaaaaaay too much. is there any other wheat you can get?

if you can get it, id consider using a lil summit hops to enhance the orange since it gives off a tangerine/orange flavor/aroma

It is a 10 gallon batch. And no, this is the only wheat that we can get. We are also limited in hop availability and we had to personally import all of the hops that we have.
We are going to slow down our timeframe as well. Well add 1 kg of honey after high krausen, still adding oranges after that - it will sit in primary for 3.5 weeks. We will then keg and let them sit until we get back in early August.
 
I think the added time in the keg will do well with the orange and coriander; if they come out too strong early on, they'll both settle down nicely after some time. Hope it turns out well! :)
 
I would maybe try orange honey. Do the zest after 2 weeks in the primary along with the coriander. I tried doing the zest at 10 min boil and it doesn't really come out. Just my experience so far. I'm trying to make a shock top clone, I have been experimenting, on my third batch and zest in 2 weeks is the way to go so far.
 
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