bmock79

Recipes 

I have a recipe that calls for 1 oz. of bitter orange peel and 2 oz.'s of sweet orange peel. My lhbs only had bitter so I picked up the oz I needed and he suggested I use fresh orange peel, but couldn't tell me how much or which type of orange to use?

Any thoughts, tips, or suggestions would be much appreciated!! I am brewing a blue moon type beer (american wit)

Cheers,
Ben

mcwilcr

Recipes 

I personally like to use fresh fruit when ever possible since dried fruit (and fruit peels) tend to loose a lot of their potency so I typically use grapefruit zest as a substitute when I can not find seville oranges (bitter oranges) but I digress.

for the sweet orange, I typically use the zest of 1 large ripe navel orange. you can weigh it out to 2 oz.'s if you must but be sure to stop zesting the orange as soon as you see the white of the pith.

kingmatt

Recipes 

I would probably just use an equal amount of fresh zest (2oz) as what the recipe calls for in the dry sweet peel. You will probably get a bolder orange flavor since the fresh zest will impart more flavor than the dried out peel so you could even scale back some if you want to 1.5oz or so...

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ScottSingleton

Recipes 

Most grocery stores that have McCormick spices have ground sweet (Valencia) orange peel. I picked this up a few months back when I was following the Blue Moon clone recipe here and wanted to be specific. It turned out mighty tasty and I'm probably going to use it in my next batch that calls for sweet peel as well.

The big benefit I see with the dried products is their shelf life.

bmock79

Recipes 

Awesome info here thanks!!! From further research I may try the fresh stuff, anyone have a favorite orange they like to use?

chefglb

Recipes 

Most orange peels are going to taste the same. It's the inner parts that impart the differentiating flavors from one orange to the next.

bmock79

Recipes 

I guess I will go to the store and find a couple of the best looking oranges and zest them up!

LouBrew13

Recipes 

Penzey's spices. You can find them online and maybe even locally.

Calichusetts

Recipes 

I do one gallon and I zest 4 total...probably overboard but I put it in two additions and LOVE the taste of it!

bmock79

Recipes 

Thats good to hear, my brew buddy swears that the fresh zest is going to make my beer so bitter we won't be able to drink it. He watches some brewing tv guy on YouTube, I believe that's where he is getting that info!

I think I'm going to zest up 2 or 3 oranges and see what happens!!!

Thanks fellas.