First batch a huge success at a party

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

HH60gunner

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2010
Messages
387
Reaction score
15
Location
Tucson
Well I brought a six pack of my first batch of brew over to my friends birthday party because he was curious and wanted to try it. Needless to say my blood orange hefeweizen was almost gone as quickly as it got there and got great reviews even from people there that I'd never met. I'm really glad I decided to change up the recipe on my first brew and add the blood oranges because it gave my beer a great blood orange after taste. Can't wait to start up my next batch now :)
 
You have a recipe for that Bloo Orange Hefe?

I just bought an ingredient kit from the local brew shop, then twisted it to my own needs. I bought a fransico hefeweizen ingredient kit, then added 4 blood oranges and zested peels to my initial fermenter. After tasting the beer after a week in the fermenter I decided to add 5 more pounds of blood orange because the initial 4 oranges had absolutely no effect. So I cut/peeled the 5 pounds and added directly into the secondary fermenter and racked the beer right on top of it. It came out with a great blood orange after taste in the final product with absolutely no overpowering orange tastes in the beer itself.
 
I just bought an ingredient kit from the local brew shop, then twisted it to my own needs. I bought a fransico hefeweizen ingredient kit, then added 4 blood oranges and zested peels to my initial fermenter. After tasting the beer after a week in the fermenter I decided to add 5 more pounds of blood orange because the initial 4 oranges had absolutely no effect. So I cut/peeled the 5 pounds and added directly into the secondary fermenter and racked the beer right on top of it. It came out with a great blood orange after taste in the final product with absolutely no overpowering orange tastes in the beer itself.

Congrats on a succesful recipe, makes my mouth water just thinking about it!

Quick question, did you slice, quarter, or mash the oranges and did you add the zest/peel from all 5lbs? Well that is actually two questions, sorry!:D

Thanks
Kevin
 
Congrats on a succesful recipe, makes my mouth water just thinking about it!

Quick question, did you slice, quarter, or mash the oranges and did you add the zest/peel from all 5lbs? Well that is actually two questions, sorry!:D

Thanks
Kevin

pretty much I opened them up and made sure to not get any of the white parts of the orange in there. For the most part they were sliced and quartered. I only zested about 3 or 4 oranges and not the whole 5lbs.
 
Very interested in your recipe as im making an extract blood orange Hefe very soon. Interesting to see you upped the amount of oranges you used.

Did you ferment in a bucket or damijohn? If Damijohn how did you get the oranges through the narrow neck?

thanks.
 
Very interested in your recipe as im making an extract blood orange Hefe very soon. Interesting to see you upped the amount of oranges you used.

Did you ferment in a bucket or damijohn? If Damijohn how did you get the oranges through the narrow neck?

thanks.



Here is the recipe I used....

- 6lbs dry wheat extract
- .25lbs aromatic malt (grain)
- .13 acid malt (grain)
- .13 malto Dextrine
- 1 oz hersberker hobs
- .25 oz perle hops
- 5 oz priming sugar (for bottling)
- Nottingham dry yeast

1. Take 3 gallons of water and steep grains at 155 degrees for 30 minutes. Add 2 gallons of water to another pot and add the meat of 4 blood oranges, along with the zested peel of 2 of the blood oranges (don't use any white parts of the orange, you want only the meat) (when zesting the peels ensure not to go too deep that you starting getting the white rind). ( I heated this up and made a tea out of it). **(later on I decided it wasn't enough of an orange flavor so I added more).

2. remove the grain bag from the steeping water and discard the grains.

3. Bring the 3 gallons to a boil.

4. Remove from heat and add the 6 lbs of wheat extract.

5. bring this mixture to a boil and add the hersberker hops.

6. Allow the wort to boil for 45 minutes then add the aroma hops and malto-dextrine.

7. boil for 15 more minutes.

8. combine the 2 gallons of the blood orange tea and the 3 gallons of wort into a 6.5 gallon fermenter. (I used a plastic food grade bucket).

9. cool down wort to 75 degrees or below.

10. When wort reaches 75 degrees or below pitch yeast (ensuring to follow the yeast directions).

11. Before adding yeast take OG hydrometer reading.

12. Add yeast.

13. put your lid back on with your airlock.

14. put in a cool dark place that will maintain a temperature below 75 degrees.

15. I kept this in my primary fermenter for a week. (since I used a kit the OG was supposed to come out to 1.054 but because I added blood oranges to the mix it came out around 1.062. With a target FG of 1.012......

16. I tasted the wort after a week in the primary fermenter and realized that the 4 blood oranges really had no effect at all on the 5 gallons of wort so I decided to add more blood orange. After reading on this forum people recommended using 1lb of fruit per gallon. So I went back to the store and bought 5lbs of blood oranges. After peeling and cutting and getting rid of any of the white parts of the orange I think I really only had 3.5-4 lbs of actual fruit.

17. I added the 5* pounds of blood orange meat along with about two more blood orange peel zested into my secondary 5 gallon glass carboy. I did this directly no freezing, cooking, or sanitizing of oranges any way. (I figured that by this point there would be enough alcohol to kill any nasties any way).

18. I racked the beer on top of the blood oranges and allowed it to sit for another week in the secondary fermenter.

18. After this point I bottled the beer and allowed it to sit in the bottles for at least two weeks. I opened one up around 7 days in the bottle and was worried because it didn't taste all that good, but after two weeks in the bottle it tasted amazing. Even with 5 pounds of blood oranges really it only has a hint of blood orange taste which is only really tasted as the aftertaste. Knowing this on my next batch I may even add more blood oranges so that I get 5 lbs of actual blood orange meat.
 
as for how I got the blood oranges in the narrow neck it was easy. Blood oranges are very small so they easily fit in with no problems at all. When all was said and done they easily came out when I washed my carboy.
 
Back
Top