Best oranges for zesting into Wheat beer?

Hi all,

So i'm a couple of days away from racking my Lemon Coriander Wheat beer into the secondary and I plan on adding 50/50 Lemon and Orange zest. (It initially was just going to be lemon, but I have a feeling that with the coriander it might come out to lemony so I'm going to do half an orange instead.

My question is, are certain types of oranges better then others? I went to my local grocery store the other day just to see what kind of citrus the had and to be honest, I wasn't impressed. They had a ton of navel oranges, and some of those tiny "Cuties" which are clementines I believe. The problem is, neither of them seem "sweet" to me, I tasted a bit of the zest from each and I got more tangy/bitter then anything.

Would appreciate any suggestions.

I have used both navel and blood oranges. If you can get a hold of some blood oranges, go that route, if not navel will be just fine. I would avoid the cuties, they barely have any zest. Also, the orange zest won't give you any sweetness, more of an aroma, and slight taste at the finish of the beer.

What about going w/100% Meyer lemons?

Baron von BeeGee said:

What about going w/100% Meyer lemons?

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I'd love to do that, but I've looked around and I cant find meyer lemons anywhere in my area.

Deuce said:

I have used both navel and blood oranges. If you can get a hold of some blood oranges, go that route, if not navel will be just fine. I would avoid the cuties, they barely have any zest. Also, the orange zest won't give you any sweetness, more of an aroma, and slight taste at the finish of the beer.

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Heh what do you know... I made one last minute trip to the mega mart and in a little basket at the end of the fruit stand they had like 10 blood oranges (must have passed by them a hundred other times and never noticed...

So I ended up doing 1/2 of a blood orange and 1/2 of a lemon.

Made the zest a bit on the large side because honestly i'm a bit afraid of it being overly citrus-ie. We'll see what happens in a couple of weeks.