OK. ....I just bought a Brewers Best WitBier Kit ..it came with .5 oz of Bitter Orange peel and .5 oz of coriander seed (mixed into 1 bag), I bought 1 oz more of Sweet orange peel that I'm thinking about adding to it. I also have plans on adding honey ( I bought 3 lbs) but I'm not sure how much and when to add the extra ingrediants: the Honey and Sweet Orange.
Questions: 1. SHOULD I add / leave out either or both of the two extras.
2. When should I add the extras ..I've heard honey is best at "flame out" ..
How much honey you use depends on how much you want the flavor to come through. Its a simple sugar, so the yeast will go to town on it. I used 1 lb in an IPA and it was completely lost as far as flavor is concerned.
Add the honey at flame out. If you add honey while over a heating source, it'll scorch the honey. Just add it in and stir the crap out of it right before you cool the wort. I'm planning on doing a similar brew soon, and that's what I'm gonna do.
OR you could add the honey a couple days in to fermentation, but personally prefer not to open the fermenter if I can avoid it. The up side to this method however, is that if you're planning on using a LOT of honey, the yeast will eat the maltose and maltriose sugars in the wort first, then the "simple" monosaccharride sugars in the honey when it's added. If the honey is added before the yeast, the yeast will eat the sugar in the honey, get lazy, and stop producing the enzymes it needs to process maltose, maltriose, etc. That COULD leave you with a beer that finishes sweeter than you might want due to unfermented maltose and maltriose. If you're just using a couple pounds you probably don't need to worry about it.
Never used orange peel, so I can't help you there. I know that Rogue makes a
Honey-Orange wheat where they add orange juice to get the orange flavor, and they make
Somer Orange Honey Ale using sweet orange peel. Why the two different methods? Beats me. I know that the Somer Ale (with sweet orange peel) has a few other spices in it as well (coriander & chamomile) while the wheat beer only has orange juice and honey. Perhaps the orange peel is more subtle? I'll be looking into that before brewing too.