Frozen Orange Juice????

Hi everyone! So I'm pretty new to this, my first brew is conditioning in bottle right now, should be ready to try in about a week. I sampled it pre bottle and it was decent.

For my next batch I wanted to try to get creative. I have liked citrus flavored beers like Summer Shandy and Blue Moon, and I wanted to try one of my own. I have 6+ pounds of wheat extract, and about 6oz. of wheat malt for steeping grains. I was going to try adding some frozen orange juice to the mix somewhere in the process and I was thinking I'd add it to the boil...my cousin tried this with a pumpkin beer and he just added two cans of pumpkin puree from the grocery store to the boil and it turned out great!

Do you think this will work or do you suggest adding the OJ at another stage, like maybe directly to the primary? Oooorrrr...Do you suggest something totally different?

Thanks! Bill, Minnesota

I'd wait until you learn the basics before getting all crazy and making some weird stuff.

Have you ever smelled fermenting orange juice? It smells like puke, it might work out.....but make a few beers first, normal stuff, then get all outlandish and ****.

No this will get bitter or add no flavor at all. add orange zest to the beer after you add your yeast.

Personally...I would recommend just making a Wit a normal way and then squeezing in fresh orange wedge at the time of drinking.

You could use some citrusy (spelling?) hops like cascade or something to give it a hint of citrus. Definately some orange zest which can be thrown in pretty much anytime from 5 minutes to flameout to right into the secondary for a few days before bottling. You could try doing a very small 1 gallon batch for testing. The dogfish head guy does small batches to test new ingredients, only difference is a small batch to him is not a small batch to us. LOL

NEVER boil fruit (except briefly, to pasteurize). The pectins in the fruit will break down in the boil and just be bitter and awful....

A secondary fermentor is the place to introduce fruit (and a wedge at serving time, for some varieties - like a wheat beer, as garnish)

also, as before mentioned, you don't want the yeast to get at the fruit during primary fermentation, as they will eat all the sweetness out of the fruit and just leave you with what is left over... which is not usually very pleasant.

I like the "make a small batch to see what you get" approach myself... My experience is that, OJ in the boil probably won't do much, or nothing at all. Maybe adding it to the fermenter will produce some interesting flavors... If you pitch to the fermenter, do it after the aggressive, initial fermentation slows and consider a blow-off tube. OR... if you're gonna force-carbonate, maybe let the fermentation finih COMPLETELY and pitch in some potassium sorbate to kill the yeast and pour in the OJ to slightly sweeten and flavor the beer (I know I wouldn't like this answer... tried it by putting a bit of oj into a finished beer... yuck... totally different - don't ask me why - than squeezing a wedge into Blue Moon)

The more traditional answer is, zest away baby... thow some in for the last 5 mins of your boil. Throw more into the fermenter...

I've heard of toasting orange peels (bake in 300 degree oven till white part turns golden brown, about 45 minutes) and using them. An ounce runs $2-$3 at the LHBS. But if you're eating oranges at home anyway, why waste the peel?

Valencia, Navel and Blood oranges are all sweet oranges. Seville are a bitter orange. I've seen recipes that call for one or the other or both at the same time.

hmmm... zesting gets just the colorful portion. The white portion is pith and it imparts a VERY bitter taste to beer.

holy crap. inventing new beers can take many diffferent batches and could be years to work out proper amounts. i would highly recommend getting your process down before doing some crazy brewing techniques. do some kits that have ingredients that are what you are looking for to get recipes and timing down first. IMHO, you are jumping into murky waters head first before checking the depth of the pool.

Okay, so as far as zest...how much for a five gallon batch??

I've been lurking for a while now but I haven't started brewing yet. I would do a search for Blue Moon clone to get an idea of how much zest to use.

An ounce or two should do ya just fine. Experiment, experiment, experiment. That is what this hobby is for. Just think, your experimentation could lead to the next best beer. Try until it you find what works for you.

I typically look for recipes to baseline my ideas too. Pick something you like commercially, google it for a clone recipe (or look in th recipe section of HBT) and try the amount listed for that recipe. Add more or less the next time away.

i would recommend lots of bitter and sweet orange peel, and i would use the dried variety. you can get these at any brew shop. i've done fresh oranges before and it's not worth it. the fresh orange is best in the beer at serving time!

EDIT: And by "lots", I mean maybe 1oz of each to get your desired effect. I personally would never use 1oz of each, but I would guess that level is required to get a real strong flavor. Usually 1 oz of orange peel will get you very noticeable orange flavor. In a recent Wit, I used about .25 oz of bitter orange beer only. For the record, Summer Shandy is lemonade beer, I believe, not orange.

here's a blue moon clone, which uses the following orange peel additions:

0.18 oz Orange Peel, Bitter (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
0.18 oz Orange Peel, Sweet (Boil 15.0 min) Misc

As I noted, the 1-2 oz is going to get you a strong orange flavor.

Awesome response to my questions, thanks everyone! I'm glad I posted here before trying the frozen OJ thing I'm going to try the orange zest instead.

one more thing on zesting. i mentioned i'd used fresh orange before, and when i did that i "zested" the oranges by grating off the orange exterior. that's a big pain and i used ALOT with little noticeable result. believe me, you will get more flavor from the dried peels while spending less time and likely less money.

on bitter v. sweet, it really is just the type of oranges. i believe my bitter peels are curacao, and the sweet are valencia...something like that. belgian brews typically use bitter peel.

for example, Austin Home Brew has a Blue Moon Spice Pack for $1.50 that includes bitter and sweet orange peel, as well as coriander.

For the bitter orange peel, they report:
"Aurantium amarae pericarpium
Also known as Curaçau orange peel, these dried peels are one of the most popular specialty herbs on the market. They are used commercially by domestic brewers to duplicate the beer styles that put Belgium on the brewing map. While not very bitter, these peels are a key ingredient in Belgian-style white beers and are usually used with coriander."

For the sweet orange peel:
"Aurantium dulcis pericarpium
Taken from a foreign cousin to the Florida orange, this sweet variety will not give beer a metallic taste like the domestic version. Imagine the taste of Cointreau or Grand Marnier. That is the flavor that sweet orange peel will add to Belgian-style strong ales and special holiday brews."

You dont have to scrap the OJ idea altogether. I made a Blue Moon clone for my wife last year with bitter orange peel. Didn't have enough orange flavor so I added about 3/4 can frozen OJ concentrate right to the keg (after fermentaton of course). When tapped, it tasted just like you added an orange slice to the glass. Repeated this recipe for a family trip to a lake house and the keg was empty in record time.