Blood Orange Coriander APA

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SteveHeff

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I wanted to make some more "chick friendly" for my wife and her friends. We like to entertain, and I'm sick of my wife buying wine. So this seems like a good compromise. Here she is:

10 lbs Maris Otter
2 pounds C10
1 lb vienna
2 oz blood orange peel at 10 min
1 oz coriander at 10 min.
Cascade additions at 60, 10, 5, 1, dry hop 2 oz for 14 days in the secondary.

That's pretty much it. I'm looking to put a bit of orange flavor into the beer. Should I try adding more peel or could I add some of the blood orange juice (1 cup?) post boil?
 
Well, I just did a taste test after 5 days in the primary. First things first: I still have action in the air lock. It's slowed down considerably but there are still consistent bubbles. Beautiful yeast cake on the top. I'll take some pictures before moving to the secondary. It's been fermenting internally at 66 F in 63 ambient. I think I'll add another orange worth of zest to the secondary next week.

You can definitely taste the Maris Otter. I'm very happy I used it. The orange peel sweet and the bitter are perfect. The taste needs to mellow a bit. The orange is very upfront. Needs time. But otherwise it's perfect.

I did not take a gravity reading yet. I'll grab one when I transfer and there isn't so much yeast cake in the way.
 
So, no action since day 7. It's day 11 now. I moved it to the secondary. Between the yeast and the hops from the boil (I tried to get as many out before going into the primary) there was a lot of trub. My auto syphon hose got clogged 6 or 7 times. Each time I would take it out, clear the clog, sanitize and get going again. I only ended up with 4.6 gallons after expecting 5 +or-.

It smells amazing. The orange aromatics are calming down. The flavor is still strong on your tongue. It's like an orangy-biscuit taste. I like it. I can't wait to get this thing into the bottles. I'm really looking forward to drinking this.

Also, I used a S-04 dry yeast for this batch. 2 packets, rehydrated.
 
I'd like to try this as my first AG attempt but in a 2.5 gallon batch. I have a couple questions.
Should I scale back the orange peel and coriander the same as the grains/hops?
Having never used peel/coriander, do you buy the peel(oranges)/corriander from the grocery store, or prepackaged at LHBS?
How many oz were your boil hop additions? Or what was your target IBU?
Target ABV?

Thank you!
 
Dial back the orange ZEST. Don't just use the peel. It will add a bitterness to the beer that would probably don't want. The coriander should be at .3-.4 oz, orange peel, use 1/2 of an orange OR you can use dried orange zest from you LHBS. Just scale everything back by about 1/2. Target IBU is around 23-25. My hop additions were all 1 oz. I did not end up dry hopping the beer, either. You can add some orange juice during the last 10 mins of the boil. Again, maybe 1/2 of an orange worth. And finally, the ABV should be around 7%.

Good luck. I hope it turns out well for you. It's still hanging out in the secondary right now. I'll be happy the first day I crack one open.
 
Any reason in particular you are not dry hopping? I'll probably skip it too if the orange aroma isn't very strong.
Do you think I should add the orange juice along with the blood orange zest? Or just one or the other?

I'll update ya on how it goes.
 
Any reason in particular you are not dry hopping? I'll probably skip it too if the orange aroma isn't very strong.
Do you think I should add the orange juice along with the blood orange zest? Or just one or the other?

I'll update ya on how it goes.

I skipped the dry hop because I don't like my beers overly hoppy. I'll test this one as is and then I'll go from there. A slightly sweeter beer is easier to drink than an overly hopped beer (at least for me).
 
Gravity reading today is 1.012. OG was 1.060. This calculates out to about 6.4% alcohol. Pretty good, but I was hoping for around 6.8-7.0. I did have some issues with my mash tun efficiency (67%) mostly because my strainer was getting so clogged. I'll be adding rice hulls next time to aid with this. 6 more days in the secondary.
 
I brewed my 2.5 gal batch of this today. I didn't have enough oranges to get more than about .8 oz of zest, so that flavor will be on the very light side if there at all.

Holy hell, the trub/hops/orange clogged my funnel strainer twice so I ended up just siphoning it all into the primary. I really need to find a way to better filter the junk from the brew pot. I'll probably end up with about 1.5 actual gallons just judging from the layer of sediment on the bottom of my primary.

OG was 1.067. I'll keep you updated!
 
I ended up scooping as much trub and crap as I could using a metal strainer. My syphon was just as clogged. I expected my OG to be as high as yours, but for lack of understanding, I've been having eff. issues.

I'm thinking about strainer through painter's mesh next time. I'll have to sanitize the crap out of it but I think it's worth doing. Overall, I've lost around 1.25 gallons to trub and yeast. I'm not happy with that. That's beer that I could be drinking!!! Good luck with your brew.
 
Dial back the orange ZEST. Don't just use the peel. It will add a bitterness to the beer that would probably don't want.

I read somewhere that the white part of the peel contributes to the bitterness and that you should use a grater to only get the orange part of the peel.
 
I ended up scooping as much trub and crap as I could using a metal strainer.

Good idea. Maybe I'll try this with one of those small scoop strainers with the handle while the wort cools. Should help at least some.

IL1kebeer said:
I read somewhere that the white part of the peel contributes to the bitterness and that you should use a grater to only get the orange part of the peel.

I peeled my oranges with a knife to get bigger pieces, then used a grater to scrape off the white (pith). I liked this method because I lost less material in the grater.
 
I think I'm going to bottle tomorrow. My gravity is stuck at 1.012, which I'm more than happy with. I don't see the point in keeping it in the secondary anymore. Time to clean some 22 ouncers.
 
First 2 are sitting in the fridge right now. I'm waiting to pop them open with dinner. More information to follow.
 
I brewed something almost exact to this a month ago. Only orange peel i used was 1.25 oz of zest (with my microplane grater). WAY too much orange/bitter flavor.

Not sure if i got too much pith; but i would halve that for future 5gal batches. From what i hear, the bitter/orange should fade over time. So ive shelved it and will try back in a month.

Good recipe though; hope it rocks!
--bmtb
 
Agreed on the orange. It ended up being way too much, and I only used half of what was recommended. Unfortunately, I had some serious floaters in the beer. I don't know if they were bacteria related, but I ended up dumping the glass right after my first sip. My sanitation techniques are fairly solid, but there's always a chance. I'll check my other bottles out after the weekend.
 
Agreed on the orange. It ended up being way too much, and I only used half of what was recommended. Unfortunately, I had some serious floaters in the beer. I don't know if they were bacteria related, but I ended up dumping the glass right after my first sip. My sanitation techniques are fairly solid, but there's always a chance. I'll check my other bottles out after the weekend.

That's too bad. Did you dump because of the floaters, or the taste?

I'm going to get an FG reading and bottle mine on thursday. I guess I'll know how it'll turn out then. It smells pretty damn good through the airlock.
 
I'm going to wait and see about the floaters. It is possible that it wasn't anything significant. The taste isn't bad. It truly isn't. But it's really not my type of beer. That being said, I brewed it, I'll drink it.
 
I bottled mine today. FG of 1.010. I drank the gravity sample and.. it's not the greatest. The orange wasn't too strong, but the malt and hop flavor was overpowered by bitter and strong alcohol flavor. Perhaps the S-04 didn't like my fermentation temps around 68 and I got some fusel alcohols? I'll give it time to condition in the bottle and see what it's like in a couple weeks.
 
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