Adding orange/corriander in kegged beer

Hi,

I brewed a Belgian Wit a couple weeks ago. Overall the beer was good, but there was a lack of taste in my opinion. No oranges taste or corriander out of it.

So yesterday, I boiled about a cup of water, add the zest of half an orange and put some corriander into the boil. Remove it from the heat after 1 minute. After 15 minutes or so, I filtered the liquid to remove the zest from the solution. I put it in the fridge and then poured it into the cold keg once cold.

I taste it this afternoon, I can say the beer tastes more "full" and I think this is due to corriander, I still do not taste any orange note in this witbier.

Just want to know if it's a good way to "correct" a beer for its lack of taste.

Thanks.

There are some small things to do just like you did but I think in general it's a good idea to not mess with your beer after it's brewed. You're much more likely to mess something up- just brew it better next time. Cold side "fixes" can never really approximate the processes that you messed up on the hot side.

How much did you use?

renevdb said:

How much did you use?

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Since I only had a rough idea of the amount of beer in the keg, I used the zest of half an orange and only few grams of corriander, maybe 4-5 grams. I did not want to overpower anything with this fix.

The keg is about 3/4 full.

callback79 said:

Since I only had a rough idea of the amount of beer in the keg, I used the zest of half an orange and only few grams of corriander, maybe 4-5 grams. I did not want to overpower anything with this fix.

The keg is about 3/4 full.

Click to expand...

How much did you use in the original recipe.

I prefer using zest and dried orange peel in a tincture of vodka, just enough booze to wet the zest or orange peel. I feel this gives better, brighter flavor than hot water, either in the primary boil or a 'tea'.
Also, if you have some graduated pipettes, you can use an extract that you like and play around with beer shots.
Take an ounce of beer and just start adding tiny amounts from your pipette (keeping track of the amount) until you get where you like.
You can then extrapolate out how much extract to use for your full batch.

renevdb said:

How much did you use in the original recipe.

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I used 1/2oz of crushed corriander seeds and 3/4oz of fresh orange zest for a 5.5 gal batch.

When adding things to a keg, it's always a good idea to add them in a small bag with a string attached so they can be removed if the flavor starts to overwhelm.

I've freshened up a few beers with flavor/aroma additions after they're already cooled in kegs.

What I do is just put whatever I want to infuse in a coffee filter in my coffee maker, then run the coffee maker with about 4 cups of water. Ends up being the same difference as the method you used, just automated. I then chill the ingredient tea down to the same temp as the beer and dump it in the keg. You can also do an "instant" dryhop this way. Always works for me!

TopherM said:

I've freshened up a few beers with flavor/aroma additions after they're already cooled in kegs.

What I do is just put whatever I want to infuse in a coffee filter in my coffee maker, then run the coffee maker with about 4 cups of water. Ends up being the same difference as the method you used, just automated. I then chill the ingredient tea down to the same temp as the beer and dump it in the keg. You can also do an "instant" dryhop this way. Always works for me!

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Nice to hear it works for you too.

I'm driking the second glass of this beer right now (since the addition of orange and corriander), and this has really improve the taste of this witbier. The difference is subtle but it's a nice improvement.

As other stated before, this might not be the best thing to do, but in this case, I'm very happy with the result.

callback79 said:

Nice to hear it works for you too.

I'm driking the second glass of this beer right now (since the addition of orange and corriander), and this has really improve the taste of this witbier. The difference is subtle but it's a nice improvement.

As other stated before, this might not be the best thing to do, but in this case, I'm very happy with the result.

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I am facing a similar issue with a wit I brewed that does not have the orange coriander flavor I had hoped for. Did your fix provide a consistent flavor for the rest of the keg?

fwiw, I'd be cautious about accidentally over-dosing with orange and coriander in an attempt to emphasize those characters. I did just that and ended up with a keg of sadly cloying Belgian wit that took forever to kick.

"Be careful out there"

Cheers!

day_trippr said:

fwiw, I'd be cautious about accidentally over-dosing with orange and coriander in an attempt to emphasize those characters. I did just that and ended up with a keg of sadly cloying Belgian wit that took forever to kick.

"Be careful out there"

Cheers!

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How much orange peel and coriander did you use when trying to fix your beer? I boiled 1/2 oz of fresh peel and 0.25 oz of cracked coriander for 5 minutes and added the liquid to the keg. The peel was then placed in a hop sack and added to the keg via suspending it with dental floss. I intend to try this once a day to see how it develops.

msa8967 said:

How much orange peel and coriander did you use when trying to fix your beer? I boiled 1/2 oz of fresh peel and 0.25 oz of cracked coriander for 5 minutes and added the liquid to the keg. The peel was then placed in a hop sack and added to the keg via suspending it with dental floss. I intend to try this once a day to see how it develops.

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Exactly double: an ounce of dried peel and a half ounce of freshly ground coriander. The result tromped all over the more subtle aspects of the style. Half might be about right...

Cheers!