Why you should never get creative...

Got creative and I suspect I'm paying for it.

I'm working on an oatmeal stout with a hint of orange right now. Unfortunately, I suspect it's ruined. The recipe (which I mostly made up) called for a lb of rolled outs mashed and then added it to a stout kit. Also added a bit of orange peel to the boil for the last 5-10 mins. It's been in the primary for about 2-3 weeks. Took a hydrometer reading and gave it a taste. It is EXTREMELY sour. Is it possible that that is the orange peel, or has my beer just gone bad?

It's pretty much undrinkable. (This is what I get for experimenting).

It could be that its just young. Time heals all, 2-3 is really not enough time to tell anything about a stout. Give it time time and let us know how it turns out.

Cheers!

You could have fermented to high. It could be infected. It could be the orange peel although I've never got sour out of it. Hopefully the first. Or something besides. Like said let it condition.

What is your idea of a bit? We made a lemon ale and one of the guys thought it would be funny to add more lemon when the other 4 eyes were looking away. It was sour as hell at first, but we bottled it and left it alone until a summer trip. It was after about 2 months we tried it and its was a strong, hoppy and slightly over lemoned ale, but was still drinkable and was a actually refreshing to some of the people who joined us at the lake, especially when it was in the 90's!:rockin:

I used a lot of orange peel in a witbier once and it was WAYYYY too sour for quite some time. If I remember correctly, it took about 6 weeks or so to finally subside, and even after that, it was still quite a strong flavor.

Agree with FastAndy: bottle it, put it away for 3 months, and then come back. It could be great and it doesn't really cost you anything except an hour to bottle.

I think the orange peel was an ounce for 5-10 mins at the end of the boil. That's some powerful stuff!

I find that at bottling time the taste is often very much different than when the beer has finished bottle conditioning.

^^^^
Agree

I made a brown nut ale and primed it with maple syrup and honey after a week it had an intense rootbeer flavor but after a month thats all but gone and it's awsome...so age heals most of the time

Scarthingmoor said:

It's pretty much undrinkable. (This is what I get for experimenting).

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Yeah, you got an experience most people only talk about on forums. Good job.

Rdwhahb

In cooking instead of using the whole peel we would just use the zest. The white rhind has alot of bitterness and sour to it but the zest will contain essential oils and none of the bitterness.

You didn't use a whole ounce of zest, did you? That seems excessive....

SocalNat said:

In cooking instead of using the whole peel we would just use the zest. The white rhind has alot of bitterness and sour to it but the zest will contain essential oils and none of the bitterness.

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I think we have a winner! I was always told to cook with a zest (lemon, lime, orange etc). And a little zest goes a long way. I probably would have done a secondary with orange peel. But I think your prob was too much orange peel and the fact you boiled it. Just my thoughts.

But time usually heals all in brewing.

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J.A.O.M. calls for whole orange pieces, rind and all. I made a gallon of it back in December or January. The sour, pithy bitterness is noticeable but ages away with time.

+1 to using zest instead of peel.

Getting creative is not the same as just making things up.

FastAndy said:

It could be that its just young. Time heals all, 2-3 is really not enough time to tell anything about a stout. Give it time time and let us know how it turns out.

Cheers!

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Time heals all is some of the best advice I've gotten in home brewing. I had a wheat I made from scratch sitting around for months because the first one I tried was disgusting. I opened one before I dumped them all out and it was fantastic.