Adding Orange

I have been doing some searches on adding orange to a beer and most of the posts are about dry hopping with dried peel. While I was at my LHBS i asked about adding some orange after taste to a canadian blonde style beer he recommended that I add some peel and a slice or two to the primary for no more than 3 days and then rack to the secondary and dry hop.

Still being fairly new to this does this sound like it will work alright?

I'd add fresh peel to the secondary (preferably Seville oranges) Primary fermentation will carry away some of the aromatics of the orange, also the dried peel you can buy usually contains pith which is very bitter. Use fresh orange in the secondary and make sure you are using only the zest (orange part) if you get any of the white pith, like I said it is overly bitter. Try the zest from 1 orange (Navel oranges will have less flavor than Seville). Taste it after a week or two in the secondary, if you want more orange aftertaste add more and wait another week or so.

You could even add some orange peel at flameout and steep for about 10 minutes, this would addd a nice orange nose to the brew.

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Soak the zest of a couple oranges in vodka, then add at bottling.

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thanks.
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Nancy.
Newbie, from New Jersey.

Schnitzengiggle how do you get the orange zest with no pith. Do you just grate it?

Quadfire said:

Schnitzengiggle how do you get the orange zest with no pith. Do you just grate it?

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Potato peeler works well, or a micro-plane grater, a standard cheese grater can work but its a bit more difficult. If you have a good set of kitchen knives and are good with them, you could probably slice off the zest and julienne it as well. I would try the peeler or grater first as they are the simplest methods.

Yeah, a good zester makes it easier.. but the fine side of a 4 sided cheese grater will do the trick in a pinch.

IF you add in the primary or secondry as opposed to the boil(ANd remove) you must stir the peels 2-3 times a day
to avoid bacteria spoilage.