Coriander seeds and orange peel

can anyone help me it will be my first time using Coriander seeds how much should i use for 5 gallon batch?????? i will also be using orange peel for the first time but cant get it locally should i get dried skins from the asian market or buy some sort of oranges from the store????????? if i buy the regular oranges should i put it in fresh or should i dry the orange peel?????????? thank

By from a homebrew store, online or lhbs. They will have bitter orange peel and sweet orange peel... take your pick, they are what they sound like.

ya well i cant ger orange peel locally because my lhbs does not sell it and im not about to order online just for orange peel because i can get everything else locally. any ideas on how much i'm also thinking on throwing some in the secondary as well maybe??????????

I've never done it, but I don't see why you can't just get some oranges, peel em and dry out the peels.

Be carful though, I put a package (I think it was an ounce?) into my boil and they were the only thing I could taste. Its subsided a bit now, so the beer is more drinkable, but you can easily overdue it with the orange peel

A half ounce of orange peel, boiled for 10 minutes and then added to secondary for 24 hours gives a nice level of orange-y bitterness.

As for using local oranges, you might want to stick with organic ones. Many oranges have a wax on the rind so they look shiny and keep their appearance longer. Obviously, you do not want this in your beer.

Toot said:

A half ounce of orange peel, boiled for 10 minutes and then added to secondary for 24 hours gives a nice level of orange-y bitterness.

As for using local oranges, you might want to stick with organic ones. Many oranges have a wax on the rind so they look shiny and keep their appearance longer. Obviously, you do not want this in your beer.

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That's a very good point. Also most oranges you'd buy in the store are dyed to giive them that bright orange color a natrual orange might be a bit green and will have some discoloration. And certainly will not be bright orange.

Something else you might want to consider is that oranges from the US are out of season at this point. They usually come in Nov.- Feb. so anything you'd be getting at this point is most likely coming from South or Central America where DDT and other poisions that are illegal in the US are used. I personnaly don't believe anything coming from South or Central America is organic although it may be marked as such.

Orange peel and orange zest is the same thing. So you might try looking in the spice section of your grocery store. Or going to a kitchen supply or dept. store and getting a tool for making your own orange zest/lemon zest.

I have a wit conditioning now that used:

1 oz sweet orange peel
3/4 oz bitter orange peel
3/4 oz crushed coriander seed

for 10 min at the end of the boil. Tasting it out of the primary, this seems like overkill, though it seems to be mellowing as it conditions. If I had it to do over, though, I'd probably cut it to 1/2 oz of each.

i found Dryed mango in the bulk section of the grocery store will this work or should i just buy oranges and dry the peel out???????

eww....mango

Use the fresh oranges, I use them all the time. Just make sure you wash them, you need only the rind - not the pith(white part under the skin). If you can't find bitter/sour oranges use part grapefruit skin(idea from 'radical brewing'). They don't need to be dry, put them in the boil, or if going into primary/secondary boil them for a short time or dip them in vodka(again from 'radical brewing')

BTW, I don't think the FDA/etc. is letting DDT onto American sold fruit. They do tests which is why there are batch numbers on the fruit.

I think the blue moon clone I did from AHBS had 1/4 oz each of bitter and sweet orange peel and 1/2 oz of coriander seed.