Blood Orange Hefeweizen

I am planning on brewing the Blood Orange Hefeweizen that is The Extreme Brewing book by Sam Calagione, owner of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery.

I picked up all my ingredients yesterday at my lhbs and then went to get the blood oranges today at my local grocery store. But I learned that blood oranges are out of season. I was told they are a winter orange. I picked up navel oranges instead as a replacement.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?
You think navel oranges will be okay as a replacement for the blood oranges?
What is the main difference between blood oranges and navel oranges?

The recipe suggest this beer as a good summer beer, so therefore I would like to have it for the summer.

Thanks.

I think navel oranges will work great - give it a shot and let us know, maybe you'll have a great new recipe for yourself!

Navel oranges are pretty sweet. Blood oranges can be more tart. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_orange.

If you've never had one, pick some up next winter just to try it out!

P.S. Usually when you want a summer beer, you have to brew it before summer gets here

P.S.S. My guess is that the navel orange will have less flavor than the blood orange after all the fermentation is done, but that's just a guess. I'm basing this on the guess that a non-sweet flavor will stand out more after fermentation is done.

Thanks...I will try it and see what happens!

I just brewed a similar recipe 14 days ago with navel oranges instead of blood oranges. I tasted a hydro sample today and it was great. You don't quite get the color that comes from the blood orange (I've brewed that too) but its pretty much the same.

I subbed german pilsener malt for the American 2-row on the recipe and also used a little more wheat and a little less barley.

My huge recommendation (I have brewed this beer 3 times before) peel the zest and the pulp and save, throw away any of the white stuff (the pith). Blend the pulp and zest with water and put it on the stove and bring it up to 175 then shut it off and add it to your chilled wort. Then mix it in well.

The reason for doing this is you do not boil fruit since that way you make jelly... and that is not something that you want to be drinking. It is my favorite recipe out of that particular book.

I think the whole reason to use blood oranges was because they are a bit more "extreme" then other fruit, I mean, that red that you get is quite amazing. The navels might work even better since it would be sweeter. I found to get the kick I was looking for I had to use upwards of 7 oranges, and that was a remarkable beer.

good luck!

I brewed this with navel oranges (never used blood oranges) and it came out great.

BTW, have you seen the ginormous thread about this beer, here?
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f85/blood-orange-hefeweizen-98579/

Almost too much to read, but worth skimming thru.

Also, this is a great summer brew! You're going to love it. Make sure to not use any pith, it is bitter.

I brewed this a few months ago, there is an extensive thread on this recipe (500 posts) in the home brew photo forum.

Just keep fermentation cool unless you like banana bombs

I also used navel oranges when I brewed this last May, and it turned out awesome. The thread mentioned above pretty much covers all of this along with the zesting recommendation above as well.

I chose to squeeze some of my oranges when I was preparing them to get even more orange flavor into the wort. It was an outstanding brew.

I just made this beer and it's cold crashing as we speak. We were one week too late picking up the bloor oranges so we swapped in 5 mandarine oranges. It has a wonderful smell and a very subtle orange flavour. We'll see how it tastes in a few weeks when the bottles are carbed.

I did a Blood Orange recipe on April 24th and was able to buy them at my local grocery store with no problem, and Ive bought them in the summer, but anyways I used 4 whole oranges cut into halves and I placed them in my seconadry for 2 weeks and it came out absolutely amazing...