Citrus Zest in bottles

Hello all. Newbie here. 2nd attempt at my favorite new hobby has raised a question. I brewed a Lemon Coriander Wheat from a Midwest kit which called for the zest of 1 medium lemon. I decided (possibly ill-advised now) to experiment with additional zest. Added zest of 2 oranges, 2 lemons, 1/2 lime when I racked to secondary but I just dumped it in i.e. no bag or anything. Been there two weeks. Bottled last night. Probable Mistake: I did not strain the zest to keep it from going into the bottling bucket.

1st lesson learned- the Femtech bottler doesn't work with big chunks of orange peel caught in it! It was a disaster. Only ended up getting 46 bottles out of 5 gallons. The rest was sprayed all over the floor and cabinets trying to do 10 things at once with 2 hands. not to mention all the oxygen bubbles shooting into my bottles. Man!

2nd concern- Pieces of orange peel went into my bottles. is this going to be a problem. I know 'aesthetically' no one wants chunks in their glass or their mouth but we can overlook that. I'm just wondering about how that may effect the taste long term through bottle conditioning and beyond. It seems all the flavor should be soaked out of the zest by now but I don't know.

Glad to have learned a lesson early on. I'll use a bag next time!

Welcome to HBT!
Wow, you put a lot of zest in that beer. If you do it again it might be advisable to leave the beer in the secondary for a little longer or crash cool it.
The pieces in the bottle will fall to the bottom during aging and chilling the beer so you shouldn't have any chunks in your glass if you pour carefully.

Nurmey said:

Welcome to HBT!
Wow, you put a lot of zest in that beer.

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Definitely. I read about another recipe (here i think, Citrus Weizen) that used 4 oranges, 4 lemons. Reviews seemed great. Thought I'd give it a shot!

It might be yummy but sounds like kind of a PITA to rack.

Get yourself one of those sifters they use for broken corks in wine bottles to strain the chunks when pouring into the glass. You made it this far, might as well make it look good as you drink it.

I zested 2 large oranges and 1 lemon for a Belgian Wit couple of weeks ago. I wish I had added 1 or 2 more oranges. It's very tasty, but light on the orange aroma.

That said, I doubt that the zest will do any harm to your bottled beer.

no worries. as long as you didn't get any of the pith (white part) of the rind while zesting, it should be fine. the oil in the zest may effect head retention.