Oranges in secondary for AHS Belgian White?

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lxa4christ

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Thoughts? Anyone ever done this? I am playing around with the idea. I don't want too much of an orange flavor but thought it might be easier than having to add an orange slice to every beer as it is being enjoyed. Open to your suggestions!
 
I had a Midwest kit for a Belgian Wit...came with coreander and dried orange peel. I added fresh orage zest from one orange into the wort for the last 15 minutes of boiling. Primary for 2 weeks, secondary for another week.
Best beer i have made so far.
 
The last Wit I did, I zested a whole orange and added just enough vodka to cover. Let it sit for a week to extract flavor. I then added to secondary and racked my Wit onto it. After a week I bottled. Turned out pretty good. Much more orange flavor and aroma than I ever seem to get from adding dried orange to the boil.
 
Made this beer about a month ago and the orange flavor is pretty lacking. You could always add the zest to the secondary if you like. When it ferments, this is one messy, smelly beer. I made the mistake of thinking it was actually infected, but it seems that is the nature of the type of beer. It smelled super rancid in the fermenter and we let it sit for almost 4 weeks in the fermenter to clean up everything. I think it was well worth it and it probably should have sit a little more.
 
I would be worried about infection by dumping cut up oranges into secondary. Typically you get the orange taste in the boil from orange peel. Or you could get orange extract and add that to secondary.
 
For me the point of adding an orange slice to your beer is to give it a slightly sweet taste (along with the citrusy orange taste of course). If you add oranges in your secondary then the sugars will ferment out and it won't taste the same.
 
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