Orange Wheat Fail

I've had an orange wheat going for a couple weeks, and I'm not happy with the results so far. I added orange zest to the boil in the last few minutes, and after a week of fermentation, added oranges - pith removed. Yet, the beer now tastes like biting into orange peel and is somewhat solventy. I did not notice these off flavors prior to adding the oranges. What could have gone wrong? Will these flavors fade eventually?

The other odd thing I noticed is that the beer is very clear. I'm using wyeast German ale and expected it to be very hazy.

I have heard that adding the pith (weird white stuff attached to the peel) can cause a funky taste. Also, how much did you add?

My gut tells me that adding it to the boil is where you went wrong. But I could be wrong.

As far as the clarity... No clue man.

Sorry this wasn't more helpful.

If you want haze, you could use a Randy Mosher trick for witbier and add a tiny bit of flour to the beer at bottling/kegging.

As for the real problems--the great equalizer with many beers is time. I can't offer specific advice about using actual orange pulp (never done it). But I have made a few fruit beers that calmed down quite a bit once they aged.

Solvent tastes could be from fusels (higher alcohols); those can happen for a few reasons, but they tend to occur most in high-gravity beers and/or beers fermented hot. I wonder also if your perception of "solvent" could be from the citric acid from the oranges. I'm guessing you'd get quite a bit of acid from the oranges, so the fruited beer might veer toward a harsher taste than in its virginal state.

Sorry I can't offer more specifics. It might be helpful to post a little more about your recipe, especially the gravity and fermentation temperature, and about how much fruit you used. But for practical advice--I'd forget it for a while.

Getting a good orange flavor into a beer is a challenge I've been working on for several years. I've tried everything conceivable over the years.

I've actually been working on making my own extracts and adding them at kegging and bottling time. I've sort of figured it out using some processes from modernist cuisine/molecular gastronomy. And just did it in my last beer, a chocolate orange stout.

I'm actually going to be interviewed on the Brew Bubbas podcast next week (not sure if it will be live or air later, it's a live broadcast in front of an audience at my LHBS, where I'll be demoing the technique.)

I'll be able to talk about it more after next Wednesday, in fact more than likely I'll post a thread on here for folks. So if you can hold off, I think you'll find that it will be not too difficult to do, and works amazingly well, not just to make orange beers, but all sorts of stuff.

Sorry I'm being cryptic but I just don't want to jump the gun until next Wednesday. And until I put something in writing for folks to see (though if you are a facebook friend you may have seen some of my experiments with the process.)

Now if your van happens to be down by the Detroit river, you could come down to Cap N Cork next Wednesday evening and see it for yourself.

I use orange peel, and I like the results. I go to the store and buy 4 oranges at a time. I peel and eat 1 of them. "IF" it is a VERY good sweet orange, it is safe to assume the others are as well.
I will then take the zest from 1 1/2 of those oranges, and place it in a small sterilized jar with about a cup of water. I then "nuke" it to a boil for 5 minutes. Once it's cooled, I "dry hop" it in the secondary fermentor for 7 days.
1 1/2 half oranges seems about right for my pallat. I have used more, and it was too much like marmalade. Less than that seems too subtle.

Revvy said:

I'm actually going to be interviewed on the Brew Bubbas podcast next week (not sure if it will be live or air later, it's a live broadcast in front of an audience at my LHBS, where I'll be demoing the technique.)

I'll be able to talk about it more after next Wednesday, in fact more than likely I'll post a thread on here for folks. So if you can hold off, I think you'll find that it will be not too difficult to do, and works amazingly well, not just to make orange beers, but all sorts of stuff.


Now if your van happens to be down by the Detroit river, you could come down to Cap N Cork next Wednesday evening and see it for yourself.

Click to expand...

Sounds awesome! Unfortunately I am quite far from Detroit, so I'll have to look for it online.

Perhaps I boiled the orange peel for too long, or I used too much. I used the zest from four oranges for three gallons, and I thought I was careful to not get any pith.

This was my recipe, for three gallons:
4# Wheat malt
1.25# German Pale
0.5# Crystal 10L
0.5# Flaked Wheat
Rice hulls

0.5 oz Cascade, 50 min
0.5 oz Cascade, 10 min

Wyeast 1007
60F Fermentation temp

Added orange flesh from four oranges after 1 week. I cut them out of the oranges in the same way you'd cut up a grapefruit for breakfast. I did not get much of the pith at all.

This is right up my alley Revvy. I'm about to do a trial run on a very simple blonde ale for my BMC drinkers when we go on vacation this Summer. I'd like a touch of orange to it, so it'll at least be interesting for me to drink.

Was gonna brew it this weekend, but I'll wait and listen to you on Brew Bubbas next Wednesday.

Unless the process of adding orange is after it's been brewed? Maybe I can still get it going this weekend, and then apply your technique when it's done fermenting?

Can't wait to see Revvy's post on this.

I make an orange pale ale every fall when my cascade harvest comes in. I've found that the clementines (hybrid between mandarin and sweet orange, Cuties brand) are really easy to peel and remove the pith. And taste better than regular oranges IMO. Yes, you want to remove most of the white stuff from the inside. I use a cheese grater on one of the smaller openings to scrape away the pith. I drop in the peels from 4 clementines into the boil with 1 minute to go in a 5 gallon batch.

On two of the batches I also dropped the peels of two more into a small cup of boiling water, then added the peels and water with my cascade leaf hops into the dry hop bag and put into my chilled keg. Takes 1-2 weeks for most of the flavor to come through, but it will last all the way through when the keg kicks.

I'm actually beginning to think these off flavors I was noticing might be from an infection rather than the orange peel. I bottled four days ago and two of the bottles had a thick layer of foam. I tried opening them to relieve pressure in hopes of recapping them, but both just overflowed. Hopefully those bottles just had excess priming sugar or something...I know I used the right amount of sugar because I used a kitchen scale.

Better get them in the fridge ASAP. Or if not, put it in a safe box of sorts. Like a large plastic tote to contain potential glass & beer should the worst happen.

I've opened a couple up, and I think the priming sugar may not have dispersed well. One was very fizzy, and the other was flat.

It's a very drinkable beer, but not exactly what I'd imagined. It starts out with bitter orange flavor with a sweet orange finish. I think next time I'll use less orange zest, or try a different orange variety.

Revvy, where can I find your podcast? I found a brew bubbas podcast on iTunes, but it apparently hasn't been updated since December 2013.

Still waiting for them to post it. There were two shows recorded that night, with a lot of breaks and tastings. There were ton's of breaks in the show I was on because we were setting up the different processes. I'm sure there's a lot of editing going on for that one.

The hosts and the live audience were all geeked about this and and all said the process as used is pretty groundbreaking, they want me to write up and submit an article for BYO magazine. That's why I haven't gone into depth here about it yet. I want to get an article done before I do a thread about it. I'm hoping I get the article written and submitted around the time the podcast airs.

TANGERINE

I lucked into it.

The tangerines just looked so much better than the oranges that day.

1 whole tangerine peel (just peel as if you were gonna eat the fruit, no pith removal) last 10 minutes of the boil.

Everyone LOVED it and I duplicated it a month later.

I have since heard a few people mention that tangerine peel is key to brewing.

cheezydemon3 said:

TANGERINE

I lucked into it.

The tangerines just looked so much better than the oranges that day.

1 whole tangerine peel (just peel as if you were gonna eat the fruit, no pith removal) last 10 minutes of the boil.

Everyone LOVED it and I duplicated it a month later.

I have since heard a few people mention that tangerine peel is key to brewing.

Click to expand...

I usually mix in some tangerine when I use orange. In fact I try to mix a few different orange/citrus peels.

Also for those folks using dry peel in wits, LD Carlson now sells Tangerine peels along with the sweet and bitter orange peels.

I wonder if drying makes peel more bitter?

My results with fresh were so good (and EASY I is LAZY!!) It will be hard to convince me to try anything else....plus it forces me to eat some fruit, lol.

I used tangelos. Maybe I'll have to try tangerines next time!

Any progress on this @Revvy? Really curious, so if it is posted or released somewhere else please give us a hint


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

It's finally up.

The podcast where I was interviewed about mine is finally up.

This was our second live recording at Cap N Cork Homebrew Supply a couple months ago. Two amazing topics are here:

1) Several years ago . . . on a podcast far far away (Brew Crazy with Johnny Max), the subject of an ancient brew called a “bochette” was discussed. Michael F. Copado and Bill Bellair actually followed the recipe and made this incredible beverage.

2) Mike and Bill also discuss something that is new and exciting to the homebrewing and mead-making community: Nitrogen Cavitation. What is it? Tune in and find out!

Click to expand...

Listen here.

Whole peel or just the zest fellas? I've only done lemon and lime zest. I thought its been said that the inside of the peel leads to astringent flavors?

Learned a trick to just squeeze an orange into the boilin last 10 minutes. Did this with an IPA with very tropical hops and it turned out amazing.

Not a fluke either, the guy I learned it from has done it before and the results are great. You just may have to add some of your own sweetness from malt or non fermentable sugars, maybe in a wit or something eatery it doesn't even need it, but it can be a little dry as the sugars seem to ferment mostly.

I am definitely going to try again using nitrogen cavitation, and maybe use lactose syrup. My orange wheat was lacking in residual sweetness.

If only my research lab was food-safe! I could easily do this there with what equipment and gasses we have. But alas, organic labs are inherently haz-mat zones...

You don't want to boil the orange zest, nor do you want any pith. So zest only the outer bit, and toss into the brew pot once it cools to 180F. Make sure all the zest gets into the fermenter. If that doesn't suit your process, you can pasteurize the zest in 180F water then add directly to the primary. Your fermentation will smell like fruit loops! It's wonderful.

The Nitrogen Cavitation interview linked above with Revvy is very interesting. I haven't seen it, but if the BYO article was written and I just missed it, I'd like to read it.

Ordered a bunch of nitrous oxide to play with, sounds like fun!
Revy, I also would like to know when the article is coming out.
Great idea, can't wait.