Brewing with Citrus - Proven techniques

[haynie91]

Hello all -

I'm new to the forums here, have used this site for research for a while but finally have joined. I am prepping to make my annual "fruit" beer of the year and this year have decided to incorporate grapefruits, tangerines and valencia oranges I froze in December. Last year I made a wonderful Raspberry Blonde in which I cooked the frozen handpicked berries to a point where they were sanitized and then added the “berry mush” (as I liked to call it) to my secondary which held a terrific blonde ale that had been in my primary for a week. I then kegged the batch after a week and had great results with it.

My query is will this technique work for citrus? I have explored all of the different methods discussed on this site and no one mentioned that technique. My initial thought is that the struggles many brewers mentioned of adding citrus to fermentation and the development of funky flavors due to the mix of yeast and citric acid could be avoided by using this method. I will be brewing a hefeweizen as the base for this beer would love to get some feedback.

Thanks.

On Tap: IPA Collaboration v.3, American Brown Ale, Munich Helles

 

[Captain Damage]

The only citrus I've brewed with (so far) is I used the zest only of fresh sour/bitter oranges. Two in the boil for 10 minutes and two as "dry hop" 7 days before bottling. It's not quite ready to drink and evaluate, but the one I opened last weekend was nice and orangey.

 

[haynie91]

Any other takes on this query?

 

[trl2112]

Here is a an active thread:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f85/blood-orange-hefeweizen-98579/

 

[korrosion]

I too have had good luck with using just the zest of both oranges and lemons.
Adding the zest from a couple oranges, or several lemons at flameout really makes for a nice citrusy flavor. I haven't tried dry zesting but have heard it works great for aroma.

The zest of six lemons into an 8 gallon batch made for a subtle lemon flavor and an aroma of candy lemon drops at flameout!

 

[haynie91]

trl2112, thanks for the link to that thread.

korrosion, i like the zest ideas you gave.

I appreciate the feedback. brew well friends.

 

[hillhousesawdustco]

i've always wanted to try some sort of grapefruit honey beer...hope yours works out!

 

[dcp27]

whatever route you end up going, I say you dry hop with summit and some C hops to add their own grapefruit and tangerine notes to complement the actual fruit