Orange Pith

[Sleeper]

I made a beginners mistake of adding orange peel to my second beer without adequately looking into the specifics. I just threw the pith in their with the rest of the peel.

It was a high gravity beer, 8.2 ABV. It has been in bottles now for 3 and 1/2 weeks, I tried one today and it has an unpleasant bitter/fruity flavor to it that just isn't right. It really is not drinkable at all.

Does anyone have experience with such a mistake? If I wait it out will the flavor dissipate to the point that the beer would be drinkable or should I dump it and use the bottles for something more useful?

 

[JLem]

It is likely to fade with time. Something with that high an ABV could use some time anyways to come into its own. Be patient with it (hard I know). 3.5 weeks is not nearly long enough to tell - even with a beer with half the ABV.

What ever you do don't dump it. Point in case - I brewed a beer about a year ago that I really did not care for. I almost dumped it a number of times, but each time I thought about doing so I opened a bottle and each time I thought it had improved some. So I let it go another month, then another, then another. It just took 2nd place in a local competition.

RDWHAHB and go brew another batch of something.

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

I put some orange peel in a secondary with a partigyle...made 100% sure I had no pith and the bitter orange taste is overwhelming. A couple of friends LOVE it and I can drink it but is is STRONG.

 

[soxpats]

the pith is the bitter part of the peel, sooo that is why you're experiencing the undrinkable bitterness.

but I completely agree with JLem, don't throw it out or anything. Give it time, I would think there is going to be a little extra bitterness in the beer because of the pith, but it will probably subside a little over time.

How many peels did you put it? Did you boil or put in the secondary?

 

[Sleeper]

Thanks for the encouraging words. I'll forget about, let it sit, and move on to another batch. Already have another 2 under my belt since that mistake

 

[Sleeper]

I put in the peel of 1 orange, but thats a whole lot of pith. I just wasn't thinking about it and the moment I tasted the beer between secondary and bottling I realized it was off, did some research and found out what I had done wrong. I was hoping it would subside a bit, which it did in those 3 and 1/2 weeks, but not nearly enough to be drinkable. But I suppose it was "less" undrinkable.

Live and learn.

I think I'm not going to come back to it for a long long time. Going to put it in the very back of the storage space in my apartment building so I don't even look at it. One can hope.

 

[Sleeper]

Sorry for the repeat posts - to answer the other question, I put it in with about 10 minutes left in the boil.

 

[jmarkus]

Sorry for the repeat posts - to answer the other question, I put it in with about 10 minutes left in the boil.

I did the same thing with some grapefruit zest/pith, and I am having a very similar taste (tannic, astringent, bitter, etc.). Did those flavors in your beer ever mellow out? I'm trying to RDWHAHB, but this is my first crap beer, and it's disheartening. Onward and upward!

 

[murohuarya]

Just opened the first few bottles of a whit IPA, and finding a fairly intense bitter/astringent taste. Instead of orange I used mandarin peel. Since the mandarin has very little pith, I just chopped it all up very fine, and added to the last 10 min of boil. FYI: Big mistake! Hopefully it'll mellow out, tough to drink more than one, it's practically medicinal. I'll go with OP's suggestion and stash this deep in the reserve.