Fruit and Spice Beer Blood Orange Belgian Wit

[jamesjensen1068]

Anyone brewed this one again?? Blood Oranges are in season again.
Cheers and let me know how it turns out??

 

[SarcasticHorse]

I've got an all grain similar recipe with lots of blood oranges brewing right now that will be kegged in a few weeks cant wait!

 

[jtaguy]

I've done this recipe a few times now. I can not find blood oranges, so I always use other types. I tweaked the recipe a bit and add tangerines, Clementines, extra hops and Irish moss just to clear it out a little bit. Comes out great every time. I'm on a mission to find the ever so elusive Blood Orange!

 

[jheld00]

I just brewed a blood orange Hefe. I always have good luck finding blood oranges at little mom and pop grocery stores and ethnic grocery stores as well. My local ethnic grocer has a constant supply of blood oranges from dec through the end of feb.

 

[jtaguy]

Finally found blood oranges, looks like I'll be making this soon. I just bottled a batch with navel oranges. I infused the bottling sugar with fresh ginger, did this last time and it gave it a nice taste.

 

[Cider123]

This is a very interesting thread. Wits and bitters are my 2 fav beers. In fact, I have one of each in the pipeline.

This whole orange thing is so up in the air. Dried bitter, dried sweet, fresh and varied types. All claim to add a slight bit of orange flavor. However, if you read they Hoegaarden website the state something quite interesting. Their claim is that the orange additions offer very little in the way of orange flavor. They claim the orange zest adds the bitterness. According to them, its the special coriander (brewing type) that gives their beer the orange flavor and not the oranges.

That being said, I will probably try the adding of boiled orange flesh and zest to see what happens. Most here say the flavor is not very pronounced. Maybe because the orange sweetness from the juice ferments out. I bet all that is left is some citrus oils that add to aroma?

Well, whatever, the fact is Wits have such great balance. Not too hoppy, not too malty or spicy or wheaty. And god help me, they go down like soda pop.

 

[phi11]

I cant seem to find any "est kent golding" hop pellets, but I can find "uk kent golding" hops.
Is there any difference? what would be a suitable substitute? (quite new at this) thanks

 

[jamesjensen1068]

East Kent Golding are the american version of UK Kent Golding imported and now grown by HopUnion I belive. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. You can use either one (read "they are the same')

 

[phi11]

thanks. when my primary clears, I'll definitely be brewing this. Will it clear more with a little age? (not that I mind the haze too much).

 

[jamesjensen1068]

It's a Belgian Witbier, it's supposed to have a haze to it. This style is not a clear beer. In fact you should pour most of the bottle out, leave a little and swirl it around to pick up some of the yeast and finish the pour.

Cheers

 

[Marl]

Had this fermenting for the last few weeks and will be bottling tonight. Made as per recipe with blood oranges and looks great. Has a lovely orange smell and taste to it with just enough corriander to not overpower it. OG was 1051 with an FG of 1007 so an ABV of about 5.8%.

Will post again after it's had a few weeks in the bottle.

Marl out.

 

[jamesjensen1068]

Can't wait to hear your tasting notes!!

 

[chrism583]

For those of us who brew in carboys how would you suggest handling the oranges when you put the wort into the primary? I don't relish the thought of shoving a grain bag in there and then trying to fish it out in a week and a half.

 

[jamesjensen1068]

I would just cut the slices of orange into small pieces and not put it into any bag. Once you rack your beer the small pieces of orange should be easy to remove from the carboy.

 

[jheld00]

I've brewed a few blood orange beers Hefeweizen's and wits. After heating up the fruit to kill off any bugs I just toss them in. Once I forgot about a batch it had fruit in the primary for 2.75 months!!! Turned out to be one hell of a beer with no ill effects/flavors

 

[troglodytes]

This sounded so delicious I had to do it. Especially with spring on its way. I made the following modifications to the recipe to try a little experimentation, can't wait to see how it turns out.

• No blood oranges available so I used minneolas which are fantastically sweet and very easy to peel

• I toasted the coriander prior to adding it to the boil

• I had 3 lb of wheat DME with about .15-.2 lb of amber DME mixed in from a previous brew so I used that. I knew it would up the OG a little and the color so what I did to counter-act was add that as a very late addition just as I was ending the boil. So the 60 minute boil was the 3 Lb of wheat DME and the goldings with the late hop/coriander addition keeping to schedule.

• 60 minute boil started at 5 gallons (1/2 gallon of steeped fruit at the end made a perfect 5 gallons in the fermentor after boil loss)

The color did stay at around what I wanted, I know that with the larger boil and late addition DME there will be a bit more IBUs, but Beersmith estimated about 18-19 which is still in an acceptable range for wits. OG turned out to be 1.056, so not too high. I'm really looking forward to this, the smell coming out of my blow-off is so deliciously fruity right now.

 

[jamesjensen1068]

Any updates on your batches. How'd it taste?

 

[troglodytes]

Unfortunately, I got busy and left it in the carboy for an extra week and a half. I had plans to bottle last weekend one my gravity readings were steady at 1.009, but something came up. Now the weirdest thing happened, I bottled last night and the gravity read 1.016. That is not a small difference, not sure what could have happened, I'm perplexed.

Anyway, the color is perfect, and the smell is fantastic. So much orange scent. I had a sample, but this was the murkiest beer I ever brewed. There is a lot of yeast flavor so I'm going to have to wait for the bottles to be carbed so I can cold crash this one.

 

[PapaBach]

Please fix the original post with the correct gallons in the instructions. I didnt read the correction post until it was too late.

 

[headshaker]

I made a similar brew.IT WAS SUPPOSED to be blue moon, but it tasted a little bitter so I added a can of frozen orange. s juice to the keg after fermentation was done.Man it was purty good.

 

[keggle]

Why wouldnt you do this as a full boil or at least 1/2 gallon short of a full boil?

 

[jordalyst12]

Brew day was Saturday. Belgian Abbey was as advertised, a slow starter, by Monday pm was bubbling steady. Frozen tundra of western NY means the primary has made my dining room smell wonderful.

Followed recipe, toasted the coriander, blood oranges as they are in season.

What's are the pro's and con's of a secondary? The opaque nature of the wort has me a bit worried.




Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[Thedutchtouch]

i brewed this recipe and it is currently in the keg, carbonating. I didn't have any coriander at the time, so left it out, i think i threw in a half ounce of saaz instead since i had it and had no plans to use it in anything else. would adding coriander to the keg impart any flavor at this point, or should i just try to include it in future brews?

 

[ryandean]

This was my 3rd brew and I'm really excited about it. I found this recipe and was too excited to wait to order everything online so I cobbled together what I could find at my LHBS store. I used 6 lbs of the Muntons Wheat DME and used the Safbrew wb-06 since that's what I could find. everything else was per instructions in the OP. I put the steeped oranges and zest in a nylon bag and put it in the fermentor last night around 11:00 and it was bubbling happily when I checked it at 6:00 this morning.

My OG was a bit low because I forgot about the orange mixture when I was adding the water. After adding the orange mixture, my OG ended up around 1.047 or 1.048. Is this going to end up too thinned down? Should I try to fix it by boiling and adding some additional DME?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[troglodytes]

@Ryandean: It won't thin out too much. First of all Wits within style should be drier in nature and should have a low to medium body. On top of that you are making an extract brew, which I doubt has the ability to finish too dry. Lets say you get 70% attenuation, you'll finish at around 1.014 with ~4.5% ABV. Seems perfect to me, I wouldn't worry.

My OG was 1.056 with a full boil (note that your OG may be closer to mine than 1.047 if you topped off with water and didn't fully integrate the water addition & wort). Mine finished at 1.016 which was actually too sweet for my liking (but still real tasty). The Wit style guidelines FG range is 1.006 - 1.010.

 

[ryandean]

Thanks for the reply, can't wait to see how it turns out.

 

[Thedutchtouch]

This beer came out drinkable but largely disappointing. I think it was largely due to mediocre oranges.. Can anything be added to the keg to freshen up the flavor?

 

[sweetsh]

Try adding some orange juice concentrate. Maybe start with a half a can.

 

[rskelhorn]

Made the recipe, turned out quite well.

Going to let it age until June/July for summer BBQ's.

Fortunately, we actually had blood oranges here in Yellowknife (big surprise), so followed recipe instructions and it turned out quite well.

Thanks for the recipe.

Cheers

 

[psalgado0108]

cant wait to try this recipe