Blood Orange Juice + Beer

dadbrew · Jul 19, 2017

Hey Burque - looks like those two blood orange juices are brands, not types of blood oranges. Most Italian blood oranges are from Sicily, grown in that rad volcanic soil and having a super-intense red color due to that high temperature variation between day and night. One of the reasons my blood oranges aren't that "bloody" is because Louisiana doesn't have that same kind of temperature variance you find in mountainous climes, but I digress.

There are three types of blood oranges in Sicily that they usually blend together to make the juice - Moro, Tarocco, and Sanguinello. I confess, I don't know that much about blood oranges, but everything that I know I got from these two websites:

https://www.sanpellegrinofruitbeverages.com/intl/en/blood-orange-724

http://www.lsuagcenter.com/~/media/...e66229eb7bf1d7f/pub1234lahomecitruslowres.pdf

So, in short, it seems like those two blood orange juices you found are going to be pretty similar. Buy them both! Taste them! Make gorgeous mimosas with them! Brew beer with them! Blood oranges are friggin rad.

TrustyOlJohnson · Jul 20, 2017

isomerization said:
I recently made a blood orange wit with this same puree (more of a juice really) and it came out excellent. The blood orange flavor is actually quite prominent considering only one 49 oz can was used.

Thats what I'm hoping for.. it took off and started bubbling with a small krausen within a few hours after I racked the hefe onto the blood orange purée. I will taste test it tomorrow or Friday and bottle in bombers so I'll drink it quick.

TrustyOlJohnson · Jul 20, 2017

isomerization said:
I recently made a blood orange wit with this same puree (more of a juice really) and it came out excellent. The blood orange flavor is actually quite prominent considering only one 49 oz can was used.

Thats what I'm hoping for.. it took off and started bubbling with a small krausen within a few hours after I racked the hefe onto the blood orange purée. I will taste test it tomorrow or Friday and bottle in bombers so I'll drink it quick.

TrustyOlJohnson · Jul 20, 2017

I have had a blood orange hefe at a bar out east, and I really enjoyed it.. that was my inspiration for doing this.. I've also had the blood orange gose from Anderson Valley.. Very good!!

jlanius · Jul 20, 2017

I used about 10 fresh blood oranges at flameout. Just the pulp and zest. None of the white pith. Kept them in through primary. Out the keg it had barely little orange flavor. More of an aroma than a taste. Not sure what went wrong. Maybe yeast ate up all the sugar, but didn t have particularly violent fermentation. I can get pulp from the restaurant I work at. Gonna try that during either cold crash or carbing in the keg

dadbrew · Feb 7, 2018

Alright y'all, it's done. And it only took me 8 months.

Here's the short end of the update:

I can brew all-grain now, and whipped up 9 gallons of a no-nonsense wheat beer (50% 2 row, 50% white wheat, Sorachi Ace and Nelson Sauvin, Nottingham yeast, OG 1.049)
I put 5 gallons in one fermenter (bucket), and 4 gallons in another (carboy), and let them ferment out
After 2 weeks I bottled the bucket and added 1 gallon of fresh-squeezed blood orange juice to the carboy (I double-bagged the juice in gallon ziplocs and put it in the freezer to kill any bugs, thawed it out, then dipped the bag into a bucket of starsan)
I let the carboy sit for another 12 days and then bottled it (thanks for this tip from your Blood Orange/Hibiscus/szechuan freakshow of delicious, Revvy)
I did not take a gravity reading on the juice, but the Nottingham took the un-juiced and the juiced beer down to 1.006, so the juiced beer definitely has a bit of a punch to it in terms of ABV.
The juiced beer is very good - it's dry and somewhat tart, with a hint of pleasant grassiness a la sauvignon blanc (this characteristic is totally absent from the unjuiced beer). There is a definite citrus character to it that is more pronounced than I thought it would be, but it definitely plays well with the Sauvin/Sorachi. Most people who have tasted the juiced beer say that it has characteristics of a wine, which I guess is pretty cool, but it's definitely beer. I literally have no idea what I'm talking about in terms of taste, I just drink things and describe what my mouth is telling me (most often it tells me to shut up and drink more and then go make the kids their lunches for tomorrow)
I'm definitely doing this again