orange or lemon zest???

jrc64 · Jun 18, 2015

Brewing a cream ale this weekend. I will be adding around 1.5 lbs of honey at flameout, but was also going to add around 1 OZ of sweet orange zest with 2 minutes left in the boil.

However, my son suggested lemon zest instead of orange, and now it has me considering the switch. Any suggestions???

poptarts · Jun 18, 2015

m00ps · Jun 18, 2015

yeah, add both if you want. 2 oz still shouldnt be overpowering and might compliment any hops youd add. I'd suggest adding the honey into the fermentor a day or two after fermentation takes off though. Itll preserve more aromatics and flavor

NewerBrewer87 · Jun 18, 2015

Both would certainly add more complexity to the finished beer. I've brewed a number of cream ales, some my own recipe, and some from kits, and I'll tell you that its VERY easy to go overboard with zest/peel! Use too little, and you wont get hardly any flavor. Use too much, however, and your looking at easily overpowering everything a cream ale is supposed to be. Cream ales are supposed to be light in color, crisp, smooth, not much alcohol, and not very complex.

If you do add any zest/peel...add it as close to the end of the boil as you can. 5 minutes before the end of the boil, or even at flameout, should do the trick. When zesting, remember not to go too far under the skin with the zester for fear of hitting the bitter parts and having that go into your beer....definitely NOT good for a cream ale.

YeastMode · Jun 18, 2015

I don't think you would go wrong with either. Post your hop schedule and lets take a look, as that would likely influence my suggestion.

As an aside, I just did 2 beers last weekend that called for citrus zest, so if you have any questions regarding the zesting process, let me know and I can try to help out.

jrc64 · Jun 18, 2015

YeastMode said:
I don't think you would go wrong with either. Post your hop schedule and lets take a look, as that would likely influence my suggestion.

As an aside, I just did 2 beers last weekend that called for citrus zest, so if you have any questions regarding the zesting process, let me know and I can try to help out.

1 oz cluster hops at 60 minutes