orange peels

[tnoonan24]

Hey,
Im brewing a Belgian wheat and was going to add some honey and orange peels and ginger to the brew. I understand that traditionally bitter oranges were used in this beer but i could not find them. I was thinking of using a regular orange and leaving the pith intact to get the bitterness from that portion. I was also thinking the honey would be able to keep it from getting too bitter. Is this something that would work or should i stick just to the zest?

 

[Chris1272]

I think if you use whole orange peal you will get an unpleasant result. I had the same issue finding bitter oranges but came up with a novel solution. since most good Marmalades (ie not walmart great value) are made with the zest of bitter oranges. I found one that I expressly said had the zest of Seville oranges. I just dumped the whole 12oz jar into the boil at 10min. I was able to get excellent orange character and aroma as well as a slight gravity boost from the sugars in the marmalade.

 

[unionrdr]

I noticed that the Cali mandarin oranges my son picked up have that really bright,slightly bitter quality to them. You could try the zest from them. That brightness would def make it stand out.

 

[tnoonan24]

I never would have thought of the marmalades, thats a really cool idea. I'll have to look into that.

 

[tre9er]

Excellent idea on the marmalade (especially since you saw it to fruition and reported that it was good and not vomit-ey).

Absent that, just zest an orange and don't get the pith in there. Put it in with about 10 minutes left in the boil.

 

[Calichusetts]

Most online brewshop have bitter and sweet orange peel already dried and ready to go...they come in 1 oz containers if I am not mistaken

 

[Toga]

Most online brewshop have bitter and sweet orange peel already dried and ready to go...they come in 1 oz containers if I am not mistaken

You are correct.

 

[Jayhem]

Good info here. I was planning to use an oz of orange peel in our Belgian Tripel coming up!

 

[Quadrupled]

OHIOSTEVE has a blue moon type recipe that was developed with the help of WAYNE1 (who worked at Coors and developed the Blue Moon recipe) and he uses McCormick brand Valencia orange peel.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/now-damned-fine-beer-203608/

 

[tnoonan24]

thanks everyone for the advice, i will let you know how the brew turns out

 

[tnoonan24]

Brewed today and everything came out great. it is bubbling away as I type. The OG is 1.062, right on par. Its a sweet and citrusy brew but has a great hop finish. really pumped to see how it turns out

 

[breweRN]

Quick question... Should I dump the zest into the fermenter or strain it out?

 

[tre9er]

If you are confident you can strain it out later, sure. Either way

 

[tnoonan24]

i strained mine out before i put it in the fermenter