Secondary with lime

[kontrol]

So currently trying to prepare to brew a lime blonde ale for the girls.

I see that most people put lime peel in the secondary for the flavor and all.

1. How much do you put in the secondary for a 6GAL batch to get a nice flavor?
2. If I want to get an aroma and flavor, do I only need to put it in the secondary, or should I use some when boiling my wort?
3. Also I was wondering why don't you put the whole fruit, crushed/chopped/squeezed or whatever, so the lime juice will also get in the beer? Wouldn't it give a more "sugar" lime flavor to the beer? Is there any cons to doing that? Or nobody tried that?

 

[freisste]

The biggest issue I can see with adding the whole fruit is that the white part of the peel is very bitter. In cooking, you have to be very careful to only zest the colored part of the peel and none of the white. I am no pro, but from what I have read you are better off not zesting than zesting and getting any of the white.

As far as the juice, it doesn't seem like it would hurt, but the sugar (I believe) is fermentable, so I'm not sure how much of the flavor would be left afterward. Probably more than none, so it may be worth a try.

 

[webby45wr]

I made a cream ale + lime for the ladies last summer. I zested 6 limes and then soaked the zest in vodka for about a week. I then strained out the junk using a coffee filter and dumped the lime/vodka solution directly into my bottling bucket and gave it a stir. This was after I had already bottled half the batch as a straight cream ale.

The beer came out very bitter - not hop bitter - lime bitter. It took a few months to really mellow out. I'm thinking I got some of the white stuff from the peel into my zest. In any event, I've decided not to go this route in the future. If SWMBO wants lime in her beer, she'll just squirt some lime juice in there.

 

[kontrol]

I made a cream ale + lime for the ladies last summer. I zested 6 limes and then soaked the zest in vodka for about a week. I then strained out the junk using a coffee filter and dumped the lime/vodka solution directly into my bottling bucket and gave it a stir. This was after I had already bottled half the batch as a straight cream ale.

The beer came out very bitter - not hop bitter - lime bitter. It took a few months to really mellow out. I'm thinking I got some of the white stuff from the peel into my zest. In any event, I've decided not to go this route in the future. If SWMBO wants lime in her beer, she'll just squirt some lime juice in there.

Wouldn't you get the same problem with lemon zest also?

 

[webby45wr]

I would think so. I'm sure folks who cook for a living could zest properly and avoid my mistake. I know McCormick spice sells orange peels (which is zest). They may have a lemon or lime peel as well. I've never seen it, but then again, I'm not in a metropolitan area.

 

[kontrol]

Ok Thank I'm still trying to figure how I would get this nice lemon flavor in the beer.

Anyone tried lime juice directly in the secondary? Wouldn't it be less bitter and still give a nice lime flavor? Probably not as powerfull as zest I guess..

 

[billl]

"I'm sure folks who cook for a living could zest properly and avoid my mistake"

If you don't have one, a micro-plane grater will zest citrus with none of the white pith. No professional zesting skills required.

If you are going to put it in the secondary, the secret is to taste, taste, taste. Zest a couple limes, sanitize a bag, and drop them in. (If it is a low ABV beer, you might want to soak the zest in vodka, but I don't bother usually.) Then, taste it every day. When it starts to get close to the level you want, taste it a couple times a day. When it hits the level you want, pull the bag and bottle/keg immediately.

 

[odawg82]

So I am working on a batch of beer right now which I have added lemon lime and orange to it. I was told to cut the fruit down to the peel including as much of the white part as possible. You don't want to do the whole fruit cut up cause you risk getting the pulp mixed in with the beer. I then soaked it in vodka over night and added the peels and vodka to my secondary stage. Hopefully it turns out good.

 

[Jayson]

Careful with the lime peel, I just made a 2 gallon batch with 3 tsp of dried lime peels (made for brewing) in the primary and it came out very bitter without the lime taste. I wouldn't say it is bad, just interesting because it is a bitter beer without the lime or hop taste. Hopefully someone can enlighten on how to brew properly with lime.

 

[AVLbrewing]

Have you seen the Lemon Lime Hef thread? I have a batch of that bottle conditioning right now. It uses .5oz of zest added to boil and then 1.75L of simply limeade added once vigorous fermentation ends. In the thread there is also discussion of adding lime juice to your priming solution if the zesting/limeade didn't give it enough flavor.

EDIT: Here is a link to thread with 51 pages of discussion about adding zest, peel, juice,etc...
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f70/lemon-lime-hefe-weizen-255659/

 

[odawg82]

Careful with the lime peel, I just made a 2 gallon batch with 3 tsp of dried lime peels (made for brewing) in the primary and it came out very bitter without the lime taste. I wouldn't say it is bad, just interesting because it is a bitter beer without the lime or hop taste. Hopefully someone can enlighten on how to brew properly with lime.

I am doing a 5 gallon batch and I only put 1 lime in it in hopes for just a small hint of flavor and it doesn't get to bitter. And when I added the orange peels I did 2 oranges so hopefully it will over power the lime.