Should I leave orange peel in fermentor?

[grrtt78]

I brewed up a wheat beer and i really like the citrus flavor of blue moon so i added orange peel to the boil and i was just wondering should i strain it out or leave it in the fermentor?

 

[Reckoning]

Just finished a belgian wit. Tried a bottle today (1 week in primary, 2 weeks in secondary and about 3 weeks in the bottle). While I think I'll let it sit another couple of weeks/months before drinking it, it is pretty tasty.

That being said, I strained the orange peel out with the hops before racking into the primary. I can still taste the orange and corriander (though they are subtle). I think that next time I may use freash orange peel (zest) to get a slightly stronger and fresher orange flavor, but I'll still strain it out. I think it would be difficult to strain out the hops and corriander and not take the orange peel out too. I guess you could dry hop with ornage peel in the secondary to get a more intense orange flavor.

On a semi-related note, I will say that using belgian aromatic in a wit should probably be done sparingly. I put a half pound in my 5 gallon batch and it is very noticable. Very malty with a cream and vanilla flavor that almost overpowers the orange and corriander. It also added a few SRM to my beer which took it from a golden 7 to a coppery 12ish.

 

[scottmc]

So for a 5gal batch of Wheat, how much of a orange peel are we talking about? half an orange, baseball sized? sounds tasty, I would like to try this this coming weekend.

Cheers, Scott.

 

[Reckoning]

I used an ounce of dried peel (3/4 oz at 15 min and 1/4 at 3 min). If I had it to do over again I'd double that. Next batch I'm going to try real orange peel. Probably zest 2 or 3 oranges and see what it looks like. I think it would depend some on how fresh the oranges are and how large they are. I don't have any beer experience to say for sure, but a lot of baking recipes use tablespoons of zest.

 

[scottmc]

IM sorry what is Zest?

 

[Reckoning]

Zesting an orange (or lemon, grapefruit, etc.) is when you grate the surface peel off and leave the deep portion (pithy white stuff called the epicarp/exocarp) on the orange. It gives you that intense fruit flavor without the bitterness that the deep white part of the peel imparts. You can buy a zester at a grocery store or kitchen supply store. Lots of cheese graters also have a very fine grate which will zest well.

 

[davidkrau]

I've been getting a distinct citrus flavor and odor using Wyeast Belgian yeast # 1214 activator pack