Sweet Orange Peel Species

[benfarhner]

Hey everyone! I'm trying to cut down on my cost of ingredients and found a great source for bulk herbs and spices: Mountain Rose Herbs. However, I've got a question about the Sweet Orange Peel I use in my Belgian tripel recipe. The stuff I've been getting at my LHBS is Citrus aurantium dulcis pericarpium.

Mountain Rose Herbs offers Citrus sinensis as Sweet Orange Peel. They also separately sell Citrus aurantium as Bitter Orange Peel (no subspecies or variety given for either).

I have another source indicating that the varieties used for brewing are Citrus aurantium dulcis pericarpium for Sweet Orange Peel and Citrus aurantium amarae pericarpium for Bitter Orange Peel.

From what I've been able to determine, Citrus aurantium is a bitter orange, even though there are sweet varieties (like dulcis) and bitter varieties (like amarae). "The fruit of the Citrus sinensis is considered a sweet orange, whereas the fruit of the Citrus aurantium is considered a bitter orange." (Wikipedia)

My question, then, is how big of a difference is there between the apparent 2 Sweet Orange Peel species? I don't want to buy the "wrong" kind in bulk and end up not liking it, but since they're labeled the same for selling, maybe I won't be able to tell the difference. Has anyone else looked into this and found a definitive answer?

 

[PeteNMA]

What do the sellers say? If they're a herbal supply type place they might be fairly well versed in their use for making teas, and I'd expect that you'd get the same results in beer.


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[benfarhner]

It seems pretty up in the air between the two from both the herb supplier and my LHBS. I'm currently using sweet orange peel (Citrus aurantium dulcis pericarpium) in my Belgian Tripel recipe, and from what I've read so far, Belgian beers often use either (or both) types of orange peel. I'm kind of leaning towards switching to the bitter, though. Seems like that might be the more traditional route, if nothing else.

I'm mainly just curious if there are any noticeable differences in flavor or usage in brewing between the two species Citrus sinensis and Citrus aurantium. There doesn't seem to be a lot of definitive information available on the Internet that I've found so far.

 

[PeteNMA]

It sounds like you will have to suck it and see. Then put up a detailed post with done split batch testing or similar and become the orange peel expert


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