Adding Blood Oranges to a blonde ale

[Savage06]

So brewed up a 5 gal simple blond ale with a touch of amarillo this weekend with some SA 05.

I wanted to add some blood oranges to the beer. I haven't really played around with fresh citrus. Most places advise adding just zest others say zest and juice heated to 160.

I mashed at 155 and added a bit extra pale crystal to prevent it from drying out too much with additional sugar addition.

Anybody have any recommendations on how to best add the blood oranges?

 

[politibrew]

I just made a blood orange blonde for my girlfriend. I fermented two weeks, cold crashed and then racked to the keg where I had my dry hopper fill with 3 pounds (10 oranges) of zest and fruit. I froze the blood oranges after cutting up everything. I ended up letting the beer sit on the blood oranges for about 24 hours. The beer cleared up pretty quickly after removing the dry hopper. I was hoping it would retain the red color, but it turned out like a typical blonde. We found 24 hours was perfect for imparting the flavor and not overpowering it. We did taste tests about every 8 hours after kegging to see how it was going.

My girlfriend, and for that matter everyone else who has tried it loves it. I've been asked to make a double batch next time so I have to pick up blood oranges before they are out of season and prep them. This will make an awesome summer beer IMO

With adding them to the keg, I didn't dry the beer out any further. My recipe was simple:

9.5# 2 row
Mashed at 150

1 oz willamette at 60 minutes
1 oz northern brewer at flameout

Good luck!

 

[Cider123]

I made a batch of orangecella last year. I mention this because I may decide to use this as a method for imparting orange flavor to a beer like a blonde or wit.

I infused the zest of 15 oranges in 1.5 liters of 190 proof everclear for 2 months. I then strained and added water and sugar to taste.

I will try adding some competed liquor to a beer but wonder if keeping a supply of just the zest infused everclear will be all I need. A little bit would probably go a long way. Just a thought.

 

[ArcLight]

I made a batch of orangecella last year. I mention this because I may decide to use this as a method for imparting orange flavor to a beer like a blonde or wit.

I infused the zest of 15 oranges in 1.5 liters of 190 proof everclear for 2 months. I then strained and added water and sugar to taste.

I will try adding some competed liquor to a beer but wonder if keeping a supply of just the zest infused everclear will be all I need. A little bit would probably go a long way. Just a thought.

I am quite interested in this.

A few months ago I soaked 10 grams of dried out Orange zest (thats actually a lot of zest when wet) in 1.5 ounces of Everclear for 2 weeks. That was enough to submerge the Orange. I added that ounce of Everclear (some was lost to absorbsion) to 2.5 gallons of Golden Ale.

I got minimal flavor and was disappointed with the results.

Two things -

1 - next time I will place the "wet" zest directly in an Everclear filled jar so the aromatic and flavor compounds don't dissipate.

2 - By collecting zest over weeks, I will end up soaking them longer and hopefully extracting more flavor.

 

[jrfehon]

I have 2.5 gallons of a saison in a secondary with 5 lbs of blood orange pulp. I didn't use zest because I'm interested to see how pulp creates flavor and why use blood oranges if you don't get the red color? I simmered the pulp at 160 degrees for 10 minutes in a tiny bit of water. All went into the carboy them I racked onto it. It's been on the pulp for a week, one more week then I'll rerack and dry hop then into the keg.

 

[Cider123]

I am quite interested in this.

A few months ago I soaked 10 grams of dried out Orange zest (thats actually a lot of zest when wet) in 1.5 ounces of Everclear for 2 weeks. That was enough to submerge the Orange. I added that ounce of Everclear (some was lost to absorbsion) to 2.5 gallons of Golden Ale.

I got minimal flavor and was disappointed with the results.

Two things -

1 - next time I will place the "wet" zest directly in an Everclear filled jar so the aromatic and flavor compounds don't dissipate.

2 - By collecting zest over weeks, I will end up soaking them longer and hopefully extracting more flavor.

Don't just peel the zest with a potato peeler like some recipes call for. Use a microplane zester and yes, use fresh oranges. The zester exposes more surface area to the alcohol. Careful to only "zest" one spot once, you don't want to get any white pith in your solution. Also some forms of Everclear are of lesser strength to be sold in some states. You want to use 190 proof if possible.

 

[ArcLight]

I used a real zester (it's my wifes and she cooks), not a potato peeler
I only got the orange, no pith.
I'm using 190 proof Everclear.

The mistake I made was storing the zest in a plastic container for months.
Next time I'll store it in a glass jar, under Everclear.

Don't just peel the zest with a potato peeler like some recipes call for. Use a microplane zester and yes, use fresh oranges. The zester exposes more surface area to the alcohol. Careful to only "zest" one spot once, you don't want to get any white pith in your solution. Also some forms of Everclear are of lesser strength to be sold in some states. You want to use 190 proof if possible.

 

[jrfehon]

After being on the blood orange pulp for two weeks, I reracked my saison today. Nice tartness and flavor from the pulp and the red color is pretty cool. Can't wait to get this carbonated!

 

[Savage06]

Did you freeze it to kill any potentate bugs? Is there an advantage to this over using heat?

I just made a blood orange blonde for my girlfriend. I fermented two weeks, cold crashed and then racked to the keg where I had my dry hopper fill with 3 pounds (10 oranges) of zest and fruit. I froze the blood oranges after cutting up everything. I ended up letting the beer sit on the blood oranges for about 24 hours. The beer cleared up pretty quickly after removing the dry hopper. I was hoping it would retain the red color, but it turned out like a typical blonde. We found 24 hours was perfect for imparting the flavor and not overpowering it. We did taste tests about every 8 hours after kegging to see how it was going.

My girlfriend, and for that matter everyone else who has tried it loves it. I've been asked to make a double batch next time so I have to pick up blood oranges before they are out of season and prep them. This will make an awesome summer beer IMO

With adding them to the keg, I didn't dry the beer out any further. My recipe was simple:

9.5# 2 row
Mashed at 150

1 oz willamette at 60 minutes
1 oz northern brewer at flameout

Good luck!

 

[ArcLight]

>.Did you freeze it to kill any potentate bugs? Is there an advantage to this over using heat?

Freezing wont harm bacteria.
What it does is rupture cell walls and let the yeast more easily eat the food.

 

[politibrew]

I froze them to rupture walls. I wasn't overly paranoid about sanitizing since everything was cold storage and the acidity in the oranges is a barrier to bacteria. I didn't give it much thought other than my girlfriend likes orange in a beer so I figure try it on the large scale in the keg. It kicked and we are still kicking, so maybe we dodged a bullet.


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