Added spices

[Tommyb52]

I'm looking to brew a Belgian wit and have seen that dried orange,lemon and grapefruit peels are sometimes used. My question is do I just take the peels cut them up and let them dry out beforehand and then put them in the last 5 minutes of the boil? Or is there a better method or something I'm missing?

 

[Cyrixxal]

I have placed fresh citrus (dragon fruit, orange, pomelo, etc) and placed them in at different times of the boil. I also allow them to go into the primary for a week. May not be the best practice but its soooooooo much tastier than the little dried peels you get at the lhbs.

 

[Tippsy-Turvy]

I've tried this myself by following the advice from various threads on this forum. For me it came down to grating the peel (avoiding the white pith) and soaking in vodka overnight. Rule of thumb seems to be 1-2oz for 5gals but from my experiment I felt the zest aroma was still too weak and I could have added more.

I've kept this link to a useful zest discussion for my own reference:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/how-use-orange-peel-59351/

If you want to try using a secondary but not for the entire batch, here's an idea:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/benefits-secondary-vessel-without-risks-413573/