New Member With a Question

[Winslow]

Maybe I should start here? I posted this under ingredients but have not had any replies. I'm brewing this weekend and hope to get some help. I've been brewing about 10 years, mainly kegging and a little bottling here and there. I love Kolsch and Belgians. Make some pretty good pulled pork, too. :cross: So my post is below. Thanks.

I’m new to the forum and have a question on a rather old post. It involved a Blue Moon clone and was posted on 5-9-2008. The two members were DaleJ and Wayne1. Wayne1 was a former Coors man and gave the proportions for an early version of Blue Moon. Here is where I need some help. He said to add 1.25 tsp of ground coriander during the last 10 minutes of a 5-6 gallon boil, and then .33 tsp of ground Valencia orange peel the last 5 minutes. Now I know ground coriander will go a lot further than the crushed seed version, so 1.25 tsp seems correct. But the orange peel has me stumped. .33 teaspoons is nothing in 5-6 gallons. Typically Belgian Wit recipes call for an ounce of orange peel.

Has anyone followed these proportions with success? Could his units of measure be off? Any help is appreciated.

Thanks

 

[cheezydemon3]

I sympathize but cannot help!

A better TITLE would be "how much orange peel in 5 gallons???"

"Noob with a question" is like "a dog with a tail" No real news or interest. People will assume that you are wondering about the white stuff in your fermenter.

You are NOT a beginner, and have a serious question. Vague titles hurt you and the site in general. That said....

BUMP!!

 

[LLBeanJ]

I believe Wayne1 gave that as a starting point after scaling it down from a much larger batch. In reading the thread, the measurements that others had tried were all over the map, so you may need to experiment. However, Nilo, in the same thread has brewed the recipe over a dozen times, making various changes and providing notes for each one, so that would be a good source.

Now, for some concrete info: I brewed Wayne1's original recipe a few months ago. I used 1 Tbsp of crushed (not ground) coriander and 1.5 tsp of McCormick's Valencia orange peel (2:1 coriander to orange peel). The coriander was detectable, but not by much. When I brew it again in a couple of months, I will use the same amount, but it will be coarsely ground instead of merely crushed. The orange flavor in my batch was non-evident, at least to my senses. Next brew I will double it and see what that does, so the ratio will be 1:1. Hope this helps.

 

[tre9er]

All I can tell you is I zested 7 organic navel oranges for a 9.25g batch of honey-orange-wheat last weekend. It had to be several ounces of orange peel, WAY more than any "teaspoons" would measure.

 

[GrogNerd]

my last batch was Jamil's Wit, but using some of the info from the thread you referenced

I pitched WLP001 & (kind of) used those measurements for the coriander and orange peel.

I couldn't find a ⅓ tsp in the house, I ended up eyeballing the orange peel. it did seem like that wasn't enough so I doubled it.

the bad news is that it's still fermenting, bottling it this weekend. will be the earliest I will be able to know if that amount was OK

 

[LLBeanJ]

All I can tell you is I zested 7 organic navel oranges for a 9.25g batch of honey-orange-wheat last weekend. It had to be several ounces of orange peel, WAY more than any "teaspoons" would measure.

Makes sense. It takes A LOT of fresh zest to get the same flavor as dried and ground citrus peel.

 

[beerdragon]

I made a blood orange wit a while ago, what I did was take 5 oranges medium sized blood oranges, zested all of them, and then sliced the pith off the oranges. Give it a rough chop. Don't do a fine chop or it'll clog up while racking to secondary.

Put the chopped oranges and the zest in a pot, boil it for about 20 minutes in enough water to just cover the oranges. Let it cool off in the fridge until it gets to a cool temperature (try for the same temp as the beer) and then put it in your primary, dump the beer and yeast on top of it. As soon as you reach your desired gravity, rack to a secondary because the oranges will go bad and ruin the beer when sitting there in room temperature for too long.

As for coriander, I'm not fond of a strong flavor so I just tossed in 1oz at the last 5 minutes of the boil uncrushed.

Drinking the beer now, it tastes great, just a right balance of orange and coriander flavor.

 

[rossi46]

I make a citrus wheat that has 5 large valencia oranges and 2 lemons. Zest all of them, quarter them, and toss it in the boil for the last 15-20 min.

 

[Winslow]

Holy cow! Look at the responses now! Thanks... really appreciate it. I found the Nilo posts and it sounds like the consensus is definitly more that .33 tsps. I believe I shall dump the whole bottle. What the heck. I used some Mc Cormack ROASTED ground corriander, about .5 oz, in a recent Saison vs 1 oz of crushed seed. That came out nice. I'm going to go with an ounce of the dried Valencia orange and 1.25 tsp of roasted corriander (both Mc Cormack) and see what happens. US 05 and some Hallertauer at 60 mins. I'll report back in a couple of weeks. Next version will have some of the fresh orange ideas. They sound tasty.

Thanks again for the suggestions on the beer and cheezydemon3's on better posting titles.

Cheers.