Adding orange peel to a 1 gallon brew

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Hi guys. I am brewing a fairly basic citra/mosaic IPA on Saturday - stove top one gallon.

I'd love to add some orange peel but not sure exactly when. I've heard some people say during the boil and others say add to the fermentation (after being sanitised in vodka). Any advice would be appreciated. Also how much peel would you suggest for a fairly strong orange taste?

Thanks all

Jonny
 
I have tossed it in at the end of the boil, just before chilling, sort of like whirlpooling hops. Results were okay, but not fantastic. I probably just didn't add enough.
 
Hi guys. I am brewing a fairly basic citra/mosaic IPA on Saturday - stove top one gallon.

I'd love to add some orange peel but not sure exactly when. I've heard some people say during the boil and others say add to the fermentation (after being sanitised in vodka). Any advice would be appreciated. Also how much peel would you suggest for a fairly strong orange taste?

Thanks all

Jonny
Depends on the result you want. Tossing it in the boil will get you cooked orange flavor. It'll also boil off some of the essential oils. First question: Are you using dried orange peel or fresh zest? I'd use fresh zest if possible, the dried product usually has some of the bitter pith of the orange - the white stuff under the bright orange part. That said, I've tossed it in at zero minutes. I've also done the tincture thing. For a five-gallon batch of Witbier, the rate is 0.5 - 1 ounce of dried peel. For the same volume using zest, I'd use two oranges. Tincture is going to preserve more of the aroma of the orange zest... Best thing is try it a couple of different ways and see what you like best.
 
my 2 cents....
use fresh zest (as stated above).. and none of the white pith (also from above)...
zest 2 to 4 small (non navel) oranges.. add the zest to vodka (300 ml) and now the difficult part....

let this age for 3 months minimum.

then add some of the strained liquid after fermentation, to the bottling bucket or the keg. for me, I like 100 ml for 4 gallons of beer.
add to your taste, but this will give it a strong presence of 'cointreau' to the beer.
.... even better would be to use a syringe and add to the glass when pouring your beer... therefore it can be added to taste as well as not every pour has to have orange in it. ;)
 
I haven't done one in a while but when I did it was boiled because that was the recipe I found online. The next time I do one will be with a tincture though because it is way easier to control.
 
I’d use fresh peel rather than zest. To insure no bitter pith, I slice an orange into 8 wedges, pull the fruit off the peel and then take a paring knife and fillet the pith off the fresh peel. It’s very easy. Depending on the size of the orange, you can get 1 - 1.5 ozs. of filleted peel. I usually add 1 oz. at 5 mins. to my IPA, but I’m only looking to add a hint to compliment the hops.
 
I’d use fresh peel rather than zest. To insure no bitter pith, I slice an orange into 8 wedges, pull the fruit off the peel and then take a paring knife and fillet the pith off the fresh peel. It’s very easy. Depending on the size of the orange, you can get 1 - 1.5 ozs. of filleted peel. I usually add 1 oz. at 5 mins. to my IPA, but I’m only looking to add a hint to compliment the hops.
Or use a citrus zester. Looks kind of like a rasp, scrapes only the "zest", leaves the pith behind unless you really overdo it.
 
Thanks again everyone. So it seems that most of you suggest add zest to the boil at 5 mins before the end.

I'll give this a bash. I think the zest of one orange to the 1 gallon will do it?
 
Sorry, for me it was a 3 gallon batch, but again I’m just adding a hint. Also, I find peels easier to work with than zest, especially so they don’t make it into your fermentor. BTW, I had an orange for lunch today, filleted the peel and put it in the freezer for a future batch.
 
Also, I find peels easier to work with than zest, especially so they don’t make it into your fermentor.
Thanks, I'll probably do that. As a beginner it's a strange concept to me as to why you might want to keep the flavour source out of the fermentor but I'll follow the advice and go for peel about 5 mins before the end of the boil. Thanks!
 
Thanks, I'll probably do that. As a beginner it's a strange concept to me as to why you might want to keep the flavour source out of the fermentor but I'll follow the advice and go for peel about 5 mins before the end of the boil. Thanks!
I use zest. It eventually falls into the gunk at the bottom of the fermentor and is discarded into the compost bin with the yeast and trub. But if peel works for you, it's what you should use. But I'd taste the pith before chucking it into the fermentor without knowing what it tastes like.
 
I use zest. It eventually falls into the gunk at the bottom of the fermentor and is discarded into the compost bin with the yeast and trub. But if peel works for you, it's what you should use. But I'd taste the pith before chucking it into the fermentor without knowing what it tastes like.

Thanks. What's a quick way of sanitising zest though?
 
The pith is filleted off the peel. It’s very easy.
 
Thanks, I'll probably do that. As a beginner it's a strange concept to me as to why you might want to keep the flavour source out of the fermentor but I'll follow the advice and go for peel about 5 mins before the end of the boil. Thanks!

Not to beat a dead orange, but to help you understand, there needs to be a mechanism to extract the essential oil from the peel or zest. Just adding it to the fermentor won’t cut it. So, adding very late to the boil extracts the essential oil. Too long and it will boil off. The other method, as Patgonia suggested, is to soak in vodka to extract the flavor and then dump everything in the fermentor. I’ve used the later method with vanilla bean.
 
Thanks everyone. I think I might put some peel at the end of the boil and also a small amount of vodka sanitised orange to the fermenter!
 
And to possibly paralyse you with choices, you can add the rest of orange peel to some vodka and make a tincture. Then you can add that just before bottling if you want a bit more orange flavour. Or you can add it to the glass after bottling.
 
Has anyone tried adding Cointreau to the finished beer? Or some other orange liqueur? I have some saison that I was thinking about adding orange flavor to.
And I was just going to suggest to put the orange in vodka, add coffee beans and make cointreau ;)
 

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