So, I don’t make a lot of ales, let alone Belgians, but my niece asked me to brew a wit for her September wedding. My question is whether the “witsters” here crush their coriander seed before it is added to the end of the boil or throw it in whole? I crushed it and wow was it lemony smelling….I have time to re-brew, so I thought I’d ask. I used 3.5 grams in a 5 gallon batch fwiw.
I lightly crack it. I have ground it in the past. Doesn’t seem to make a lot of difference.
Yea, I cracked it with a spoon in a small stainless dish, so I did not grind it; I will take a taste of the finished beer and decide from there. Again, this is not a style I make with any frequency, so I didn’t want to overwhelm anyone with too expressive of a coriander spice addition.
Crushing is fine. You just need to expose the interior of the seed for better extraction. You won’t get as good of a result without exposing the interior. Leaving a more coarse texture will make it easier to keep the solids out of the final beer.
I have always just run it through my grain mill, which crushes it but doesn’t pulverize it
Made an homage to Allagash White recently. It also
Used some Grains of Paradise. They add a nice touch.
This is timely, as I’m brewing my first witbier on Saturday. Do people toast the coriander? I see people who cook with it do it sometimes.
Nope, I never have. I’ve also used chamomile in a wit, as Celis allegedly did.
Mine uses coriander, chamomile and the zest (none of the pith) of citrus fruit
Sweet or bitter? I’ve always gone trad and used bitter orange peel for bittering and coriander for the orange flavor
I used to have a sour tangerine tree in my back yard, which was a very nice addition to the beer. It died.
Wow, that would have been great.
somewhat related but i grow chamomile flowers in my backyard, and while i liked the dried chamomile, the fresh flowers in a tea are about 500% better in taste. no sour notes, dusty, stale notes i get from dried chamomile. just extremely pleasant and much brighter
i pick the flowers, wash them off a bit and store them in a plastic bag in my freezer until i use them.
the seed pack was 99 cents or so
I used to pick, rinse, and use immediately
The newest post in Brulosophy is a comparison of sweet orange peel vs bitter orange peel in a wit. Might be worth reading.
i used to use relatively freshly korean grown tangerines/mandarin peel in witbiers over there and i remember really enjoying a good solid, problem-free tangerine taste.
That’s like comparing apples and oranges. They serve totally different purposes.
In the article the tasters couldn’t tell the difference. Of course if you read Brulosophy enough you realize that their tasters almost never can tell the difference between the beers they are testing. The conclusion seems to be that nothing matters…
I toast the coriander and then finely grind it.
The original Blue Moon used preground coriander and valencia orange peel.
When your standard is twenty randos in a garage, I don’t care how much you drape it in statistical terminology it’s still twenty randos in a garage. I’d be surprised if even half of the people in that garage knew what bitter orange tasted like or what’s different about it from sweet orange.