I’m brewing an oatmeal stout but decided to get weird and orange it up! I put in some thin peels 15 mins of boiling. Tasting the pre-ferm sample, maybe got a little too bitter (either time or quantity maybe was too much). I couldn’t detect much aroma though. I planned to toss in some pastuerized/peeled/seeded fruity bits of orange in my secondary to give a bit more flavor/aroma. Good or bad idea? Not sure what to expect: I don’t want unintentional acids wrecking the flavor profile or adding more bitterness.
How much did you add? I would wait until fermentation is over to decide. I find unfermented malt can cover a lot.
Also, you can make an extract by soaking more peels in a little vodka. This can be added at bottling to taste. I like to use 1 cup of vodka because that equals ~1 tsp / 12oz bottle (assuming a 5 gal batch). Then at bottling I add 1/2 tsp to 6oz beer and taste. Adjust the dose accordingly and add the rest to the full batch.
Hopped wort is always far more bitter than the finished beer. Yeast takes a lot of the bittering out. Don’t worry about the bittering based on a wort sample.
The orange nuances should be interesting. There are all kinds of chocolate and orange treats in the world. This could work.
Was the pith on the peels when you added them? I have always been advised to stay away from that when adding to the boil. I use orange zest regularly and add with 5 minutes remaining in the boil.
I am curious as to what other have to say about adding actual orange fruit to the fermenter. I have wanted to do this but had the same fear as you. I added juice at the end of a boil once and the beer turned sour after some time though I am not sure if it had to do with this or not.
I cheated a bit by adding orange teas at bottling to taste. Twinings honeybush, mandarin & orange and Tazo wild sweet orange. I really wanted the tea flavors to come out, so may have been too much as folk either loved or hated it.
Thanks for the great feedback! Notes on outcome and other stuff:
I think I peeled 5 oranges worth of skins in small bits. Wherever pith was noticable, I scraped it off.
The scent came out well and the bitterness was in check (taste-wise, think the calc had it around 45) I had used 2 oz of Pellet American Fuggles @ 4.6alpha for 90 mins. I had a very hard time detecting any aroma prior to bottling but the conditioning (so far 13 days) has improved that signficantly.
I chickened out of adding fruity bits to the secondary fermenter, so no sure how that would go.
Friend reviews have been positive. Ultimately I think the smooth nuttiness of oatmeal the sour scent of orange may not be ideal complements. The roast barley was too much (1.25lbs) Next round will feature more chocolate, more sweetness, and I’ll go for it with the fermenter fruit bits.