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  • Blood Orange

    I really want to make a blood orange version of my very popular cream ale for this summer. I've been looking into flavoring products. I found this compound swirl thing from Amoretti, and it was great - kind of an iced cream topping or patisserie ingredient, really - but it is all sugar, and I'm both not excited for the refermentation possibilities, or the fact that it is very hard to carbonate stuff with a lot of sugar (we used to do our own rootbeer, before it became a pain in the butt).

    I've tried looking into some flavorings, but Amoretti's is very artificial tasting. I'm going to check out Bakto...

    Here's the thing: obviously I'd prefer to use the real thing, and I have a lot of experience making beer with real peach or apricot or strawberry or blueberry... but there is something in my hindbrain that shudders at the thought of fermenting oranges. I'm a trained chef, and I know that boiling orange juice to make a sauce ends up with something approaching horse piss in flavor. I cannot imagine that I am going to do much better with fermenting oranges.

    I know orange beers exist. How are people making them? Is it flavoring? Are you using real fruit? If so, are you letting it have a secondary fermentation, or are you adding it cold side, and assuming it won't ferment out (or are preventing it with pasteurization?)? Please help.

  • #2
    Originally posted by blonberg View Post
    I really want to make a blood orange version of my very popular cream ale for this summer. I've been looking into flavoring products. I found this compound swirl thing from Amoretti, and it was great - kind of an iced cream topping or patisserie ingredient, really - but it is all sugar, and I'm both not excited for the refermentation possibilities, or the fact that it is very hard to carbonate stuff with a lot of sugar (we used to do our own rootbeer, before it became a pain in the butt).

    I've tried looking into some flavorings, but Amoretti's is very artificial tasting. I'm going to check out Bakto...

    Here's the thing: obviously I'd prefer to use the real thing, and I have a lot of experience making beer with real peach or apricot or strawberry or blueberry... but there is something in my hindbrain that shudders at the thought of fermenting oranges. I'm a trained chef, and I know that boiling orange juice to make a sauce ends up with something approaching horse piss in flavor. I cannot imagine that I am going to do much better with fermenting oranges.

    I know orange beers exist. How are people making them? Is it flavoring? Are you using real fruit? If so, are you letting it have a secondary fermentation, or are you adding it cold side, and assuming it won't ferment out (or are preventing it with pasteurization?)? Please help.
    I make a Lime mead. We juice the limes and zest them. All 200 lbs for a 10bbl batch. We get the aroma from the zest, and the acidity from the juice. The juice has some flavor, but the majority of the character is the aroma.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by AmbrosiaOrchard View Post
      I make a Lime mead. We juice the limes and zest them. All 200 lbs for a 10bbl batch. We get the aroma from the zest, and the acidity from the juice. The juice has some flavor, but the majority of the character is the aroma.
      So when are you adding the juice? Is that post-fermentation? Do you do things to mitigate yeast contact with the fruit juice, or are you allowing it to referment the mead?

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      • #4
        We are about to brew a blood orange pale ale, It will be our second orange beer.. Normally we use a mix of bitter and sweet orange peels that went in at flameout for our orange beers but those werent the "blood orange" we are using a puree this time around and will be adding it to our fermenter and not boiling it.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by blonberg View Post
          So when are you adding the juice? Is that post-fermentation? Do you do things to mitigate yeast contact with the fruit juice, or are you allowing it to referment the mead?
          Unless it is intended to be bone dry, S.G. of 1.000 or lower, we add potassium sorbate to inhibit re-fermentation. This is added after primary fermentation and after cold crashing/clarifying. The amount of sugar in the amount of juice needed to flavor your beer probably won't make a big difference in gravity, if it even ferments at all.

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          • #6
            We have white IPA that is a constant seller. We usually do fresh orange juice and zest right at whirlpool, but last time it decided to do the Oregon Blood Orange Puree and some bitter orange peel. No problems, was a lot less work than our previous method. Maybe since we aren't actually boiling it and it doesn't stay too hot for too long, but we don't get any real off flavours.

            As mentioned tho, taste is minimal. Aroma dominant for sure.
            Brewing Boi

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            • #7
              We do a big double IPA w/ Blood Orange, well this time it's closer to a triple...


              Anyway, for any fruit additions I do, save for a few fruits (Peaches, strawberries) or harder to find things (cucumber, melon), we always use Oregon Fruit Purees. I run a 5bbl and usually I can get away with one box of puree, in this instance we used two 42lb boxes, but this beer is also a little north of 11%.

              So, typically I wait until everything is fermented out and then let the puree sit for 4-5 days. Typically we'll see a little refermentation, but at that point the fermenter is sitting at 60-65 degrees- we don't see much action.

              Hope this helps!

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