Orange Zest in Secondary

[haZe]

I quite fancy the idea of adding a slight orange flavour to my Milestones Olde Homewrecker.

I was thinking of doing this during a secondary fermention - run some beer off into a pan, add the zest of 3(?) oranges and bring to the boil. Continue the boil for a few minutes, then allow to cool before adding to the secondary.

Any thoughts?

[6470zzy]

Zest is a great addition , I use it on a regular basis in my APA recipes, I normally add it at flame-out But I don't see why you shouldn't put it in the secondary. Just be careful not to add any of the pith to your brew, it contains pectin which will add haze How many oranges are you going to zest and what it the volume of the brew, 5 gallons?

[floydmeddler]

LOVE zesty brews. I usually go for 30g 5 mins before end of boil. If I were to add to secondary, I'd do exactly as you've suggested.

[haZe]

How many oranges are you going to zest and what it the volume of the brew, 5 gallons?

LOVE zesty brews. I usually go for 30g 5 mins before end of boil. If I were to add to secondary, I'd do exactly as you've suggested.

I normally go just short at 20 litres, was thinking about about 3 oranges. I'll get that weighed first and see how it compares to Floyds 30g.

Thanks for the pith tip, that's something I wouldn't have known to be careful about

[haZe]

For anyone interested to know how this is turning out, I brewed to 20 litres and used the zest from 3 oranges. Bolied in a couple of liters of beer and strained into the secondary where it sat for another week.

I've not long taken a sneaky half from the keg where it's since been in the garage for 2 weeks...has a very nice orange hint to it, just how I wanted - cheers

[EoinMag]

Will it have bad head retention due to the fact that you have no hot or cold break? Or is the same as dry hopping with regard to adding oils?

[haZe]

To be honest, I never really considered the hot/cold break - just wanged it in the secondary.

Can't really comment on head retention as it's still very early days, although nothing untoward stood out from the (admittedly small) sample I took.

Pretty encouraging so far though