[uisgue]

Can anybody lend their experience with dried orange peel in a beer? I want a holiday ale with maybe just a little bit more than a hint of flavor. My batch size is 11 gallons and I don't really have even an order of magnitude guess as how much to use. I'm figuring on a 5-minute or flame-out addition. I was thinking an ounce, but that might be crazy (or not)...a couple of grams?...two ounces?

[milligan101]

I just brewed a brow n ale based holiday ale, 5 gal batch.  Used 1 oz along with a very small amount of cloves, allspice, cinnamon, and a bit of paradise seed.  In the keg now, not tapped , but very nice level of spice when sampled.

Previously i used 1 oz bitter and 1 oz sweet in a Saison (5 gal) which was drank very quickly by my brewing crew.
 

[tschmidlin]

I don't use dried, I zest fresh for my wit.  I would use the zest of one or two oranges at <5 minutes if you want to go that route.  I use six for 5 gallons of wit, it has a pretty strong citrus flavor but it also has coriander which I find citrusy.

[majorvices]

Dried sweet orange peel is kinda nice, but not very "orangey". Every have a lemon cookie? That's what it smells like with a bit of marmalade in there as well. Pleasant, just not as "orangey" as using zest of real oranges. Also, you may get a bit of bitterness from any dried orange peel because they are not using just the zest but the pith as well, which is bitter.

[leejoreilly]

I've used an ounce in both a holiday ale and a saison. That amount seems to provide me with a nice background hint of orange without becoming dominant. It probably adds some bitterness too, but I can't separate that out from the hoppy bitterness.

[ericclev]

I took tschmidlin's and majorvices' advice and went with fresh orange zest for a winter spiced beer I brewed this morning.  Zest from two average sized navel oranges from the grocery store weighed out at 0.6 oz according to my cheap little digital scale, of which probably 0.5 or a touch more made it into the brew kettle at about 2 mins remaining.  This was in a 3 gallon extract batch and there is very pronounced orange aroma and flavor going into the fermenter.

[ericclev]

To give a quick update - pulled a sample to check the gravity and the progress of this batch and of course to get a quick taste sample as well.  The orange flavor and aroma are much more subdued than a week ago when I pitched the yeast.  I don't think this will end up being too much orange zest, but I'll have to wait a bit more for the batch to finish, carb up and see how it tastes when it's finished and chilled.  I'll try to remember to post an update in two or three weeks.