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Author Topic: blood orange saison  (Read 9695 times)

Offline homoeccentricus

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blood orange saison
« on: January 07, 2015, 04:58:17 pm »
In a month or so the best fruit in the world will be at its peak: organic blood oranges from Sicily. Any suggestions to make the best damn blood orange saison in this and a massive amount of parallel universes?

I especially want to avoid the beer to taste like cheap soap, because that's what beer with orange peel can taste like if one is not careful.
Frank P.

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Offline HoosierBrew

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Re: blood orange saison
« Reply #1 on: January 07, 2015, 05:06:39 pm »
I make fruit beers regularly for my wife. I say rack to secondary onto the juice, and when you keg add some zest ( carefully leaving the white pith behind) in a bag that you can pull when the flavor is where you want. Sample every day or two to monitor.
Jon H.

Offline homoeccentricus

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Re: blood orange saison
« Reply #2 on: January 07, 2015, 05:12:44 pm »
Yes, well, that's the basic procedure I also had in mind, except that I bottle my beer. But is that sufficient to avoid the cheap soap taste?
Frank P.

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Offline morticaixavier

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Re: blood orange saison
« Reply #3 on: January 07, 2015, 05:13:46 pm »
what does cheap soap taste like to you?
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Offline klickitat jim

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Re: blood orange saison
« Reply #4 on: January 07, 2015, 05:32:43 pm »
I've heard that citrus when fermented tastes like vomit unless you know some special trick.

Offline Stevie

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Re: blood orange saison
« Reply #5 on: January 07, 2015, 05:48:24 pm »
I've mentioned the vomit thing a few times. Tasted it at a festival. Sadly, it was poured by a guy from my club. Maybe he used nasty store brand oj, but it was nasty.

Offline HoosierBrew

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Re: blood orange saison
« Reply #6 on: January 07, 2015, 05:53:10 pm »
I've heard that citrus when fermented tastes like vomit unless you know some special trick.

I've always heard that too. But I don't know, Major makes a grapefruit IPA with sections of the fruit in secondary and zest in keg. And Zymurgy had a Kumquat Wheat recipe that used halved kumquats in secondary IIRC. But the OP could always use zest only, except it sounds like he's had issues with the zest. Might be a good one to use a gallon of the batch to test out instead of the whole thing.
Jon H.

Offline Stevie

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Re: blood orange saison
« Reply #7 on: January 07, 2015, 06:14:28 pm »
Maybe it was mercaptan. I don't even know how mercaptan forms. Light?

Offline HoosierBrew

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Re: blood orange saison
« Reply #8 on: January 07, 2015, 06:25:53 pm »
Maybe it was mercaptan. I don't even know how mercaptan forms. Light?

I wonder. There must be some mechanism that brings that stuff out sometimes. I know a guy that tried a citrus beer once and said something similar to you - I never tried it. I've used zest tons of times, which doesn't give issues obviously, but I've used halved tangerines in the secondary a couple times in witbier. The beers were good. Maybe it is light. It'd be nice to know what the trigger is.
Jon H.

Offline HoosierBrew

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Re: blood orange saison
« Reply #9 on: January 07, 2015, 06:48:54 pm »
.....or maybe there's just a threshold for the amount of citrus juice you can use and be good. Past that, not good.
Jon H.

Offline homoeccentricus

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Re: blood orange saison
« Reply #10 on: January 08, 2015, 01:05:22 am »
what does cheap soap taste like to you?
Actually, it didn't really taste like soap, but rather like the artificial citrus flavor of cheap soap.
Frank P.

Staggering on the shoulders of giant dwarfs.

Offline homoeccentricus

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Re: blood orange saison
« Reply #11 on: January 08, 2015, 04:17:29 am »
I've mentioned the vomit thing a few times. Tasted it at a festival. Sadly, it was poured by a guy from my club. Maybe he used nasty store brand oj, but it was nasty.

Sorry to be specific, but does the "vomit" refer to the smell/taste of gastric acid? That seems to consist mostly of hydrochloric acid? And that is HCl. Where would then the chlorine come from?
Frank P.

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Offline klickitat jim

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Re: blood orange saison
« Reply #12 on: January 08, 2015, 06:02:26 am »
Well i think they mean its LIKE vomit, not IS vomit.

Offline erockrph

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Re: blood orange saison
« Reply #13 on: January 08, 2015, 07:08:38 am »
I've mentioned the vomit thing a few times. Tasted it at a festival. Sadly, it was poured by a guy from my club. Maybe he used nasty store brand oj, but it was nasty.

Sorry to be specific, but does the "vomit" refer to the smell/taste of gastric acid? That seems to consist mostly of hydrochloric acid? And that is HCl. Where would then the chlorine come from?

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butyric_acid

"Butyric acid is present in, and is the main distinctive smell of, human vomit"
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Offline Stevie

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Re: blood orange saison
« Reply #14 on: January 08, 2015, 07:11:26 am »
So what is the cause?