Made a Belgian dark two days ago that rang in at 1.080. It's intended for a friend going through another ~6 months of cancer treatment. I'd like to toss an orange peel (bitter) in there, or zest. Couple questions... -Add orange peel/zest very close to bottling? -Better to do a long stint in the carboy or bottle conditioning? If grain or hop bill is relevant, LMK. Might be worth noting: no, I can't keg.
The best place for orange peel/zest would probably have been the kettle at/near the end of the boil. I definitely would not add it directly to the bottle, which would create nucleation points. That leaves the fermenter. For orange peel/zest in teh fermenter, I'd probably sanitize the (outside of the) orange, then peel/zest it.
Thanks. And my bad, didn't mean put it inside bottles. Do you have suggested amount of time? A week? Couple days?
Generally speaking, the longer the contact time the better. Orange Peel/Zest doesn't seem to have much in the way of undesirable flavor/aroma compounds to be extracted long term the way hops do.
