I added 1oz. of orange zest 5min left in boil. Tasted the O.G. reading and tasted very sourish. Did I make a mistake or will this mellow out after 3-4 weeks.
Did you have white pith attached to the zest? Pith will make the beer very unpleasant/tart/sourish. Did you add lactic acid or a ton of acid malt to your beer? Also, I've stopped tasting the wort/OG reading. You won't really get much/any useful information from it, typically its just super sweet and bitter. I'd relax and try it when its fermented out.
no pith, used a potato peeler and scraped 4 sweet oranges, I guess time will tell. I wondering if I added it correctly at the right times
The only type of orange that I have used is curacao orange peel (bitter orange peel) to make my Wit beers. This peel is dried and I use ½ ounce for a 5 gallon batch. Hopefully somebody who has used fresh orange zest will comment on whether 1 ounce is considered a lot (and whether 5 minutes boiling time is appropriate). I would be interested in this as well. Cheers!
In my wit I used fresh zest from 1 lemon, 2 mandarins & 2 navel oranges. More than 1 oz by volume, likely under that by mass. Nice subtle citrus note in the final product. I also threw it in at flameout (with the coriander & chamomile), and my whirlpool lasted ~25 minutes due to slight issues with the counterflow (I pinched a hose without realizing it).
I used an oz of fresh zest and it was found to be too much imo. This was about 6 oranges if I remember correctly. I did this for the last 5 min of the boil. Hopefully you didn't get pith in there.
I just finished bottling a witbier I brewed with the zest of two oranges and two grapefruits (about an ounce total in mass). I hopped it with sorachi ace, and it certainly smelled like a citrus bomb going into the bottle.
