# Orange Zest Or Essence To Make Choc Orange Cascade Porter?



## lukemarsh (6/7/10)

G'day beernuts. Bought me a Cascade Chocolate Mahogany Porter kit can the other day (was on special for 10 smackers) and some chocolate grain to make a chocolate porter, but was considering adding some sort of orange flavour to make it more jaffa-ey. The guy at my LHBS suggested only adding about 100g of the choc grain, as it is already chocolatey in the kit (I believe), but I didn't ask about adding orange flavour.

Should I use orange zest or just add some orange essence? Would it be better to make the beer as normal without any orange flavouring, but add orange essence when bottling? And how much do you add if adding to the brew?

Also, has anyone done this before?

Cheers!


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## bum (6/7/10)

Didn't you make this thread once already?

Anyway, hope this helps http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...showtopic=34735


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## lukemarsh (7/7/10)

Yeah I think I did once... but I don't remember it going very far, and I hadn't actually set out for a proper answer until now cos I actually have the stuff ready and will probably be making it tomorrow so I need to know what to get/do.

Cheers for the thread referral too!


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## lukemarsh (7/7/10)

Ah, hold on. I think I was sent to that thread last time too... problem is, it's all-grain and I'm far from that kind of jazz at the moment. When using orange peel with a kit brew would you boil the peel separately and add through a strainer (same way as hops?) or would you just chuck em in an' she'll be roight?


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## Lodan (7/7/10)

Hey MarshBrew,

I can't help much myself but i do remember reading this article. If you go down the zest path this could help

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum//ind...;showarticle=39

One thing you could do is prepare some zest like this initially and give it a taste test to see where you're at citrus-wise.

I look forward to hearing how you go (i have a CCMP kit waiting for a warmer month)

Lodan


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## bum (7/7/10)

MarshBrew said:


> Ah, hold on. I think I was sent to that thread last time too... problem is, it's all-grain and I'm far from that kind of jazz at the moment. When using orange peel with a kit brew would you boil the peel separately and add through a strainer (same way as hops?) or would you just chuck em in an' she'll be roight?


 

You can pretty safely just ignore the parts that have anything to do with malted grain in that thread (well, read it anyway. It would be a mistake to assume you can't learn anything from those brewing via different methods) and just emulate the other elements. Check out the different options and pick one you like the look of and emulate what they did. Zest won't need mashing so you don't need to worry about not being able to copy what they did. I'd definitely boil any zest used to sanitise as the fruit could have any sort of wild yeast on it and you don't wanna just dump that in your brew. I wouldn't worry about straining the zest out once boiled. If you do use zest make sure you only use the coloured outside part - the white part of the skin will put some pretty yuck flavours in your beer. As for the extract, if you go that way make sure you know what is in it and what effect that'll have on your beer. Might have some oils or something in it that might be detrimental to your batch.


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## brettprevans (7/7/10)

You'll want to use some juice as well from fresh oranges. Boil it for 10min along with the zest. Don't use peel. The pith (white part) is bitter


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## petesbrew (7/7/10)

Don't use essence. Use oranges. It's not like they're hard to come by.
Sounds interesting! Keep us posted of how much you used and how it turns out.


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## lukemarsh (8/7/10)

Cheers for the help!

I ended up using orange zest from two fairly large oranges. I used only the coloured part, not the pith (as best I could) and boiled for 15 mins in about a litre or two of water, then strained into fermenter. It smelt pretty nice, but it may not be enough to bring out in the overall flavour of the beer, so I might add some drops of orange essence to maybe a quarter of the batch of bottles and see what that does.

I only got the yeast in (Muntons Gold) at around 6.30pm last night and isn't bubbling just yet, but appears to be getting there... so we'll see how it goes.
My only concern is the last beer I made in that fermenter was a shitty HomeBrand experiment using two Home Brand Draught cans and a kilo of brown sugar (to see how crap it turned out) and it took a hefty clean and sterilise before I was almost convinced the smell was out, but I reckon it still was a bit bad-beer-smelly when I put this brew in... hopefully not too noticeable.

Also, being a porter I'd have expected completely black and thick wort, like stout. But when I poured a test for the OG it was a lighter brown colour? Will this change as it ferments?


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## petesbrew (8/7/10)

MarshBrew said:


> Cheers for the help!
> 
> I ended up using orange zest from two fairly large oranges. I used only the coloured part, not the pith (as best I could) and boiled for 15 mins in about a litre or two of water, then strained into fermenter. It smelt pretty nice, but it may not be enough to bring out in the overall flavour of the beer, so I might add some drops of orange essence to maybe a quarter of the batch of bottles and see what that does.
> 
> ...


Just don't go adding the essence to the whole fermenter. Speaking from experience here (but mine was coconut essence).


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## brettprevans (8/7/10)

2 oranges in a standard 19-23L batch isnt enough. you'd be wanting like 6-8 i recon. ive used 4 before without the being overly noticable. 

see what you think and then go from there.


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## gareth (8/7/10)

I would use 15g of Belgian Bitter Peel, the real stuff


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## brettprevans (8/7/10)

gareth said:


> I would use 15g of Belgian Bitter Peel, the real stuff


only if you want bitter orange. you could use the dried sweet orange peel also. I personally like the real oranages.


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