Squirrel Brows orange infused pale ale

[AdeDunn]

This is a quite delicious pale ale, infused with the flavour of oranges. Deliciously summery and ready quite quickly.

I brewed it full volume, aiming for 14 litres into FV, so if you want more you will need to scale the recipe. Recipe was calculated for an estimated brewhouse efficiency of 60%.

Target OG: 1.052. Target Bitterness: 35.4. Target colour: 17.5 EBC. Target ABV: 5.3%.

Mash: 75 minutes @ 67 degrees C.

Boil: 75 minutes.

Grain bill:-

Maris Otter Pale (5.2 EBC) 3.76kg (mash)
Carared (47.3 EBC) 0.22kg (mash)
Black malt (1375 EBC) 0.02kg (cold steeped for 24 hours, strained and liquid added during boil)

To the boil:-

@ 75 minutes: 4g Magnum hop pellets 12.5% AA
@ 20 minutes: 40g Cascade hop pellets 7.3% AA
@ 10 minutes:-

1/2 Protafloc tablet
zest of 4 large oranges
juice of 4 large oranges


@ 5 minutes 1/4 tspn Tronozymol yeast nutrient.
@ flamout/0 minutes: 40g Cascade hop pellets 7.3% AA

Cooled to about 38 degrees, transfer to an insulated FV and pitch about 1/2 packet of Lallemand Voss Kveik. Keep the FV insulated. If you have temperature control (I don't) you can try maintaining the temperature at 38 degrees C, mine dropped to about 26 degrees over time though. The initial warm pitch though, IMHO, did give some flavours from the yeast, helping with the orange flavours wanted in this beer. Good luck getting a clear beer though... lol

After 16 days in the bottle, the flavour and carbonation seem to really become spot on. Earlier than this, and the malt flavour from the MO are a bit too much. So I'd say let it condition for 16 days before you try it.

 

[paintingken]

Are the orange juice sugars converting to alcohol? I did a mango one and it cranked up the ABV quite a bit. How do you control it whilst keeping the flavour?

 

[AdeDunn]

Possibly, but the amount of sugars in juice you squeeze from 4 oranges is quite small, so I wouldn't worry about it. Most of the flavour comes from the orange zest and the yeast with this to be honest, I just used the juice to increase the acidity a little and to use more of the oranges, rather than just zesting them and binning the rest. You can probably leave it out if you are worried without it impacting the flavour too much.

 

[paintingken]

Maybe it was the 4kg of mango I used then?!

I was planning to do an orange tinged IPA soon and am debating about the extract liquids but don't want it to taste fake if you know what I mean? Zest may be the way forward but not sure how much to use for a 20L batch.

 

[AdeDunn]

Yeah, I only juiced 4 large oranges by hand (with a fork... lol) after zesting them.

I'd go with 8 maybe. 4 was perfect for 14 litres into FV, so you should get some flavour from 8 in 20 litres for sure, with quite a good orange flavour. The type of orange I used, combined with the cascade hops and yeast flavours, it's bordering on a sort of maralade(ish) orange flavour, but a different type of orange would give a different type of orange flavour. I used standard oranges.

As to extract liquids, Neilson Massey make an orange extract that has a very natural flavour to it if you need it. Their extracts are excellent. Most supermarkets stock it.

 

[paintingken]

Sounds nice. Thanks for the advice.