Orange Ale's

Earlier this spring while brewing a string of wits, I thought, why not make a beer not accented by orange, but an orange beer? To balance with the heavy citrus addition I thought the beer should be malty and along the lines of an amber but a lighter hop and heavy malt profile. The beer turned out excellent and was one of the highlights of summer beer around here, so I decided to make it again as a heavier spiced version for the holidays. The grainbill is a little muddled but it worked so well that I wanted to use it again--however, i needed to make a few substitutions--resulting in an even more muddled grainbill. That being the case, I think if you wanted to do something similar, just use your amber recipe and follow the hop and spice additions. The first version with American Crystal and Cascade hops was a really nice blend. For the second go, I don't have either of those hops around so I went with a Continental attempt at something similar, bittering with Czech Premiant (7.1 AA) and then following nearly the same hop schedule with Hallertau and Saaz. In the end, the IBU's, SRM, and gravity are approximately the same and I am hoping for a similar but more heavily hopped version. Here are both recipes...

Orange Ale Recipe:
Specifics:

Batch Size: 5.25 gallons

OG: 1.057

TG: 1.014

SRM: 15.58

IBU: 31.2

60 minute boil

Grain:

6 lbs. 2-Row

2 lbs. Ashburn Mild

1 lbs. CaraRed

1 lbs. CaraWheat

.5 lbs. Vienna

.5 lbs. Golden Naked Oats
.5 lbs. Caramel 80
.25 lbs. Carapils

Hops:
.5 oz Cascade at first wort
.5 oz Cascade at 60 min
1 oz Crystal at 30 min
1.5 oz Crystal at 15 min
2 oz Crystal at 5 min

Yeast:
WLP 008 East Coast Ale Yeast

Extras:
6 Oranges (zest only) at 5 min
1.5 oz Coriander (crushed) at 5 min

Notes:
Sach rest at 156F. Collected 7 gallons of preboil wort and reduce to 5.25 gallons over 60 minutes.

Orange Ale II Recipe: Spiced Holiday Version
Specifics:

Batch Size: 5.25 gallons
OG: 1.055
TG: 1.014
SRM: 14.31
IBU: 33.4
90 minute boil

Grain:
6 lbs. 2-Row
1.5 lbs. Ashburn Mild
.5 lbs. Caramel 80
.5 lbs. Golden Naked Oats
.5 lbs. Wheat Malt
.5 lbs. CaraRed
.5 lbs. Melanoidin
.25 lbs. CaraWheat
.25 lbs. Munich 10L
.25 lbs. Munich 20L
.25 lbs. Carapils

Hops:
.5 oz Czech Premiant at 60 min
.5 oz Hallertau at 30 min
1 oz Saaz at 15 min
.5 oz Hallertau at 15 min
1 oz Saaz at 5 min

Yeast:
Safbrew S-33

Extras:
6 Oranges (zest only) at 5 min
1.25 oz Coriander (crushed) at 5 min
5 Pods Green Cardamom (crushed)at 5 min
1 g. Grains of Paradise (crushed) at 5 min
1 tsp. Powdered Ginger at 5 min
1/8 tsp. Nutmeg (fresh ground) at 5 min
1 tbs. Tamarind (wet) at 5 min
2 g. Mint Leaf (dried from garden) at 5 min
1 tsp Ground Clove at 5 min
3 Star of Anise Pods (crushed) at 5 min
1/8 C Apricot Brandy to Secondary
1/2 C Triple Sec to Secondary

Notes:
Brewed 11/3/11 by myself. The high temp for the day was in the twenties and there was a fairly strong wind blowing that made things even colder and wreaked havoc with my boil. I conducted a nearly two hour boil to get 5.25 gallons, waiting to make first hop addition until 60 minutes remaining. At least the sun was shining. Tasting Notes