Lemons, especially the yellow variety, offer a wide variety of minerals and trace elements that help in brewing beer. Lemons add bitterness and tartness to the beer and enhance the aroma.
Why do you need to add lemon peels to your brewing process? Because they add good amounts of natural oil and help create more foam in your beer.
For any recipe that contains lemon teas, you can use the peels in place of these.
Lemons Are Easy To Find
Beer brewing is both a science and an art. Brewing with the correct water and temperature, choosing the correct hops and yeast, and fermenting and aging beers properly are all important to the creation of a great beer.
While, more often than not, people take their brewing technology for granted, it only takes one bad batch to ruin an otherwise enjoyable beverage.
Lemon peels are able to give you more solutions to have the best beer in the world!
Beer tank fermentations can take anywhere from two weeks to six months, depending on the beer.
In order to speed up this process, you can use limes or lemons in your fermentation tank as a source of acidity and tannins.
The natural chemicals in them will react with the proteins in your wort to create sharper flavors and aromas due to the change in pH.
Lemon Peel Can Offer a Fruity Taste to Your Beer
Lemon peels are just what you need to give your homemade beer a fruity taste.
You can add them to your beer while it’s fermenting, and they will crystalize and sink to the bottom of your container, where they will remain until you decide to harvest them.
You Need More Lemons Peel to Ferment Beer
Brettanomyces and Lactobacillus are the two yeasts responsible for the beer’s “acidity,” the word that describes a beer’s tartness.
Your barrel is full of these strange characters, and some barrel lines are more acidic than others.
While some breweries add souring bacteria to their barrels to enhance certain flavors, other brewers want to preserve those characteristics while they develop in their barrels.
By incorporating lemon peels into your barrel line, you can give your sour beers an extra boost of tartness and complexity by adding a natural source of acidity.
Lemon Peels Can Easily Combine with Beer Hops
Wonder why you’ve never seen lemon peels used in your fermenting? It’s because if you used them, it would be illegal.
But there is a reason for this law, and it goes back to ancient times when vinegar was made from lemons and other fruit peels.
These days, pulping citrus fruits aren’t allowed in food processing plants because they cause blindness and skin diseases, but they are known as natural preservatives that can help prevent mold on apple cider or wine bottles.
So what if we applied them to our fermentation? They combine a lot better with beer hops of any origin, so you better use them wisely in your beer mix.
Acidity is the Main Lemon Peels Issue
Lemon peels add a crisp, refreshing taste to your beer and are a natural preservative. The lemon oil naturally occurring in the peel kills bacteria.
To use them, pour the brewer’s yeast or nutrient medium into a clean jar and add two tablespoons of lemon peel. Dissolve in boiling water or wine for about 15 minutes, then cover with cheesecloth.
Keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t boil over (otherwise, you will end up with some nasty little charred bits in your brew).
Then go ahead and pitch your yeast or nutrient medium. Before using some of the hops, add lemon peels to the bottling bucket. Now we have our final product!
The Bitterness of Lemon Peels Could Destroy Your Beer
The bitter flavors of lemon peels add a bright, tart element to your beer, but these flavors can also cause problems for your brewing equipment.
It’s important to know the difference between the bitter flavors imparted by lemon peel and other unwanted flavor compounds in your finished product.
Fewer Quantities of Lemon Peels are Necessary
The number of peels you need will depend on the size of your pot, the size of your batch, and the strength of your brew.
For example, a 12 oz / 355 ml bottle of beer would require 6-13 lemon peels.
If you’re brewing a dark lager or porter, use 1-4 lemon peels for each gallon of beer that you use; that’s one standard lemon (aka large lemon) per 5oz or 20ml bottle.
Which Types of Beer are Better to Brew Using Lemon Peels?
If you are looking to brew your first batch of beer, then you will want to look into making it with one of the many different types available.
The type of beer you choose to brew can play a role in how easy it is for you to succeed in your task of brewing a delicious drink that tastes just like the original.
One type of beer that is made from a bittering agent, malt, and hops is called an ale.
A more flavorful beer method is through the use of flavorings such as fruit juices and spices. If you use lemon peels as one of these flavoring agents, then this may make your taste buds experience a new sensation!
Since lemon peels have natural alkalinity, they can help brew a slightly more acidic beer. Ciders or IPAs are good candidates for the use of lemon peels, as the acidity warms up your glass.
It also works with wheat beers, especially those dry-hopped with Citra or Amarillo hops. The best way to know if it is working is if there’s a sour taste that lingers in your mouth afterward.
Final Words
Lemon peels are ideal when you live in Mediterranean countries. There you can find thousands of lemon trees that give you easy access to the peels.
You need to be keen on using lemon peels, either fresh or concentrated. That will give you a chance to adjust the beer acidity and create a product that would be of extreme quality and taste!
