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Using essential oils in brewing

bubba931

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Sheboygan, Wisconsin
I am going to be brewing a Belgium Wit in the near future and am feeling adventuresome. My significant other has a rather large collection of doTERRA essential oils. Most are used as topical or in a diffuser, but some are for internal use. Has anyone used any in brewing after fermentation. I am considering the use of some wild orange or grapefruit oil. These are very strong distilled oils that are concentrated and a drop goes a long way. I am going to try a one drop sample in a 16 ounce glass of water to see how much flavor and aroma are there but was just wondering about others experiences with it.
 
I don't know if this is a great idea as oils tend to destroy, or kill, head retention. I'm not familiar with doTERRA but other oils from peanut butter or coconut definitely affect this. If this doesn't matter to you, then I'm sure it would work fine, but sounds like something that you'd want to use less of as to stay away from medicinal flavors.

Methods like extract or pureed fruit may better retain the characteristics of beer. Perhaps not good for the significant other's large collection that takes up space, but at least the Wit will retain its qualities.
 
I tried to use lemon zest for a wheat and as BoBo stated, the oils from the zest killed the head retention.
To offset this you may want to try using the oils and add flaked oatmeal to give the head a bit more skin to fight off the oil... Okay, yeah, that sounds bad. But after re reading it I got a chuckle, so WTH.
 
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