Brewing peach/pineapple amber ale tomorrow

Peach is a delicate flavor, especially with fresh peaches. I'd add the peaches and/or pineapple after primary. There's also always the chance you could get an infection from the peaches, so you might want to freeze them, then thaw and pitch.

 

I would think fermenation would drive off some of the peach/pineapple flavors if added during flameout/whirlpooling. Fruit additions are probably* best in secondary.

*While I haven't brewed a beer with fruit before, I would think of it like dry hopping in that secondary/post fermentation is the best time to add. All the off-gassing of primary fermentation would carry the aromas off and waste them.

 

If you puree, and heat to pasteurize the fruit you'll end up with hazy beer because of pectins that you're creating. I personally don't care if my beer is hazy, but if you do then that's a downside of heating the fruit.

Another thing with fruit beer is you need a TON of fruit to get real, serious fruitness. I did about 40 oz of raspberries (pasteurized) in 2.5 gal of a berliner and got just about nothing. The experiment sounds fun, report back with your results

 

Pineapple is not easy to work with. I brew a pineapple wheat ale that has done well in competitions. Here are some tips.
1)There is an enzyme in pineapple called bromelain that breaks down protein. Pineapple heated to 170f will deactivate the enzyme.
2) Use slighty under ripe pineapple. Ripe pineapple in the boil degrades really quick with the heat and gives you old pineapple flavor. I have found that using sightly under ripe pineapple produces a fresher pineapple flavor.
3)I use 1lb of chopped pineapple per gl. Chopped is the key and here is why- one day I got the bright idea of putting my pineapple in a food processor to save time on brew day. The food processor pureed the pineapple enough that it was a chunky liquid. Jump to the end of fermentation and my beer had a higher abv that I planned for. The pureeing of the pineapple seemed to free up more sugars to ferment. I had brewed the recipe the same exact way many times and all times I chopped the pineapple but the time I processed it I had a higher abv. This is the only explaination I could think of.
4) You can secondary on pineapple, I havent really 'sanitized' when I have done that ainly because I heat the pineapple chunks to 170 in water and its really the skins of fruits that harbor the wild yeasts and bacterias. I have never had an infected pineapple beer.
5) Maui Brewing uses pineapple juice in their Mana Wheat. Its an option but I think fresh pineapple tastes better.

Any more questions about brewing with pineapple free free to PM me.

 

In the joy of brewing it is suggested that fruit be added at flame out and allowed to steep for twent minutes or so. Boiling the fruit can release pectin. I will be trying this method this weekend with a peach wheat. We'll see how it goes.