Adding pineapple

I have used pinapple before, but not in a beer as such. From my experience & what I have read, it is difficult to get a fresh pinapple flavour accross, and most of what you get is acid.

That being said, I'm sure someone has done it successfully!

 

I have used organic pineapple juice before, and it's worked phenomenally.

 

I used 5 lbs of frozen/thawed pineapple and 5 lbs of frozen/thawed blueberries in 5 gallons of Berliner Weiss. I racked the beer onto the fruit in a secondary. The pineapple was noticeable but subtle. If I were to do it again, I'd probably increase the fruit to 6 lbs each.

If you decide to do fruit in the secondary, ignore the usual advice to eliminate/minimize headspace, because the sugars in the fruit will ferment.

 

I have always wanted to use carmelized pineapple in a beer but could never decide on a style to use it in. Keep us posted on your progress, I'm keen to hear how things turn out.

 

Good point there. I am not much of a pineapple guy, eating it straight up, but I like how it comes across in a beer. But when I caramelize it for taco's al pastor, man it takes it to another dimension, plus it seems to lose that biting acidity that exists in it's raw state. Maybe a hoppy brown depending on how the caramelization comes across?

 

pineapple juice after boil

 

It ended up around 3.5%. I didn't measure the pH, except going into the sour worting vessel. At that point it was 4.8.

But when the sour worting was done, I would describe level of souring as medium-ish for a Berliner. Quite noticeable, but not in-your-face sour.

 

Thanks for starting this thread, as I am planning on secondarying a Berliner on pineapple soon. You're one step ahead of me, so let us know how it goes! Not that it really matters since I have no experience with this yet, but my plan is to chop up two whole pineapples and purée with an immersion blender. Adding to secondary fermenter before racking the beer onto it.

As far as how long to keep your beer on the pineapple.. if you're not using brett I would say 1 month is a safe amount of time. As long as gravity is stable.

 

I'll throw a though into this conversation: Seems to me that when I buy a fresh pineapple for consusmption, it's very difficult to get one that is fully ripened and sweet with a full pineapple flavor. If they are too young, they are overly sour/tart so that the pineapple flavor is masked, but maybe for a sour ale, that's what you want. My point is that you need to ask yourself what ripeness of a pineapple do you want. I don't buy them often enough to know that a tart one will ripen on its own if left sitting in the kitchen, but you may need to research that. Then when you go to buy a pineapple to put into a beer, maybe you need to plan ahead to get the one that you want if it needs time to ripen.

Or you can use canned/frozen pineapple. They are always sweet.

 

I think the test for ripeness is if the leaves on the top pull away easily, that is usually my first test. If I am buying one for cutting up and putting in the fridge for the wife, that is usually the way I go. If I am going to cook with it, I will look for one that is somewhat starting to show softness on the bottom, there will be more trimming to be done, but it is going to have a lot more sweetness vs tartness

 

I think this topic was covered in a recent episode of The Sour Hour on the Brewing Network. The discussion starts right around the 21:30 mark (this is Episode 51).

 

I did a sour with pineapple and while it turned out well, the acidity was extremely high.. I split a 10 gallon batch between pineapple and black raspberry and the br was very restrained on sourness, so I'm attributing the different acidity levels to the pineapple itself.

I used 9 lbs of whole pineapples, cut up and put in secondary. I used the remaining juices from cutting in another sour with orange peel that turned out more subtle.

 

Keen to hear how it goes

 

I put the pineapple cores and any uneaten pineapple (after a couple days in my fridge) into my freezer, then into my sours when i am ready to add fruit. I have only tasted one finished sour and I put in at about 1lb per gallon. I think the cores have a real interesting pineapple flavor that goes great in the beer. I really like it. I currently have another fermenting now and more pineapple in the freezer for another batch.

 

Just turn it upside down to ripen