I am looking for ideas and suggestions from fellow home brewers out there for a decent, easy 1 gallon home brew recipe for a pineapple Pale ale that is not close enough to be an IPA and somewhat golden in color.
2 Answers
OK, here goes... First off, do you really want to make just one gallon? Rethink that, I would suggest a minimum of 3 gallons (for big beers), and 5 for typical strength (like a Pale Ale). What if you really like it? 1 gallon will be gone in a short afternoon. Plus, with a small batch, any defect will be amplified, and it's less reproducible.
There are two ways to do fruit beer: add fruit right at the end of the boil, or add pasteurized fruit to the secondary. As you specified 'easy' we'll explore the first method.
Pineapple: Pineapple and other citrus-sy fruits have a bit of a bite, so you'll probably use less than you would with blueberries or apricot. 3/4 lb per gallon of batch volume would be a good starting point. Also, pineapple , by weight, is roughly 10% sugar (fructose mainly), which you'll need to account for to get your OG where you want it. You'll add it to the last minute of the boil to effectively sterilize it. But don't boil longer than that or you're liable to get pectin in your beer. Cut it up and chuck it in a blender to pulp it (you don't need to turn it into a smoothie -- just nicely chopped up).
Grain: Typical pale ale grain bill. As you said 'golden', stay away from any darker crystal, and no roasted. Use the same amount of crystal you would ordinarily use, but a shade lighter. Also, the lighter crystal will let more pineapple flavor shine through.
Hops: Typical pale ale hops (The C-hops, Cascade, Centennial, Columbus, Chinook). Avoid citrus-sy hops -- you want your citrus from the pineapple.
Recipe (for 2.5 gallons, 1.055 OG, scale as you need to)
Mash the following at 152* for at least 60 mins...
- 4.5 lb Pale 2-row malt
- 6 oz 20L Crystal malt
- 4 oz Munich malt (light)
For extract, use 3 lb Light Dry Extract instead of the Pale Malt, and steep the specialty grains.
Hops (about 40 IBU)
- 0.3 oz Chinook - 60 mins (13% AA)
- 0.4 oz Cascade - 15 mins (5.5% AA)
- 0.4 oz Cascade - 5 mins (5.5% AA)
Pineapple Puree: add in last minute of boil
Yeast: any traditional American Ale yeast will do
Ferment as normal. You'll have more crap in the bottom of your Fermenting Vessel that normal. I wouldn't try to reuse the yeast.
Done! I think I'm gonna make this myself. Inspiration...
Here is an IPA recipe by Scott Janish which I really, really like: https://scottjanish.com/west-coast-ipa-recipe-2/#comment-157179
I know your looking for ideas for a Pale Ale so if I were going for that, I would plug this recipe into Brewfather and tweak it down into the Pale Ale range. Then swap out the Centennial for some BRU-1 (pineapple character) and see how it looks. Probably add some BRU-1 in the dry hop too, but not a lot. Brewfather seems spot on when calculating IBU which should be around 20-50 depending on if you're going American or English (https://legacy.bjcp.org/2008styles/style08.php)
I get a nice citrus character from this recipe, almost grapefruity along with some really subtle mango and passion fruit aroma. I think it would work well with the BRU-1. Might be a place to start with some gallon batches.
