Tropical Fruit Beer Recipe Idea

I had this idea for a tropical fruit beer. I'm still pretty new to brewing, so any suggestions or tips would be great.

For the tropical flavor I want to use mango, pineapple, and orange. I made this recipe by based on other fruit beer recipes on the forum and combining things I thought looked good.

Recipe Type: Extract
Yeast: Belgian Wit Ale (White Labs #WLP400)
Batch Size (Gallons): 5
Original Gravity: 1.052
Final Gravity: 1.012
IBU: 34.0
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 9.1
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 7 days at 70 F
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 7 days at 70 F

7 lbs Wheat Liquid Extract [82.4%]
1 lb Caramel 20L Malt [11.8%]
0.5 lb Carapils [5.9%]

0.75 oz Galena [12.50%] (25.2 IBUs) 60 min
0.75 oz Citra [12.00%] (8.8 IBUs) 10 min

Fruits
-20 oz fresh mango
-20 oz canned pineapple
-3 oz orange zest

The fruits/juices will go in the secondary. Any thoughts/criticisms? Thanks in advance!

I've personally never used pineapple in a beer, but I've had a pineapple beer before, Maui Brewing Companys Mana Wheat.
To be honest, the pineapple flavor comes off really strong so I'd say be careful.

Also, Citra hops have a tropical nature to them so you might want to consider those.
If you want to get a good idea of what Citra hops can taste/smell like I would recommend the Citra version of Hermitage Brewing Companys Single Hop Series IPAs.

Also, you may not want to add the juice from the canned fruit as usually its mostly just some kind of sugar water (check the ingredients) which will kick up fermentation again giving you a higher alcohol content than you might have originally intended and also causing you to have a dryer beer.

I added 3 pounds of chopped up whole mango to the secondary for one beer. It tasted nice and fruity but I don't think you would ever know that mango was put in it. So what I'm saying is if I did a mango beer again I would definitely use more.

Lazers - Citra hops sound great, I will look into them. I just read some more about pineapple in brewing and I think you are right about the flavor being strong. I may reduce the amount of pineapple and increase the mango. And thanks for the heads up about the canned juice, I will be careful with that.

Buckett - Thanks, I think if I reduce the pineapple and increase the mango I will be able to get a good balance.

Does anyone have any opinions on whether I should use oranges/orange juice in the secondary or use orange zest in the boil?

i find galena hops to have a very nice mango/pineapple nose and palate
actually really surprised when i used it for a SMASH

Might want to be careful with the citrus, from what I understand it does weird things to head retention.
If you really want that Citrus taste though (lemon, orange etc), I recommend dry hopping with the zest of the desired fruit (be careful not to include the pith, trust me on that one.)

Oh and from what I've read and seen myself, the best way to get the taste of a fruit is to Freeze, puree, boil, then place in secondary for about a week or so (In that order).

I recently added pineapple juice to a honey wheat beer. I added a whole can of frozen dole pineapple concentrate as a late boil kettle addition for a 5 gallon batch. I then used a half a cup of concentrate with a half cup of honey for bottle conditioning. If I didn't know there was pineapple juice added I wouldn't be able to detect it in the finished product. I'll probably add double the amount the next time I get around to brewing that beer again.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.

Ok, so I'm going to use orange zest, canned pineapple, and fresh mango, all in the secondary. I'm still working out how much of each. I may also use some zest in the boil. I'm going to puree them all together, so then I can add more of each to taste. I'm going to use Citra and Galena hops instead of Hallertauer.

I'll edit the recipe to account for the changes soon.

So I updated the recipe up top. I decided to increase the amount of fruit and not use any juices. I'm going to freeze, puree, and boil the fresh fruit, then add it to the secondary, then rack on top. Does a week in the secondary sound like enough time?

I still have 2 weeks until my primary is available to start this, so any comment/suggestions would still be greatly appreciated.

So I just racked this to the secondary over a puree of 3 lb of mango and 2 lb pineapple. I used frozen fruit, thawed and blended. I decided to use orange peel in the boil, so the orange flavor is already in there. I also cut down the hops to 0.5 oz each, just in case they overpowered the fruit flavors.

The airlock started bubbling a few hours after racking. The bubbles coming through smell amazing, so I am very excited! In a week (or more, whenever it stops bubbling) I will be bottling it.

ehage4 said:

In a week (or more, whenever it stops bubbling) I will be bottling it.

Click to expand...

With the notes in your original recipe, and now this post, I'm surprised you don't have more people telling you to go with 2 weeks in the primary and 2 weeks in the secondary. Just because a beer is done fermenting doesn't mean it's ready to be bottled.

OK, so I'll just leave it in the secondary for two weeks?

It was in the primary for nine days, I racked over the fruit after the gravity remained constant over three days.

I think your beer sounds fantastic! I have found that 14 days is the minimum in the secondary,otherwise you do not extract a strong enough fruit aroma/taste. After 14 days I would taste it every 2nd day until it hits the level you like and pull it after 21 days no matter what the taste. There is some, although small, of the fruit starting to turn bad and pass along flavors you are not interested in collecting.

My strawberry beer will be racked onto 10lbs of frozen/pure this weekend along with a watermelon wheat ove a freshly squeezed watermelon in the secondary.

Post your tasting results. I a curious to see if the pineapple take over.

I would do 2-1/2 to 3 weeks in the secondary in this case. You won't have to keep checking it. It will be done by then and the yeast will have cleaned up their waste. If you can do this at counter height so gravity and time work for you, then even better. It will give you such a clear beer with careful racking... even without a cold crash.

I did a Tropical Porter with coasted coconut, pineapple, mango and peach that when over very well here. Best quote I got was "This is like getting a sun tan, in my mouth".

Thanks guys, I will let you all now how it turns out. Hopefully the pineapple doesn't take over. I've heard conflicting information about how strong pineapple flavor is in beer. But I guess I will find out for myself soon enough.

So I bottled this today, and the pineapple overpowered the other flavors. The flavor itself wasn't bad, and it was a bit sour (probably also due to the pineapple).

So, maybe less pineapple next time.

Ok, so I just tried the finished product. The aroma is incredible, like fresh pineapple with just a hint of mango. The initial flavor as it touches your tongue is very good, though the pineapple does overpower. The aftertaste is very, very sour, like expired pineapple. Personally, I am not a fan of the sour aftertaste, but my father tried it as well and he said he liked it.

If I did this beer again I would significantly reduce the pineapple (or maybe just use extract) and increase the mango.