Formulating a recipe for a Hawaiian Pale ale

I've recently tried Spearhead's Hawaiian pale ale, which is a great new beer in Ontario by the way, and at the brewer's website they actually post relevant details to reproduce a homebrewed version.

(link)
Spearhead Brewery...Beer Without Boundaries!

The recipe I've come up with so far looks like this: (6 gallons in fermenter)

12 lb 2-row
4 oz crystal 60
4 oz crystal 10
8 oz light munich
8 oz carapils

1.25 oz cascade 60
1.0 oz centennial 60
0.5 oz perle 30
0.25 oz centennial 5
0.25 oz cascade 5

OG - 1060 FG - 1015 for an ABV of 5.8%


Now the key ingredient to this beer, and the one I need help with, is the pineapple juice. I'm thinking of freezing the juice, thawing, and adding directly to the fermenter, but I'm curious how much that will throw off the OG? Does anyone know of a formula to calculate this? The commercial example is 6.5% and that's what I'm shooting for.

Also, the commercial example has just a hint of pineapple, not too in your face. I was thinking of adding between a half a can and a full can to a 6 gallon batch, but that might be overkill.

Any suggestions on how to go about adding the p-juice / how much to add?

Thanks !!

After looking into the OG of pineapple juice, the consensus is between 1040 and 1046, so I'm not so worried about it throwing off the OG of my recipe too much. I will have to play with the malts to get the OG up to the desired 1065.

Tread lightly with the pineapple juice!

Tread lightly with the pineapple juice!

Click to expand...

Erm... care to expand

Pineapple juice is SUPER acidic. pour some on a uncooked steak, It will eat through it. Well in this case yeast are "fleshy". I made a pineapple ale for a Luau party awhile ago. I used ALL unsweetened canned pineapple juice... rings or chunks...IDR and the brand was Dole I think...I secondaried the juice.

The beer was drinkable (it had separate issues before I started turning it into the Luau Brau) but I would not use more than 3 cans per 5 gallons. I will dig up some notes if your are interested.

I am interested in how this turns out as the fore mentioned Luau party is a yearly event. This year I am bring back 1.5 gallons of each beer from last year.

If you have a chance I'd be curious.

I think after doing some research adding to the secondary and racking on top (I will secondary this one) is the way to go. I'm not going for sweetness really, just some of the aromatics of the pineapple and maybe something for taste. One can might even be overkill on a 5-6G batch.

I am curious to find out what you learn.

I am picturing throwing some pineapple (raw not canned) ckunks into the fermenter. In my mind it would go well with cascade or amarillo hop flavor.

From Radical Brewing by Mosher:

Fruits for Brewing
....
PINEAPPLE - Familiar tropical fruit. May be best as a hat decoration, or in mead.

ie....Pineapple is a really tough ingredient to get right in beer.

If you really want to try it, I would probably try to find a pineapple extract somewhere.