Recipes for SWMBO

[ProfX]

OK, so I started brewing a few months ago. I'm 5 batches in, 2 one gallon all grains and 3 extract brews. My latest is fermenting in my brand spanking new fermenting chamber, which I'm really pumped about. Can't wait to see what a properly fermented beer tastes like. At any rate, the SWMBO is astonished at the amount of money my normally stingy ass has been dropping on brewing supplies and asked when i'm brewing her a beer. Here's the thing though, she pretty much hates any real beer. So I'm trying to come up with a good recipe to brew on/for her birthday that she will like. She's a big fan of Blanche de Chambly, Abita Purple Haze, Orange Blossom Cream Ale and other similar beers. The common denominator there for me is low gravity fruity beers.

So the point of this post is to hopefully get anyone on this board with a similar dilemma as me to post their favorite fruit beer or picky SWMBO recipes. I'm thinking either a Cream Ale or a Hefeweizen infused with some fruit. I've been reading a lot about when/how to add the fruit and what fruit works best and i've heard a lot of conflicting advise. So i'm thinking that whatever the most common idea on this post is, I will use to brew my concoction. Please be specific as to how you conditioned and added the fruit, as this seems to be the biggest point of contention.

BTW, I know some of you are lucky enough to have SWMBOs who are awesome and love IIPAs and such , but please bear have sympathy for me. Also, if there's already a post dedicated to this topic, please point me to it, as I searched but found nothing exactly like this.

 

[adiochiro3]

I brewed an awesome peach blonde ale last summer with pasteurized peaches added after three days of primary fermentation. Here's the recipe:

All-Grain BIAB - Peach Blonde Ale.

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: US-04
Yeast Starter: No
Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter: NO
Batch Size (Gallons): 5
Original Gravity: 1.04
Final Gravity: 1.006
IBU: 26
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 6.52
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 17
Additional Fermentation: no

Tasting Notes: Great Peach flavor and aroma that has lasted 8 months so far. A nice, light easy drinking ale.

7# American 2 row
1# Crystal 20L
1 oz Cascade (30 Minute)
1 oz Cascade (10 Minute)
3# Peach Puree.

Mash with 6 gallons of water at 154 degrees for 60 minutes, stir every 15 minutes. Raise temp to 170F and mash out for 10 min. 60 min. boil with the above hop additions.

Add SafeAle US-04 when cool.
Blanch to remove skins of 3# fresh peaches and cook long and hot enough to pasteurize, then cool at least to room temp.
Add 3# Peach Puree at day #3, and give a good gentile stir.
Continue in the primary ferementer for a total of 17 days, then bottle or keg.

Good luck!

 

[dpatrickv]

My wife is very particular with beers that she enjoys so I made a strawberry blonde ale for her last year. Ever since she has always wanted that in the fridge.

6 lb German - Pilsner 38 1.6 52.2%
3.5 lb American - Wheat 38 1.8 30.4%
2 lb German - Munich Light 37 6 17.4%


Hops

1 oz Saaz 60 min
0.25 oz Cascade 20 min

Cali Ale V yeast

I buy 6 lbs of strawberries, slice em up, freeze them for a few days and then drop them in once primary fermentation has died down. Typically I have left the beer on the strawberries for ~ 2.5 weeks then bottled up.

The strawberry flavor is there but is not overpowering. Very easy drinking beer.

 

[JordanKnudson]

Mine is open to all styles of beer that I put in front of her, but if I ask her what she would like me to brew next, it's always something light and fruity (or, occasionally, she wants a chocolate stout because she had the Sam Smith one once and decided it was just like chocolate milk).

What the guys above have suggested is great, and fruit is not terribly difficult to work with. But if you want to go the lazy route, I recommend throwing orange zest into a light style at the very end of the boil. Orange peel is a mandatory part of the classic witbier style, and it also works great in any clean, light brew.

If you're going to add fruit to secondary, you will get a lot of different advice about how to treat it. The bare-bones strategy that I like and have known others to use without any problems is to stick the fruit in a sealed bag in the freezer until frozen to break the cell walls, take it back out, cut it up and toss it directly into secondary, then rack the beer on top of it. Freezing will NOT necessarily kill all the organisms that can live in there, but it will kill a pretty fair share, and I essentially rely on the alcohol and low pH of the beer to ensure that nothing starts growing. It is surprisingly effective (or maybe I've just been lucky). One note, though: I would peel any fruit, as the most likely place for foreign organisms to be hiding would be on the skin. This also helps reduce the tannic contribution that the fruit creates.

 

[chickypad]

Well I am SWMBO and not all that keen on fruit beers, however I find I need to make at least one 10g batch of watermelon wheat every summer to keep both my fruit loving friends and the regular craft beer drinkers off my back. Super simple: 50/50 domestic 2-row and wheat, clean ale yeast, hop to about 18-20 IBU - I often use perle but have used other noble types. After primary is finished add 1 cup per gallon fresh watermelon juice to secondary or keg. I stole dubbledach's method of juicing a watermelon (see his recipe in fruit beer section with pics), much better flavor than whole watermelon chunks. You probably have to wait a few months for good watermelon though.