Adding fruit to recipes/creating recipes

[jmorter1]

I am farely new to homebrewing, only 3 batches brewed. I drank one, the second is conditioning, and my third is fermenting currently. Even though I only have 3 batches under my belt I want to try and start creating my own recipes, or at least tweaking some to my own liking. My son's 1st birthday is in the end of March and I want to brew a nice fruity springtime beer. I was thinking something like a wheat beer with either some orange or lemon added. Now i've seen people who add the peels during the boil and others pouring fruit juice into the fermentor before pitching. Does anybody have any advice on adding fruit to recipes or any styles of beer that go well with the sweet flavors? Any tips on recipe formulation in general would be a huge help. Thanks!

 

[jmcm_brew]

I am farely new to homebrewing, only 3 batches brewed. I drank one, the second is conditioning, and my third is fermenting currently. Even though I only have 3 batches under my belt I want to try and start creating my own recipes, or at least tweaking some to my own liking. My son's 1st birthday is in the end of March and I want to brew a nice fruity springtime beer. I was thinking something like a wheat beer with either some orange or lemon added. Now i've seen people who add the peels during the boil and others pouring fruit juice into the fermentor before pitching. Does anybody have any advice on adding fruit to recipes or any styles of beer that go well with the sweet flavors? Any tips on recipe formulation in general would be a huge help. Thanks!

I highly recommend a hefeweizen... It was my first experiment with fruit as well and I've done some others but I still go back to it. I used hanks hefeweizen kit from Midwest supplies and when you rack to secondary you can add really any fruit. I used blackberries but I'm sure anything would be delicious. Make sure if your fruit is fresh you freeze it and thaw it because it will allow the cells to break open and really give you the best flavor. I've added the fruit directly into the fermenter or you can use a sanitized muslin bag with some marbles in it to sink it to the bottom. I let it go for about a week and a good rule of thumb is a pound of fruit per gallon of beer. Then you can tweak it to your liking. Have fun, Cheers!