jmoore77

Recipes 

Thanks for the replies...I think I'll do 1lb of rice hulls instead of my planned 1/2lb and go for the full 5lbs of Libby's Purée and see what happens. I'm using a 10 gallon mash tun so I should have plenty of room...I'll also do as suggested and stir in most of the grains first before adding the purée and bump my mash water from 1.25 qt/lb to 1.50.

Thanks again for the quick responses... I'll be upgrading my forum membership as soon as I finish this post!!!

Jason

SpeedYellow

Recipes 

You also may want to consider adding the pumpkin late in the mash. There's very little starch in pumpkin, so there's not much need to even mash it. I added mine during the last 15 minutes (just to make sure it didn't interfere in any way with mash pH or anything else) but it probably makes little difference.

FuzzeWuzze

Recipes 

I threw a lb of rice hulls in with 60oz of Libbys and had zero issues with draining or sparging, everything went 100% as i had hoped...and it was my first AG ever so that should say something.
Considering the rice hulls were like $1.60 i just threw the whole bag in.

This was on the Thunderstruck Pumpkin ale, it has about 10lbs of grain + nearly 4lbs of Pumpkin puree

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DPBISME

Recipes 

I suggest... Use Rice Hulls as directed because they soak up wort and you can't get it out...

I soak mine in boiling water.
I add them at about 5 minutes fromt he end of the mash
Then go to Mashout

Hoping the above problem does not cause an issue because they already are wet.

FuzzeWuzze

Recipes 

Im using Beersmith, it compensates for the rice hulls if you put them in your recipe and tells you how much water to mash with. I fail to see the need to presoak/preheat rice hulls, seems like overkill. Especially for something thats entire purpose is to be making the mash process easier.

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JordanThomas

Recipes 

According to their site, they use pumpkin... Then again, there were people on this before me.

I am embarrassed now.

HelperMunkee

Recipes 

Anyone know why people advocate baking the puree? Seems silly (it's just a starch after all, isn't it?) it should mash fine.

Stauffbier

Recipes 

I think the baking is more for the roast and caramel flavor. I didn't bother baking mine...

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SpeedYellow

Recipes 

Yeah, I don't see much value to baking either. I baked mine, but the only benefit was the preheating prior to mashing. Sure didn't look like it would taste any different. Plus pumpkin adds so little flavor anyway. Just watched the Southern Tier video, and they clearly don't roast their puree first.

stratslinger

Recipes 

From the research I did last year, and from what the (reliable) guy at the LHBS told me, baking/roasting the pumpkin puree carmelizes some of the available sugars, thus making them unfermentable, thus helping to leave behind more residual pumpkin flavor in the finished beer. I can definitely attest to the fact that my first attempt at a pumpkin ale was done with un-roasted puree, and there was zero pumpkin character to the beer, while my second (and now third, currently fermenting) attempt was done with roasted puree and had a pleasant and noticeable pumpkin note, above and beyond the spice note.