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**BrewLou** · 08-15-2012, 12:41 AM

1st off thanks for posting the recipe!

I did a similar version to this, but I excluded the "spice tea" since I was worried it would be almost overkill for the way I went about things. Short and sweet of it was that I cut your 15gallon AG into a 3rd and went from there. I "baked" the pumpkin in the oven with a bit of cinnamon sprinkled on it until it started the carmelize. I then mixed it up in the dish and let it bake again until it was just slightly carmelizing again. At this time I sprinkled just a hair more cinnamon onto the pumpkin. I placed the pumpkin in a nylon bag and let it sit in my mash for the entire hour. Everything came pouring out nicely into my bucket and the house smelled like pure pumpkin pie. Wife walked in and was like !#%@ what smells so good! Needless to say we were both VERY excited to try this.

I am about half way through my bottle conditioning on this, and just had to taste it early! Honestly I am a bit letdown and I wanted to ask if forgoing the spice tea would play that much into the flavor difference I am noticing. I figured with how it smelt that it was going to be very pumpkiny. It is not bad by any stretch of the imagination ( I am really quite impressed with it) but there is only a slight taste of pumpkin. It (to me) tastes a great deal like a Sam Adams Octoberfest with a nice hint of pumpkin. Do you think the "spice tea" woudl make that much of a difference in the taste? Everything I did to it was done at the beginning. I did nothing after it was fermenting/fermented other than move it to a 2ndary, and bottle it.

BrettV · 08-15-2012, 01:59 AM

Unfortunately, yes, the reason you're let down is that pumpkin ales don't really get their flavor from pumpkin: they get it from the spices. By cooking the cinnamon with the pumpkin and then boiling it for an hour, you greatly reduced its potency. Cinnamon flavor fades over time, which is why the recipe recommends the spice tea in the secondary.

ChrisTags · 08-15-2012, 02:07 PM

Bottled last night......AMAZING!

Dilligaf76 · 08-15-2012, 03:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrettV

Unfortunately, yes, the reason you're let down is that pumpkin ales don't really get their flavor from pumpkin: they get it from the spices. By cooking the cinnamon with the pumpkin and then boiling it for an hour, you greatly reduced its potency. Cinnamon flavor fades over time, which is why the recipe recommends the spice tea in the secondary.

I don't even use pumpkin anymore in mine. It's just the spices that I'm after.

brices121 · 08-15-2012, 04:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dilligaf76

I don't even use pumpkin anymore in mine. It's just the spices that I'm after.

You probably don't get that orange color though, do you?

awarner322 · 08-15-2012, 04:56 PM

Here is roughly what I am getting from beersmith after scaling the 15 gallon AG version. Thinking about pumping up the pale malt a bit and maybe rounding up everything else a touch to get to the gravity the OP has (1.057). Anyone have any experience with this or advice otherwise?

Est orig Gravity: 1.048
Final Gravity: 1.012

7 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 71.2 %
1 lbs 11.2 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 2 17.3 %
12.8 oz Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 3 8.1 %
5.3 oz Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM) Grain 4 3.4 %
1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 16.6 IBUs
1.0 pkg SafAle English Ale (DCL/Fermentis #S-04) [23.66 ml] Yeast 6 -

FuzzeWuzze · 08-15-2012, 07:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by awarner322

Here is roughly what I am getting from beersmith after scaling the 15 gallon AG version. Thinking about pumping up the pale malt a bit and maybe rounding up everything else a touch to get to the gravity the OP has (1.057). Anyone have any experience with this or advice otherwise?

Est orig Gravity: 1.048
Final Gravity: 1.012

7 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 71.2 %
1 lbs 11.2 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 2 17.3 %
12.8 oz Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 3 8.1 %
5.3 oz Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM) Grain 4 3.4 %
1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 16.6 IBUs
1.0 pkg SafAle English Ale (DCL/Fermentis #S-04) [23.66 ml] Yeast 6 -

I brewed it exactly as OP did, cut to 5 gallons with the same stuff you listed there.

I ended up @ 1.056 OG, @ 73%, my first ever AG brew ...so i dont know that you need to alter it much. I think i had maybe 6 oz of Flaked wheat, and usually just rounded up my oz's for everything since the brew shop has analog scales.

terrenum · 08-15-2012, 11:51 PM

Bottled this one year ago and just opened a bottle. Still delicious. Spices have fade a bit but nice ans balance with a good malt backbone structure

**BullGator** · 08-16-2012, 04:05 PM

Can anyone help with some of my questions? Sorry if these were already covered but there sure are a lot of pages in this thread.

1 - I do partial mashing on the stove top in a pot (BIAB method). I usually mash about 7 to 8 total pounds of grain due to the capacity if my pot. Do I just put the pumpkin in the bag and mash as usual? If so, no pumpkin in the boil or primary?

2 - There are a few different versions of pumpkin beer recipes on here that are all similar but slightly different. Has anyone tried them all? Any tips or any combinations of the various recipes been done where improvements have been noted?

Thanks!

ChrisTags · 08-17-2012, 01:28 AM

My OG for extract was 1.052. I pulled it off pumpkin into secondary after 12 days, bottled 7 7 days later and my FG was 1.008. Was a bit surprised it dropped that low. Didn't taste very alcoholic, but 5.78% is a bit higher than I was expecting.

I used 1332 Northwest Ale with a starter.