Multiple - Thunderstruck Pumpkin Ale (AG and Extract versions) - Page 9

mkw87 · 09-13-2008, 10:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by McNasty

I brewed a hefe that tasted a LOT like water once too. I tried it while taking a gravity reading. But it ended up fine with tons of flavor when it was finished. I'm still a beginner but I bet yours will be fine.

While I imagine you are right, I think I'm going to at last add some pumpkin spice and some allspice (I didn't have any at the time of brewing) to the secondary to improve the flavor. I won't overdue it, let it sit for a week and then sample it, if it needs more I'll add a little more at bottling.

Thanks for the vote of confidence though

Putzenbrau · 09-14-2008, 02:21 AM

Did you use a yeast starter for the fermentis, or just hydrate the yeast and throw it in?

mosquitocontrol · 09-14-2008, 09:17 PM

I made this yesterday as my 2nd batch ever. My OG reading was higher than the recipe at 1.063. Any ideas on why is was so high? Is it because I was lazy and just threw the hydrometer in the primary? I'm expecting it won't effect the final product.

BeerPressure · 09-15-2008, 03:10 PM

After tasting dogfish head punkin ale i want to brew a pumpkin beer. Contemplating making this one.

edit: do you add the hops at 60 minutes or what?

**beerthirty** · 09-15-2008, 10:40 PM

thunderstruck is a lightly hopped beer so it doesn't overpower the pumpkin. there are only bittering hops in it and not much of those. yes 1 hour hop boil.
I only use starters if I'm using liquid yeast or making a big beer. most dry has a higher cell count than liquid. Just follow the instructions on the packet. Some say rehydrate and some say pitch it dry. pitching dry is less of a hassle and less chance of infection while rehydrating.

kaplanfx · 09-19-2008, 06:34 PM

Has anyone done this as a partial mash, with the grains and pumpkin mashed prior to the extract boil? I'm thinking this will help with the pumpkin extraction and the issue of straining the wort.

-kap

Beards Brews · 09-21-2008, 01:08 AM

Ok, I didn't get to brew this as soon as I would like, but it should be ready by Thanksgiving - a little pumpkin ale w/ pumpkin pie sounds mighty fine.

I built a mash tun out of a 48qt cooler I had in order to accommodate the pumpkin and now wonder why I never used this cooler before. I put a pound of rice hulls in here and used a false bottom out of my 5gal round cooler mlt. No stuck or slow sparges at all. I actually was able to bump up my brew house efficiency to 78% today. It is tucked away nicely in the fermenter and bubbling away.

Only bad part to my brew day was the gravity check I performed with a glass carboy full of 5gal of star san. Instant explosion on contact and a slightly cut foot (flip flops aren't exactly the safest brewing footwear). On the positive side, I now can justify buying some better bottles.

kaplanfx · 09-21-2008, 05:39 PM

Brewing this today

extract version.

-kap

FishinDave07 · 09-23-2008, 06:48 PM

Reviving this one...On page 3 there is a conversion for 5 gallons. I plugged the 15 gal recipe into BeerSmith and came out with these numbers:

Brew Type: All Grain
OG: 1.053
IBU: 14
Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Volume: 7.67 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 % (I get around 68%)

7.70 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US
1.83 lb Crystal Malt 60L
0.92 lb Biscuit Malt
0.37 lb Wheat, Flaked
1.10 lb Rice Hulls
60.00 oz Pumpkin (Canned) (Mash 60.0 min) Misc
0.82 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (60 min)
0.55 tsp Clove (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
0.55 tsp Nutmeg (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
1.10 tsp Allspice (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
1.10 tsp Cinnamon (Ground) (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
1.00 tbsp PH 5.2 Stabilizer (Mash 60.0 min) Misc
1.00 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs English Ale (White Labs #WLP002) Yeast-Ale

Anybody else get different #'s when converting down to 5 gallons?

Putzenbrau · 09-24-2008, 02:02 AM

Just brewed up a batch yesterday. I decided to make a 6 gallon batch, so just used 2/5 of all the ingredients in the 15 gallon recipe (except I used 90oz of pumpkin - I like pumpkin). Everything went swimmingly, except I forgot the wheat flakes. Oh well - I hope it doesn't effect the taste to much. I used 1.5# of rice hulls, and the sparge took less than an hour. I got 10 gallons of wort which boiled down to 7 - hooray, extra beer! the O.G. was ~1.054.

Moral of the story: using a metric crap-ton of rice hulls, this will sparge through even an s-braid just fine.