Experimental Brewing Photo Album

mewithstewpid · 10-11-2011, 07:39 PM

Thought it would be a cool thread to post pics of experimental/off-the-path brewdays.

I'll start this up:

Black Pumpkin Saison brewed 10/2011

Baked the pumpkin for 1.5hrs with cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger at 350deg. Steeped 1lb Carafa III and .5lb German Vienna for 30min.

1TBS of cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger, 2TBS of brown sugar added last 5 min of boil. Yeast was collected from a starter, White Labs Farmhouse Blend WLP670 (limited series, baby!)

2oz Styrain Goldings 60 min, 1 oz Czech Saaz 20 min, .5 Czech Saaz 5min and 0min

6lb Gold DME 60min, 3lb Wheat DME 15min, 1lb Belgian Candy Sugar 5min.
Irish Moss 15min, three cinnamon sticks going directly in the primary fermenter!

Picture of the baked pumpkin, 4lb total, placed in muslin bag and placed in wort for the entire 60min boil.
Did NOT put this in primary, as last time i did this i lost 1.5 gallons of beer due to pumpkin trub escaping the bag!

mewithstewpid · 10-11-2011, 07:40 PM

finally, the entire mixture in the primary!

1.085 OG

fermentation took off like a beast within 12 hours! Go 670 go!

gr84x4 · 10-12-2011, 04:30 AM

Looking good. Keep us posted.

Troxs · 10-16-2011, 02:33 PM

I really would like to know how this works out!

HopShot · 10-17-2011, 05:36 AM

That sounds great! I made a pumpkin brew a while back and I think it is pretty good. But that idea of yours is quite creative! If I attempt another pumpkin brew I will follow your lead and put it in a bag. I lost about a gallons worth in trub

mewithstewpid · 11-28-2011, 08:04 PM

6 weeks in Primary and I bottled on sunday:

The taste was OK, more "hot" alcohol than i would have liked, pumpkin spice is there but not overwhelming, and the saison "funk" is not noticeable. Slightly roasty, i think it will age well.

FG was 1.015, for a 9% ABV.

Nice color in the bottling bucket

it left a really large, compact yeast cake. WLP670 is a beast.

color from the hydrometer sample. Pitch black, nice.

I will post some pictures of the brew in about a month. Overall, i fell this will be better off as a winter beer, roasty, complex. Not a lot of the pumpkin-ness pulled through, at least in the sample, so my idea to age most of it until next october 2012 might not be ideal. Instead it might turn out to be a winter 2012 beer.

mewithstewpid · 12-30-2011, 05:27 PM

Here are some pictures 4 weeks after bottling.

There is a pretty harsh alcohol burn still. Im going to throw these in my cellar for another 4 weeks before i sample again.

The beer had a very nice stout-like head that stayed around for a while leaving nice lacing. The smell was fairly alcoholic. No real saison funk could be detected. Its more like any spiced winter beer than a black saison.

well see what happens after a month in the cellar.

psutimmah · 12-31-2011, 03:01 AM

this looks awesome. big beer there...hows the pumpkin flavor? i made a black Ipa that was fantastic, but a pumpkin is just brilliant

mewithstewpid · 01-04-2012, 08:02 PM

Pumpkin flavor is almost non-existant. This is the third pumpkin brew i have done, and in all of them no pumpkin ever comes thru, only pumpkin spices i.e. cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and allspice. Those are present in this beer.

**PintoBean** · 03-07-2012, 02:13 AM

I brewed a pumpkin beer that I actually got the pumpkin flavor to come through...I used 9 lbs of sugar pie pumpkin pulp that I cooked down until caramelized. It was six or seven 3lb pumpkins pre-cooking. It seems extreme, but pumpkin flavor is so mild you need a lot.