Pumpkin beer, how does this look?

Looking into making a pumpkin beer here soon and was putting together a recipe for the Octobrauenfest (local home brew shop has a get together and brew day for the start of oktoberfest)

9lb Maris otter
5lb 2-row
2lb Victory malt
1lb 10L
4 cans of libbeys pumpkin, baked at 350* for an hour or two
1 package of graham crackers (one of the plastic packages in the box, or the whole box... no idea yet)

2oz Northern brewer @90
1oz Sterling @20

1oz candied ginger @5
1tsp nutmeg @5
1tsp clove @5
3tsp cinnamon @5
2lb Brown sugar @5

2ea vanilla beans in secondary for a week

Mash @155
OG : 1.099
FG : 1.022
IBU : 47

May try to make a tincture with dark rum and spices and see what happens... or maybe just add in some spiced rum at bottling.

Sounds delicious, I might want it a little darker colored.

I bottle my imperial pumpkin tomorrow, hope it tastes as great as it smells.

I've never used candied ginger in a beer before, but a whole ounce sounds like a lot (just thinking that it is as much ginger as a packet of hops). Ginger is powerful stuff and I would be hesitant to use that much.

Probably true about the ginger, and you probably want to be careful with the clove, I haven't had experience with it, but I have heard a lot of people say you normally want to avoid cloves in a recipe as it can taste like an off flavor.

TechMiller said:

Probably true about the ginger, and you probably want to be careful with the clove, I haven't had experience with it, but I have heard a lot of people say you normally want to avoid cloves in a recipe as it can taste like an off flavor.

Click to expand...

good point about the cloves...just looked back over my pumpkin beer recipe (which I really enjoy) and it only uses 1/8th a teaspoon of ground cloves for a 3.5-gallon batch. I went pretty low on all the spices in fact:

0.50 tsp Cinnamon, ground
0.50 tsp Nutmeg, ground
0.25 tsp Ginger, ground
0.25 tsp Allspice, ground
0.125 tsp Cloves, ground
(all added to boil in final minute...again, for a 3.5 gallon batch)

I felt like this amount of spice worked well in the beer - it was definitely there, but not overwhelming...and I don't think anyone could actually pick out any one individual spice.

You can always add more spices later in the fermenter or at bottling- using either a tea or infusion.

For me, too much clove makes my tongue feel almost numb. My pumpkin recipe has 1/8 tsp clove for 3gl and is just right for my tastes

So, i brewed this last saturday.
OG ended up being 1.120.
added 2g of dried ginger and 6g of pumpkin pie spice (3 tsp). smelled and tasted just like malted pumpkin cookies. was awesome!
Now that it's fermenting awesomely (krausen was ridiculous night before last). i'll let it go for a few weeks and drop in a few vanilla beans and let that ride out... crossing my fingers!

So your final recipe was like this (5 gallon batch?):

9lb Maris otter
5lb 2-row
2lb Victory malt
1lb 10L
4 cans of libbeys pumpkin, baked at 350* for an hour or two
1 package of graham crackers (one of the plastic packages in the box, or the whole box... no idea yet)

2oz Northern brewer @90
1oz Sterling @20

2g dried powdered ginger @5
6g of pumpkin pie spice @5
2lb Brown sugar @5

2ea vanilla beans in secondary for a week

Did you ever decide on the amount of graham crackers to use (whole box or just one plastic package)? Overall, it sounds like you could bake it and eat it

Yup! only difference was the hops. Did 3oz of crystal hops @90 and 1.5oz of crystal @20 as the shop was out of pellet hops of those guys.

As for the graham crackers... i just used the whole box, kinda said screw it... lets go out with a bang! sure as ****... this one is being ridiculous haha.

I'm excited to hear how this comes out. I'm intrigued in trying one of these holiday beers myself but it might have to wait for a different holiday (or next year)

the heirloom pumpkin barleywine from almanac was really good and the most prominent spice was clove. i would not normally put it in the lead, but i liked how it worked there.

here it is as of this morning. going to wait another week or so and grab a gravity sample and see where it stands



fermentation has slowed considerably... but i did take a video this morning...

https://vine.co/v/h6MzWndEMI1