Pumpkin Ale

SWMBO wants a pumpkin ale. She has bought a pumpkin and will be roasting it.
I've looked for recipes and mostly find all grain. When an extract version is given it doesn't say what to do with the pumpkin. Should it be steeped?

I have a 2 gal water jug that I tried a mini mash in last time. I put near boiling water in it to heat it up and then 165* water for the mash and found I struggled to maintain 153*. It often dropped under 150*. Part of that was that I didn't check the temp until late in the mash as I figured it would hold well enough since I over heated it, and didn't want to let room temp air in. Now I know it doesn't. I'd be willing to try again.

The last recipe I looked at stated 8.25 lbs of extract plus pumpkin and brown sugar but claimed to be low 6% ABV. I've been seeing much higher attenuation than what the calculator gives and I easily get into the low 6% range with less than that (7 lbs and no extra sugars). I'd like to keep this beer between 5.2 and 5.8% ABV.

I'm also having a hard time matching hops. I've been considering Perle. Liberty, Tettnanger, Vanguard, Willamette, and Mt Hood are available too.

Check the recipe for Smashing Pumpkin Ale over on Northern Brewer's website. As I recall when I was looking for information on how to handle pumpkin for an extract beer, it described a steeping process.

Awesome! Thanks!

Just throw it in the boil. Look at this thread. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f76/thunderstruck-pumpkin-ale-ag-extract-versions-26699/

And remember that most of the flavor in a pumpkin beer comes from the spice, not from the actual pumpkin. Make the batch 'big' so that you can actually get the full 5 gallons that you want from it, because there will be a lot of pumpkin mess to it.

Couple other notes having just finished the primary on mine, the fermentation is going to aggressive and sloppy. the pumpkin makes it gooey, and definitely use a blow off tube.

I don't have a good means to strain the wort very well. I figured I'd get several large muslin bags and steep them in my brew pot while I'm steeping the crystal and special roast in a smaller pot.
I intend on making a 5 gal batch and fermenting in a 6.5 gal bucket.
I had thought that pumpkin added sugars, but entering it into the beer calculator showed it only added 1 ppg.

This is the recipe I finally came up with (taking from others):

5 lbs pilsen LME
1 lb Bavarian wheat DME
~5 lbs of roasted pumpkin
3/4 lbs light brown sugar
1/2 lb crystal 60
1/4 lb Briess special roast
1 1/2 Tbs pumpkin spice
1 oz Mt Hood (~6% AA) @ 60 mins
WLP 001

Anything look amiss?

rodwha said:

I don't have a good means to strain the wort very well. I figured I'd get several large muslin bags and steep them in my brew pot while I'm steeping the crystal and special roast in a smaller pot.
I intend on making a 5 gal batch and fermenting in a 6.5 gal bucket.
I had thought that pumpkin added sugars, but entering it into the beer calculator showed it only added 1 ppg.

This is the recipe I finally came up with (taking from others):

5 lbs pilsen LME
1 lb Bavarian wheat DME
~5 lbs of roasted pumpkin
3/4 lbs light brown sugar
1/2 lb crystal 60
1/4 lb Briess special roast
1 1/2 Tbs pumpkin spice
1 oz Mt Hood (~6% AA) @ 60 mins
WLP 001

Anything look amiss?

Click to expand...

I would skip the brown sugar and add a little bit of molasses instead. The brown sugar will dry it out because its mostly just cane sugar with molasses. I just made a pumpkin ale and added one teaspoon of spice. It was perfect. You are adding almost five times as much. Probably be okay adding less pumpkin too. Just my $.02

Or, you could make a beer, and a pumpkin pie. This is the appropriate use of all ingredients.