Spiced Pumpkin Braggot

I've been chasing the perfect pumpkin brew for awhile now, so while gazing upon my ingredients that were scattered around from previous brews, It was an easy decision at 2AM to make a Spiced Pumpkin Braggot. Maybe I just wanted to go to sleep, maybe it was the right thing to do, but when I woke up this morning it still seemed like a good idea...so I love it when a plan comes together.

(From Brew Pal):
Spiced Pumpkin Braggot

Batch size 5 gallons
Original gravity 1.094
Final gravity 1.021 (est)
Alcohol (by volume) 9.5% (est)
Bitterness (IBU) 10
Color (SRM) 13.7°L
Yeast Dry -- Danstar Nottingham Ale

Grains/Extracts/Sugars:
16.02 pounds
Liquid Sugar - Honey
40ppg, 1°L 9.2 pounds
57.4%
Pumpkin
10ppg, 20°L 5.4 pounds
33.7%
Dry Malt - Light
43ppg, 5°L 0.82 pounds
5.1%
Dry Malt - Amber
43ppg, 10°L 0.6 pounds
3.7%

Hops:
1 ounce
Crystal hops
4.6%, Whole 1 ounce

Carmelize Pumpkin Starches:
350°F in oven
60 minutes

Pumpkin Mash:
Strike
Target 155°F 1.2 gallons
156°F
15 minutes

Sparge
Target 170°F 1.2 gallons
165°F

Boil
60 minutes, 4 gallons
3 t. Gypsum
3t. Yeast nutrient
Crystal hops
4.6%, Whole 1 ounce
65 minutes (+-15)
Wort chiller 7 minutes

Spices at flameout:
1 t. Ceylon cinnamon
1/2 t. Allspice
1/2 t. Ginger root
1/4 t. Nutmeg
1/4 t. Cloves

Ferment:
Primary 21 days @ 57-70°F
Secondary 14 days @ 57-70°F
Tertiary 45 days 57-70°F


Just thought I'd share. We shall see how this turns out, but it certainly tasted nice going into the primary fermentor.

any updates?

Yes, thank you for asking.

It's still in the tertiary fermenter. I have entirely left it alone until about 2 days ago. I took a sample with the wine thief and checked the gravity as well. I was right at 1.010 FG. I was afraid it would taste like pumpkin jet fuel, but it's actually quite good. Moderate to strong alcohol taste, but definitely quite good with an excellent pumpkin flavor and excellent spice notes.

I plan on bottling soon and waiting until fall 2012 to really crack into it. I will update at that time.

[Edited to add: I was initially concerned that this would finish too sweet, but it was not, nor was it dry. Again, the FG was normal at 1.100 and the inclusion of hops helped a great deal.]

Okay, I actually kegged this last week and it did finish a little bit sweet, but not overly sweet. It definitely smells and tastes like pumpkin, and is moderately strong in alcohol taste. It's very drinkable and SWMBO approves greatly!

Nice. I can't wait 'til I get into all grain brewing to give this a shot.

So many recipes I want to try, so little cash...

From the way I'm reading this, it looks like there's no grains being used to mash the pumpkin. Did I miss something?


-Kingboomer

BoxMan said:

Nice. I can't wait 'til I get into all grain brewing to give this a shot.

So many recipes I want to try, so little cash...

Click to expand...

All grain can be done, I've heard, fairly inexpensively with the Brew In A Bag method. Just google it sometime. That's what I'm gonna try for the same reason. $$$

Cool, I'll look into it. I've seen it mentioned on here before, but seeing as I'm just starting out, I kind of glazed over it.

Also, I just noticed this recipe uses extracts, so I don't know what I was thinking. I'll probably give this a shot sooner rather than later.

Easy to understand the confusion... I use the terms strike, sparge, etc... due to my Brew Pal program.

But, you could add some barley grains to convert any sugars from the pumpkin maybe, and add rolled oats while you're converting anyway? I didn't because I was using ingredients I had laying around and trying to make the batch quickly and didn't want to deal with a protein rest with oats.

Cool, thanks for the clarification. I'm deffinitely going to get a batch of this going soon for the next fall.


-Kingboomer


Edit: dumb question, did you use whole clove? Thanks!

I just ended up using powdered cloves

So if I were to use whole I'm thinking one or two tops. Thanks man!


-Kingboomer

Ok, this is sounding really good, but I'm thinking sparkling mead or cyser. It depends on what variety of honey I can find this summer.

Beernik said:

Ok, this is sounding really good, but I'm thinking sparkling mead or cyser. It depends on what variety of honey I can find this summer.

Click to expand...

I only go the sparkling route myself, this mead included