pumpkin spice at bottling?

Wanting to try a pumpkin brew, but don't know if I want to do a full 5 gallons. Was thinking about brewing a 5 gallon batch (probably the Alaskan Amber clone from AHS), and splitting the batch at bottling time, putting some pumkin spice in half the batch.
Split the priming sugar in half and boiling some pumkin spice in half of it for 2.5 gallons and the other half, no spice. Does this sound like it would work? Don't really want to mess with adding pumpkin chunks or puree.

I think it'd be better to add the spices right from the start. That way they will have more time to age and mesh into the beer's flavor profile. But I'm sure what you're thinking of will work perfectly well.

Yes, spices at bottling is pretty typical. A good rule of thumb to go by: anything with starch or oil goes in the mash eg. pumpkin, any adjunct that you want flavor or aroma from goes in late boil or secondary eg fruit, honey, dry hops. Anything particulate like spices goes in at bottling. Obviously there is room to play with these. I put the coffee in my coffee porter during cool down and pull it out before the wort goes into the fermenter. Many put it in the secondary. Bottling makes adding spices easy too because you can boil them in with your priming sugar. Just be careful you don't boil too hard or you'll end up with a goopy mess.

Oh and the contribution of anything from pumpkin in beer is pretty negligible. Every year I go into my LBHS to brew a pumpkin ale, the owner always shakes his head at me that I add pumpkin at all. For me, I don't know I could morally make a pumpkin beer with no pumpkin in it, but he's right. The flavor we all perceive pumpkin to be is not the pumpkin, it's the spices in the pie we make from pumpkins.

Hey, thanks for the replies. Sounds like I can go with my original plan and split the batch at bottling and add pumpkin spice to half the batch. Any thoughts on how much? Was thinking maybe a tablespoon for the 2.5 gallons.

I went to pull my AHS Pumpkin Ale recipe sheet thinking it had the amount of spices written on it, turns out the spice packet had the measurements (of which I threw away)!

But, I think you'd be safe with a tablespoon of Pumpkin Pie Spice from McCormick or some other spice brand. Maybe try mixing some in with a measured amount of flat wort and scale up from there to your liking.

The concoction I've used in the past is: .25 tsp ginger root, .5 tsp each allspice, cloves, nutmeg, 1 tsp cinnamon. That's for 5gal. I thought it was right on, SWMBO thought it could use more. Not sure what the ratios are of each in the premixed stuff.

Added 2 tsp of dry pumkin spice to priming sugar in the boil, added to bottling bucket racked beer ontop of the mixture and my observation was of slight disapointment, some settled to the bottom and some floated ontop not mixing in well, I have a feeling the last 6 bottles will be over powering with spice!

Yeah, the spice can tend to settle to the bottom of the bottling bucket. I've found it helps to very gently stir while bottling to keep the spices suspended and therefore evenly distributed.

Yertah-Brewha & Cincydave,

After posting this, I realized that cincydave was the OP for this thread. Please pardon my attempt at humor/sarcasm. You certainly have the right to bring back your own thread.

Thanks for resurrecting this thread that had been dead for over 2 years. Nevertheless, I think it's more helpful to add information to an old thread than starting too many new threads.

I brewed a pumpkin ale (see link in my signature). I have 2 more bottles remaining, so I may go pop one open now. It's overcarbed.

When I wanted to brew a pumpkin ale, I researched in several places. Some folks claim that real pumpkin doesn't really add much to the flavor of the finished beer - it may add some mouthfeel. They claim that it is the spices that you taste that fake your brain into thinking that you're drinking a pumpkin beer.

I found the following posting in a thread on the morebeer forum:
http://forums.morebeer.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=23534&p=231385&hilit=+pumpkin+vodka+#p231385
If you don't want to go there, I'll copy and paste it here:

Greg Muller’s Spice Extract - from the above link

Spice Extract:
add the following fresh spices to a 750 ml. bottle of vodka:
3 t sp. Cinnamon
1.5 t sp. Allspice
1.5 t sp. Nutmeg
1.5 t sp. Clove
1.5 tsp. Ginger

After a couple of weeks, the vodka has picked up the spice flavors nicely. I decant off the "pumpkin vodka" from the spices, and carefully add it to a 12 ounce serving of the pumpkin beer that has been in the secondary. It usually takes 1-2 ml. to make the beer taste the way I want (this year, 1.8 ml.). From there, it is all math. Assume approx. fifty 12-ounce beers in a 5 gallon batch (I make 5.5 gallons, but lose approx. 1/2 gallon in racking/sampling, etc.). 1.8 x 50 = 90 ml. of the "pumpkin vodka" to add to the finished beer, either while priming the beer, or transferring to the keg. This results in a much more consistent end product.

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Purists might refer to the above as a spice tincture instead of an extract.

I'm thinking, the next time I decide to brew a pumpkin beer, that I will simply brew an amber ale and add the spice tincture at bottling time to see if I prefer it.

Thanks,
Keith

kzimmer0817 said:

When I wanted to brew a pumpkin ale, I researched in several places. Some folks claim that real pumpkin doesn't really add much to the flavor of the finished beer - it may add some mouthfeel. They claim that it is the spices that you taste that fake your brain into thinking that you're drinking a pumpkin beer.

I'm thinking, the next time I decide to brew a pumpkin beer, that I will simply brew an amber ale and add the spice tincture at bottling time to see if I prefer it.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure I could morally call a pumpkin beer I brewed a pumpkin beer without putting pumpkin in it.

Spintab said:

I'm not sure I could morally call a pumpkin beer I brewed a pumpkin beer without putting pumpkin in it.

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I agree. It would sound antithetical to homebrewing to say "Pumpkin Flavored Beer". I'm sure that I would simply call it a Spiced Ale.

The recipe I made was that of Reno eNVy. There are a couple other that developed into mile-long threads. There's plenty of debate over when to use the pumpkin if you're going to use it.
1. raw pumpkin vs baked pumpkin
2. mash with it vs boil with it
There are other options. I took the advice that sounded good and baked mine, then steeped with it as I heated my water to strike temp. I was doing BIAB.

Thanks for the admonition,
Keith

Spintab said:

The flavor we all perceive pumpkin to be is not the pumpkin, it's the spices in the pie we make from pumpkins.

Click to expand...

Some of each, I beg to say.....if you just add pumpkin spice to beer, it's spiced beer, not pumpkin beer....yeah, pumpkin is subtle, but it definitely does have flavor....there's a world of difference between pumpkin cheesecake (w/o spices) and regular cheesecake. Not that I'd want pumpkin nor pumpkin pie spices in any beer I'm going to make or drink, but, hey...to each his own I was a baker for many many years, I know all about pumpkin flavor vs spice flavors...

That's like Starbucks, Pumpkin Spice Latte, no pumpkin, just pumpkin spice.

I could not in good mind make a pumpkin ale without pumpkin

I may try an extract version of an amber ale, but steep the baked pumpkin as I did when I brewed Reno eNVy's recipe (that I did by BIAB). Then, I may try the spice tincture at bottling. I would be adding the pumpking for mouth feel, then spicing it up at bottling.

Keith