Pumpkin Ale Brewday

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

fishkid

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 24, 2009
Messages
313
Reaction score
1
Location
Clawson, MI
Brewed up a Spiced Pumpkin Ale on Wednesday afternoon and thought I shared a couple of the pictures. This was the first batch I made a yeast starter for. Prior to this batch I've only used dry yeast. For this one, I made a starter for my WLP002 consisting of a 16oz of water and 1/2 cup of DME. Yesterday I had some pretty good airlock activity :ban:

On with the pics!

Loading the pumpkin into the kettle
batch11-1.jpg


Still piling it in, 3.3lbs of it!
batch11-2.jpg


Good boil going
batch11-3.jpg


Boiling
batch11-4.jpg


And here's a short video of the airlock activity. I think my yeast starter was a success! :rockin: (Don't mind the sound in the background, I think SWMBO was fighting with some dishes :D)
Airlock

Curt
 
That must have been one viscous boil!

For some reason, vigorous airlock activity from my brews always makes me feel proud.

-Steve
 
Next time you do a pumpkin brew you may want to try adding the pumpkin to the mash, that way (as you will see) you don't loose so much beer to the trub.

Either way it makes for a fantastic holiday beer!
 
Next time you do a pumpkin brew you may want to try adding the pumpkin to the mash, that way (as you will see) you don't loose so much beer to the trub.

Either way it makes for a fantastic holiday beer!

I can see what you mean, there's already a solid 2-3" cake forming on the bottom of the fermenter.


Curt
 
Well I just ran downstairs to check the beer and the trub has grown larger! It must be about 4" thick now! I'm beginning to hope that I'll be able to rack off at least a 12 pack from this "5 gallon" batch :D
 
My pumpkin ale exploded.... it was my first beer on ceiling brew. The trub was insane, but it was possibly my best beer ever.

On a plus note, if you have a cat that's in the room when the airlock blows off and the three pieces go flying.... well... it's a pretty funny sight!
 
I basically used the Richard's Pumpkin Ale recipe in the recipe database but made a few changes. I bumped the 2-row to 10lbs, dropped the maple syrup added 4oz of flaked wheat (hoping to help the head retention, but not sure if such a small amount will do anything), used U.S. Goldings rather than E.K Goldings, used WLP002 yeast rather than US-56 and did a 60 min. boil.

I had an O.G of 1.056

Code:
BeerSmith Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Pumpkin Spice Ale
Brewer: Curt
Asst Brewer: 
Style: Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (35.0) 

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.50 gal      
Boil Size: 7.08 gal
Estimated OG: 1.058 SG
Estimated Color: 9.4 SRM
Estimated IBU: 24.3 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount        Item                                      Type         % or IBU      

10.00 lb      Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)            Grain        78.43 %       
2.00 lb       Munich Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM)              Grain        15.69 %       
0.50 lb       Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM)     Grain        3.92 %        
0.25 lb       Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM)                   Grain        1.96 %        
0.50 oz       Northern Brewer [8.50 %]  (60 min)        Hops         13.4 IBU      
1.00 oz       Goldings, U.S. [4.50 %]  (30 min)         Hops         10.9 IBU      
0.25 tsp      Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 min)                Misc                       
1.50 tsp      Allspice (Boil 5.0 min)                   Misc                       
1.50 tsp      Nutmeg Spice (Boil 5.0 min)               Misc                       
2.50 tsp      Cinnamon Spice (Boil 5.0 min)             Misc                       
3.39 lb       Pumpkin (Boil 60.0 min)                   Misc                       
1 Pkgs        English Ale (White Labs #WLP002) [Starter Yeast-A


Curt
 
last pumpkin ale I made never stopped fermenting.. After 2 months I kegged it and called it done, but it never cleared
 
Nice Pics!

That brew looks mighty tasty. Thanks for sharing!

:mug:

Next time you do a pumpkin brew you may want to try adding the pumpkin to the mash, that way (as you will see) you don't loose so much beer to the trub.

Either way it makes for a fantastic holiday beer!

Would I add the pumpkin at the beginning of my mash?
 
just finishing mine up... im going to try and leave as much pumpkin behind as i can :) smells so wonderful though

hope your's turns out well :mug:
 
just finishing mine up... im going to try and leave as much pumpkin behind as i can :) smells so wonderful though

hope your's turns out well :mug:

Hope your turns out great as well! I'll tell you what, mine tasted really good going into the fermenter, I can only hope for the same coming out. I'm worried it might finish too dry.

Curt
 
If it finishes too dry I read some people use lactose in their pumpkin beers. I brewed up my first pumpkin yesterday and threw 4oz lactose in the boil. May add more later too.

I also added pumpkin to the boil (29oz can Libby's). Looks like I am in for some serious trub!

I look forward to hearing how yours turns out.
 
UPDATES:

I decided to pull a sample to test the gravity. Tonight the beer has been in the primary for 5 days. Hydrometer reads 1.014, so it might still be working a bit more. The beer tastes quite good. The spices are still very much up front but not overpowering but it seems the pumpkin taste has mellowed a bit. This is probably because all of the pumpkin is sitting at the bottom of the fermenter now :) I imagine this flavor will get stronger as the beer ages.

Here are a couple of photos:

batch11-8.jpg


batch11-9.jpg


batch11-10.jpg



Curt
 
wow that looks really good. I haven't tried a pumpkin beer, does anyone know if it tastes anything like pumpkin pie? because if so........................
 
wow that looks really good. I haven't tried a pumpkin beer, does anyone know if it tastes anything like pumpkin pie? because if so........................


pretty much does :)

nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, allspice, brown sugar and pumpkin :)
 
UPDATES:

I racked the pumpkin ale last night and took another gravity reading. Gravity was at 1.013.

I definitely lost a lot of beer to the pumpkin, here's my 5 gallon better bottle with the beer I was able to siphon off of the mess on the bottom of the fermenter
batch11-11.jpg


...and the mess it left...
batch11-12.jpg


I'm going to let it sit in the BB for a couple of weeks then condition it in bottles until Halloween. :mug:


Curt
 
How thick was that trub? If you put a fine mesh hop bag over the end of the siphon when racking think you could get more out?

And how did it taste? Was there a good pumpkin flavor?
 
How thick was that trub? If you put a fine mesh hop bag over the end of the siphon when racking think you could get more out?

And how did it taste? Was there a good pumpkin flavor?

The trub was about 4" thick. Unfortunately, I don't think a fine mesh bag would have helped much. I kept the siphon in pure liquid the whole time and I've already have a nice 3/4" cake building in the bottom of the carboy.

At this point the pumpkin flavor was very subtle. I could taste the pumpkin at the very end of the swallow, very briefly. The spices however were very upfront still and very aromatic.

I'm too new at this pumpkin beer thing to know whether or not that rich pumpkin flavor I had the first time around (before it all dropped out) will come back in bottle aging. I sure hope so :mug:

Curt
 
You should bake a pie out of the trub.:drunk:

-Nick

Now that would be interesting. It was nasty though, you should have seen the yeast underneath the pumpkin, this stuff was so thick I was shocked I could get it down the drain.

Curt

p.s. 100!
 
Just racked my pumpkin ale to secondary yesterday, I had about 4-5" of trub as well and lost quite a bit of beer to it. It tastes great, the pumpkin flavor is very subtle but I'm really happy with the color it imparted.

I'm really excited to start drinking these this fall!
 
I'm jealous of your 1.014 gravity after only 5 days. I just took a sample, I'm a week and only at 1.024. First time using WLP002.
 
Can you describe how you made your starter with the WLP002. I would like to get that kind of primary boil when I use that yeast this weekend.
 
Batch looks great...Looks very Tasty...Quick question though for my own education and pardon my ignorance if I missed it but was that a single mash infusion? Im making the AG transition now and am curious to learn as much as possible...Thanks
 
Can you describe how you made your starter with the WLP002. I would like to get that kind of primary boil when I use that yeast this weekend.

Sure thing, I made the starter on a Monday night after work, a little under 48 hours before I was going to pitch (I brewed this on the following Wednesday afternoon). Brought 16oz of water to a boil then added 1/2 cup of dry malt extract. Brought this to a boil for 10 minutes then put the pot in an ice batch to bring it down to 75F as quick as possible.

Once I hit pitching temps, I poured the wort into a sanitized half gallon growler bottle, shook the hell out of the WLP002 vial, then poured the vial into the growler. I used a sanitized piece of aluminum foil to cap off the top.

From then on, every time I thought about the starter I would run downstairs and swirl the growler for 30 seconds or so. Right before I pitched into my 5 gallons, I shook up the growler like it was going out of style, up/down/left/right upside down everything :) Then I pitched, stirred it in and called it done!

Curt
 
Batch looks great...Looks very Tasty...Quick question though for my own education and pardon my ignorance if I missed it but was that a single mash infusion? Im making the AG transition now and am curious to learn as much as possible...Thanks

Yes, single infusion with a mash out. It looked like this on my equipment:

14.66 qts @ 165.8F for a rest temp of 153F for 60 min
6.38 qts @ 208F for a rest temp of 168F for 10 min
Drain mash tun
14.6 qts @ 168F for a rest temp of 168F for 10 min
Drain mash tun
 
My pumpkin went down to 1.006 from 1.050 with California Ale yeast for some reason. As soon as I took the reading I threw the carboys in the fridge to stop fermentation. My plan is to kee pthem cold and add some lactose to get the body and sweetness back where I want it. I'll put 8 ounces in each.

This issue will also help met wait until it's more seasonal so the yeast can do a little extra clean up. Otherwise I'd probably be kegging tonight, shake carbing, and plow through the 10 gallons (minus substantial trub losses) before All Hallows Eve even gets here.
 
Early update, swore I wasn't going to tap into this before Halloween...I'm weak, only have a case left :) Tastes great, I will be brewing this yearly but a much bigger batch.

Sorry for the bad cell phone photo,

batch11-13.jpg


Curt
 
Back
Top