Autumn Seasonal Beer Samhain Pumpkin Ale

CornyKegs 728
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Yep, I never looked it up, just went with Brewmaster's Warehouse's numbers. It won't make a big difference in color though, both being relatively low.
 
I'm just getting started in this, but I'm liking the idea of trying this as my second batch, ready in time for Thanksgiving I'm hoping... I have a newbie question for you.

The first batch I made had was grain-only. I put the grains into a mesh bag, and brewed it like a big teabag during the "mash" step, then sparged. From your recipe, I'm trying to figure out how to include the pumpkin in the mash, and then sparge it later. Should I include it in the mesh bag as I did with the grain?

EDIT: First batch was a partial Mash brew, not all-grain. After looking into the basics of all-grain brewing, I understand more of the difference.

Also, do you only do a primary fermentation on this? No secondary?

Thanks for your patience in dealing with a newbie.
 
mscrowley said:
I'm just getting started in this, but I'm liking the idea of trying this as my second batch, ready in time for Thanksgiving I'm hoping... I have a newbie question for you.

The first batch I made had was grain-only. I put the grains into a mesh bag, and brewed it like a big teabag during the "mash" step, then sparged. From your recipe, I'm trying to figure out how to include the pumpkin in the mash, and then sparge it later. Should I include it in the mesh bag as I did with the grain?

EDIT: First batch was a partial Mash brew, not all-grain. After looking into the basics of all-grain brewing, I understand more of the difference.

Also, do you only do a primary fermentation on this? No secondary?

Thanks for your patience in dealing with a newbie.
Click to expand...

No problem, everyone had to start somewhere! To answer your questions, yes, the pumpkin would go straight into the bag with the grain. It will probably make draining the bag a slower process, but should work well.

A 3-4 week primary fermentation is fine for this beer. If you want to secondary, there's no harm in it and it will help your beer clear more quickly and you will avoid having as much sediment in the bottle. But primary only works almost as well and is easier.:)
 
Well, after all this talk about the beer, I thought I would try one of the 12 bottles I was cellaring from last year to see how it's aged. Very well is the answer! The flavors are even deeper and rounder now than before. It poured a beautiful crystal clear deep copper orange with a big, rocky, shining white head. The aroma is all malt and caramel with the faintest hint of spice. It is the sweet toasty malt and rich caramel flavors that strike you first upon taking a sip. The spice then comes in to ride the gentle bitterness through the crisp, dry finish. Mouthfeel is very round and supple. An obvious sign of the pumpkin. There is also a slight tartness that carries through below the other flavors that is definitely from the pumpkin. Overall, it is a wonderful beer, and if anyone who has made it can keep from drinking it all, it's well worth aging.

Check this out:
DSC_3693NEF.jpg
 
KingBrianI said:
As for the name, Samhain was a Celtic festival marking the end of the summer and the end of the harvest. It has influenced other holidays including one we are all familiar with that is celebrated around the same time, Halloween. Villagers would build great bonfires on the evening of Samhain and let all of the hearthfires in their houses die out. They would then take new flames from the bonfire and relight their own fires which would continue to heat their houses and cook their food until the next Samhain. I realize pumpkin would not have been a crop known to the people inhabiting the British Isles when this festival took place, but I think we can brew it and enjoy it in similar celebration of the harvest and the year gone, and in preparation for the cold winter and the new year. Cheers!:mug:
Click to expand...

Another interesting thing about Samhain is that was the day you were supposed to take inventory of your winter grain and livestock. Those animals that could not be fed all winter were slaughtered and served at a Samhain feast.

I'm brewing this beer this weekend and hope to debut it at a Samhain BBQ.
 
Saturday will be 2 weeks in the primary. Bubbles in the airlock have turned to a turtles pace, but I'm not rushing this one. The suspense is killing me!
 
I was thinking about mixing up a couple of pounds of brown sugar in the pumpkin before I roast it. I thought is might help to caramelize it and give it a sweetness. Thoughts?
 
Ragutis said:
I was thinking about mixing up a couple of pounds of brown sugar in the pumpkin before I roast it. I thought is might help to caramelize it and give it a sweetness. Thoughts?
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Couldn't hurt! The only thing I'd be worried about is the beer ending up too boozy with all the sugar. I guess you could replace some of the base grain with the sugar but the resulting beer would be a bit thinner. Either mash higher or take some other measure to ensure the beer doesn't go too thin.
 
Could anyone give some guidance on translating this recipe to extract? (i know, i know, but my apartment and budget at the moment make AG an impossibility.) My quick googling says that I should take your 8lbs of golden promise 2 row and multiply that by .6 to get the amount of DME. (4.8lbs) which parts of the other grains involved could be substituted with DME/LME or should they all go in a specialty grain bag? Are rice hulls necessary if I'm using extract or are they just to aid in lautering?

cheers!
 
dhoerr said:
Could anyone give some guidance on translating this recipe to extract? (i know, i know, but my apartment and budget at the moment make AG an impossibility.) My quick googling says that I should take your 8lbs of golden promise 2 row and multiply that by .6 to get the amount of DME. (4.8lbs) which parts of the other grains involved could be substituted with DME/LME or should they all go in a specialty grain bag? Are rice hulls necessary if I'm using extract or are they just to aid in lautering?

cheers!
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, this beer isn't that easy to convert to an extract and steep recipe. The toasted malt, wheat malt, and pumpkin all require mashing. You could probably get pretty close to this recipe by substituting DME for the 2-row like you mentioned, and steeping the toasted malt, wheat malt and crystal malt. You probably wouldn't get much conversion, but maybe a little from the toasted malt and wheat malt if you held it around 155 for 30 minutes. Then just add the pumpkin to the boil. You'll have a bunch more trub that way, and the flavor may be slightly different, but you'll get the pumpkin in the beer and it should be close to the original recipe.
 
When you calculated your mash and sparge volumes, how did you account for the pumpkin? I use http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php to calculate my volumes and I'm not sure what to do about the pumpkin.
It seems like a good recipe and has received rave reviews, so I plan on giving it a go this weekend. Thanks in advance!...oh and, I apologize if this question has already been asked, I'm just too lazy to scroll through the posts :)
 
Wildebeest said:
When you calculated your mash and sparge volumes, how did you account for the pumpkin? I use http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php to calculate my volumes and I'm not sure what to do about the pumpkin.
It seems like a good recipe and has received rave reviews, so I plan on giving it a go this weekend. Thanks in advance!...oh and, I apologize if this question has already been asked, I'm just too lazy to scroll through the posts :)
Click to expand...

Good luck finding canned pumpkin! I was planning on brewing this one this weekend as well, but there is a huge canned pumpkin shortage and no stores down here have any in stock. Hell, I even considered ordering some on ebay, seeing as thought it's the only place that seems to have any!
 
Wildebeest said:
When you calculated your mash and sparge volumes, how did you account for the pumpkin? I use http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php to calculate my volumes and I'm not sure what to do about the pumpkin.
It seems like a good recipe and has received rave reviews, so I plan on giving it a go this weekend. Thanks in advance!...oh and, I apologize if this question has already been asked, I'm just too lazy to scroll through the posts :)
Click to expand...

I figure since the pumpkin has both liquid and solids in it, and probably in a pretty similar ratio to the mash, it can be essentially ignored. I don't have any problems when doing it this way.
 
well, I brewed my pumpkin ale this evening. In the end it worked out ok, but it was a frustrating journey. I missed my mash temp as well as my OG so had to use some DME to make up the difference. Guess I'll just have to wait to find out how it ends.

BTW I don't necessarily recommend combining the following set of firsts:
1) first AG attempt
2) first pumpkin ale attempt
3) first time using a new MLT
4) first time trying a no-sparge technique

I thought I had it all figured out. You should see my spreadsheet with all the my pretty little numbers. Not a single thing worked like I planned. The pumpkin ale just laughed at my spreadsheet all night long.
 
I brewed this recipe last weekend also but couldn't find any pumpkin so I used sweet potatoes. I substituted straight across lb for lb for the pumpkin and ran it through the same roasting regimen.
I added 2 lbs of rice hulls to avoid a stuck sparge and had no problem doing a 75 minute fly sparge.
The wort tasted great. I used Target hops to bitter and Burton yeast. OG was 1.062 on my 12 gallon batch.
I'll let you know how it turns out when I tap it on Samhain.
 
JLem said:
well, I brewed my pumpkin ale this evening. In the end it worked out ok, but it was a frustrating journey. I missed my mash temp as well as my OG so had to use some DME to make up the difference. Guess I'll just have to wait to find out how it ends.

BTW I don't necessarily recommend combining the following set of firsts:
1) first AG attempt
2) first pumpkin ale attempt
3) first time using a new MLT
4) first time trying a no-sparge technique

I thought I had it all figured out. You should see my spreadsheet with all the my pretty little numbers. Not a single thing worked like I planned. The pumpkin ale just laughed at my spreadsheet all night long.
Click to expand...

And to top things off, it's been 60ish hours and no sign of fermentation - I checked the gravity and it's still sitting there at 1.052. What are the chances that my first really frustrating brew session if followed by my first fermentation problem? It must be a coincidence, right? :mad:
 
I am getting ready to brew a 10.5 gallon batch of this this weekend. Should I double the amount of pumpkin, spices, and molasses?

Thanks
 
I will be using US-05 for this, what should my mash temp be? Also I just realized I selected crushed for my 2lbs of rice hulls from Midwest that is in route....., now what? Stuck sparge? 60qt Igloo Ice cube with copper manifold double batch sparging.
 
sco999 said:
I will be using US-05 for this, what should my mash temp be? Also I just realized I selected crushed for my 2lbs of rice hulls from Midwest that is in route....., now what? Stuck sparge? 60qt Igloo Ice cube with copper manifold double batch sparging.
Click to expand...

A 60 minute mash at 154 F should be good. And I wouldn't worry about the rice hulls. I'm sure Midwest won't crush them and even if they did, they're thin enough and springy enough they would pass right through.
 
KingBrianI

What carb level did you shoot for? How many gallons did you end up with after trub loss?

Thanks for all your help!!!!
 
sco999 said:
KingBrianI

What carb level did you shoot for? How many gallons did you end up with after trub loss?

Thanks for all your help!!!!
Click to expand...

I kegged it then transferred some to bottles so I'm not sure of the exact carb level but it's probably right around 2 volumes. That would be a good level to shoot for. I usually end up right around 5.5 gallons after trub loss but the amount of trub will be different for everyone.
 
JLem said:
And to top things off, it's been 60ish hours and no sign of fermentation - I checked the gravity and it's still sitting there at 1.052. What are the chances that my first really frustrating brew session if followed by my first fermentation problem? It must be a coincidence, right? :mad:
Click to expand...

let me guess Nottingham?
 
300RUM said:
let me guess Nottingham?
Click to expand...

no - I used WLP001 (Cal Ale). I pitched the vial into a 1/2 gallon starter ~12 hours before pitching. I noticed that my stir plate generated a lot of heat and I wonder if the starter got hot enough to kill the yeast (though I would be surprised if got THAT hot).

FWIW I added a rehydrated packet of S-05 after waiting 72 hours with no fermentation and things are bubbling away now. I've got my fingers crossed on this one.
 
Did you do a whole 5 plus gallon mash? If not can you put down an better detailed mash instructions?
 
Random_Guy said:
I only ask because I don't have the means of milling.
Click to expand...

You can put the toasted grain in a bag and go over it with a rolling pin or a wine bottle or something if you need to crush it. Just get it cracked up pretty good and add it to the rest of you already crushed grain.

munklunk said:
...its a regular mash. Get an online calculator to put together your strike and sparge volumes and temps, and mash @ 152 with the pumpkin and rice hulls included in the mash. Sparge normally.

This is my go to: http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php
Click to expand...

+1:mug:
 
KingBrianI said:
You can put the toasted grain in a bag and go over it with a rolling pin or a wine bottle or something if you need to crush it. Just get it cracked up pretty good and add it to the rest of you already crushed grain.



+1:mug:
Click to expand...

I was going to do that with those grains. It wasn't a lot, I just wanted to know.

Thanks for the heads up!!!
 
If you don't have a mill, always make sure you order your grains milled from whatever Brew Store you get your stuff from. If you go to a walk-in store, they should have mills there. Either way, your grains need to be crushed to get good results.
 
munklunk said:
If you don't have a mill, always make sure you order your grains milled from whatever Brew Store you get your stuff from. If you go to a walk-in store, they should have mills there. Either way, your grains need to be crushed to get good results.
Click to expand...

Yeah. I normally go that. I just wanted to make sure I got the grain to be toasted in its right form. I can handle the rest.:rockin:

:mug:
 

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