first attempt at building a recipie

I plan on brewing a marzen style ale with pumpkin, nutmeg, and orange. I used tasty brew to form a recipe, however this is my FIRST attempt at trying to build a recipe. so for all i know you may look at this and say "what the F*** is wrong with you?" regardless, i would love any feedback and inspiration.

ALL GRAIN
5 gallons

10 lbs. american 2-row pale
3 lbs. German munich
1 lbs. some kind of dextrin malt (any thoughts?)

1 oz. hallertau (60)
1 oz Tettnanger (30)
.5 oz. Sazz (5)

Yeast: ?????

i planned on using a few pumpkin pie pumpkins in my mash, but I really dont know if thats the right amount. I have 1 oz. minced orange peel i would use at 10 mins, some whole nutmeg (5 nuts worth) which i would use at 5 mins. i also planned on throwing in a little orange zest into secondary.

Anyway thats my ******* recipe, anyone want to help figure out how to fix it? since im assuming this recipe is "broken?

I don't think your recipe is broken at all. I do, however, have a couple of suggestions.

1. Ditch the dextrin malt. You're a mashing brewer; you should know how to use your equipment to get the dextrins you desire. Besides, that much Munich will add a wonderful chewy feel to the beer.

2. Use a very clean, neutral ale yeast and pitch plenty of it. S-05 or Nottingham should do the trick nicely. Control the fermentation temperature carefully; keep it on the cool side. Pitch and temperature control will give you the "clean as a lager" tone you're looking for.

3. I'd leave the other stuff out of it. Get the recipe dialed in before you go mucking about with fruit and/or spices.

Good luck!

Cheers,

Bob

You're on the right track. Since you're basically doing a pumpkin beer, I'd sub C60 for the dextrin malt. You might consider adding .75-1.0 Lbs of Victory to give it some nice biscuit flavor that's common in pumpkin beers. 3-4 Lbs of pumpkin should give you the flavor profile you're looking for.

Your hop varieties should be fine, but I'm not sure of the IBUs with the info you gave. Go for about 18-25 total, with 2/3 of them in your bittering addition and you should be fairly balanced. I agree with Bob that a neutral yeast would be best.

Be careful with the spices. You don't want to overdo it. I recently brewed a 5g batch of pumpkin beer and went with 1 tsp of pumpkin pie spice in the boil and added another 1/2 tsp at kegging and I thought it was just a bit too much, though others have found the level of spice to be just right. The takeaway should be that a little goes a long way, so don't get carried away with the spices.

Batch Size 5.500 gal Boil Size 6.394 gal
Boil Time 60.000 min Efficiency 70%
OG 1.068 FG 1.017
ABV 6.6% Bitterness 23.1 IBU (Tinseth)
Color 12.3 srm (Morey) Calories (per 12 oz.) 225
Fermentables

Total grain: 14.000 lb
Name Type Amount Mashed Late Yield Color
Briess - 2 Row Brewers Malt Grain 10.000 lb Yes No 80% 2.0 srm
Briess - Munich Malt 10L Grain 3.000 lb Yes No 76% 10.0 srm
Briess - Caramel Malt 60L Grain 1.000 lb Yes No 76% 60.0 srm
Hops

Name Alpha Amount Use Time Form IBU
Hallertau 4.5% 1.000 oz Boil 60.000 min Pellet 13.7
Tettnang 4.0% 1.000 oz Boil 30.000 min Pellet 9.4
Yeast

Name Type Form Amount Stage
WLP001 - California Ale Yeast Ale Liquid 2.367 tbsp Primary

good info! thanks!

However i already bought my grains, the recipie was another one i found that was tried and true. the spices i still plan on doing but i really want the flavors to be subtle. i have 1 oz. of minced orange, 5 whole nutmegs, and 2 pumpkin pie pumpkins. for a 5 gallon batch, does anyone have suggestions on amounts of each?

If it were my beer, I'd skip the pumpkin entirely. It's a ruddy mess to clean up, and it's too bland to really show up in the flavor profile. Pumpkin beers are usually spiced; you taste the pumpkin pie spices. So put in the spices and skip the actual pumpkin, that's my advice.

If you decide to keep the fruit, you'll have to dice it, boil it, and add the stringy muck to the mash. It'll add a few points of gravity, and it's the best way to extract what pitiful amounts of flavor it might provide.

ok new development, i was going to brew today, then i got called into work. and based on my schedule i wont be able to brew until at least sunday. unfortunately i already baked and mashed up the pumpkin. its in the fridge, but i'm not sure if it will keep. I know i can just brew without the pumpkin, but sue me, i want to try brewing with pumpkin. does anyone know if i should just buy more pumpkins and re-do the pumpkin on saturday? or will the "chilled" already mashed pumpkin will do fine until sunday?

stick it in the freezer. pull it out the night before brew day.

Mr Popeil is right. Have fun!

ok, im brewing tomorrow so i should be fine.

just out of curiosity, ive talked to a few brewers and some of them throw the mashed pumkin into the boil as well. this is kind of a general question, but what do i stand to benefit/detract from adding ingredients to the boil instead of mashing it? aka what does mashing an ingredient have to offer, and what does boiling an ingredient have to offer?

It's fruit. You'll get sugars out of it regardless. Boiling it can set pectins, promoting a haze which will never clear. Either way you're putting fermentables into the wort, so I don't see much of a difference other than preference. I've never done a side-by-side comparison of method, so I don't know for sure. But I'm sure there's some lunatic here on HBT who's done it and written up his experience. Theoretically, there should be no difference in how much sugar or flavor you get out of the fruit using either method, at least none that I can think of.

Bob

i figured the same thing, i dunno for the heck of it i added half of the pumpkin mash to the mash itself and the other half will go into the boil.