My pumkin ale turned out half Hefeweizen

Hey everybody,

A few of my friends and I made our first all grain Pumpkin Ale last month. Today was the unveiling (the bottles were finished carbonating), and much to our surprise, the ale tastes like a combination of a pumpkin ale and a hefeweizen.

Has this ever happened to anybody? In my opinion, the brew tastes great, it's just weird that it would turn out like this. Very hazy, wheaty.

Malt

9 lbs Pale Malt (2-row)
0.5 lbs Crystal 40L
0.5 lbs Crystal 120L
1 lb Aromatic Malt
0.5 lbs Special Roast
0.5 lbs Carapils
1 lb Brown Sugar

Hops

1.0 oz Magnum at 60 mins
0.5 oz Kent Golding at 30 mins
0.5 oz Kent Golding at 15 mins
1.0 oz Hallertauer at 5 mins

Yeast

London Ale (Wyeast) No starter

Method

-Half a can of baked Libby's pumpkin filling was added to mash.
-1 lb of baked pumpkin pulp was added to boil at 60 mins.
-Cinnamon, clove, allspice, nutmeg and 1 lbs of baked pumpkin pulp were added to the boil at 5 mins till flameout.
-Ginger was added into primary fermentor

-Transferred to secondary on day 15. The color of the beer started a dark brown, but at time of transfer to secondary, it was a hazy orange-brown. The coloring has stayed and now, upon pouring into beer glass the all is very hazy (like a wheat ale).

During fermentation, the carboy fluctuated between 69-77 degrees F.

I appreciate the feedback. I just want to know if this happens sometimes with "vegetable beers."

I've never used that yeast before but my best guess is that the high ferm. temp. (assuming that the 77 was in the first 3 days) bumped up the ester production similar to a hefe. I've never experienced this with my pumpkin ales (I use US-05).

Edit: at least its good!

You are probably seeing haze from unfermentable starches from the pumpkin added during the boil.

FRS said:

You are probably seeing haze from unfermentable starches from the pumpkin added during the boil.

Click to expand...

That makes sense, but I've seen pumpkin ales been done before with pumpkin, and those didn't get any haze. Once again, was it the fermentation temp that caused the starches to remain?

Its most definitely because you fermented so warm. 69-70 is which was your low temperature is already too high.

You need to figure out a way to keep your fermentation temperatures in the mid to low 60's if you want crisp clean ales.

Hefe's and other things like Saisons can be done in the upper 60's low 70's though.

Throw another one on the "fermented too warm" bandwagon.

My first brew was an English-style IPA. I hadn't heard of temperature control at that point, and it came out like a hoppy hefe. Got me a floating thermometer, a 15-gallon plastic bucket, and some half-gallon jugs to throw in the freezer; holding my beers to the low 60's during active fermentation has been smooth, unintentional-hefe-free sailing ever since.