Autumn Seasonal Beer Punkin' Ale

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FG of 1.075 right at 2 gallons. I'd already pitched the yeast, so couldn't add water and recheck. I added a half gallon of water to wort. Hoping that doesn't bring it below 1.065. I always screw something up! Will still be decent I hope.
 
Here's last years batch. Next weekend I'll
Be brewing a 5 gallon batch of pumpkin ale
Again. I can't wait!

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Nice! It's that time of year when everybody is brewing pumpkin ales. Thanks for taking an interest in mine!

And regardless of OG/FG, amount of spice, etc., I always give this brew 6-8 weeks in the keg/bottles before having the first one. It seems like a while but it really is worth it.
 
Yeah. The flavor a did tend to come together by the end of the keg for me last year.
 
Has anyone had had any success baking the pumpkin the night before and leaving it out to cool overnight? Looking for a time saver! Thanks for the help
 
glick said:
Has anyone had had any success baking the pumpkin the night before and leaving it out to cool overnight? Looking for a time saver! Thanks for the help

Not sure when you brew or if your oven has a timer, but I put mine in the oven at bed time and have it start at around seven AM to get a head start. I do the same thing when using oats in a nut brown. I also will pour my strike water the night before so I can just wake up and turn on the burner to get started in the morning.
 
Brewed a wicked pumpkin brew last year for thanksgiving at the lady's family. Rimmed the glass with cinnamon sugar! Can't wait to do it again this year
 
Not sure when you brew or if your oven has a timer, but I put mine in the oven at bed time and have it start at around seven AM to get a head start. I do the same thing when using oats in a nut brown. I also will pour my strike water the night before so I can just wake up and turn on the burner to get started in the morning.

I never even thought to look and see if my oven has a timer!!! Thanks for the great idea!:mug:
 
Hosting a small homebrew contest for the best pumpkin brew if anyone might be interested prizes for the winner. looking for 10 entries already have two. Check out our YouTube page for the video on it. Should be fun. Cheers.
 
So is everyone pitching 2 packs of S05? That's not too much for a beer this size?

Going off the original recipe and according to MrMalty, you need 1.1 11.5g packets of dry yeast (properly rehydrated, 90% viability) for 5 gallons of this beer at 1.065. You could probably get away with using one if you rehydrate, but it's generally better to overpitch rather than underpitch, especially if you're unsure of your viability. If you're just sprinkling on top of the wort, you'll lose a lot of viability, therefore, you will definitely need to use 2 11.5g packets.

I would use 2 packets either way.
 
i pitched 2 re-hydrated packets last week had lots of activity the past week, actually had to swap out blow tubes b/c the first one got clogged. doesn't help that I have fermcap but never remember to use but the krausen got up there pretty good!
 
Why would you use 2 11.5 packets if MR Malty says to use 1 ?
the site does not say anything about losing viability - thanks just curious
 
Why would you use 2 11.5 packets if MR Malty says to use 1 ?
the site does not say anything about losing viability - thanks just curious

MrMalty says to use 1.1, so instead of using part of a 2nd packet, I'd just use the whole thing. From everything I've read overpitching is better than under, so I try to err on the side of overpitching to minimize off flavors and ensure I have plenty of healthy yeast to do the job. I also can't be sure exactly how viable my yeast is, so that has to be taken into consideration. If MrMalty said to use exactly 1 packet, then I'd say it was close enough and just use one. Ideally I would pitch exactly the right amount.

MrMalty's calculator assumes that you are rehydrating the yeast. If you don't rehydrate and just sprinkle your yeast on top of the wort, you can lose up to 60% viability. That's why you'd go from 1.1 rehydrated packs to 2 packs sprinkled. Yeast isn't that expensive considering the time you spend brewing this beer, and you want to make sure you have enough to to the job right.

**I should add the disclaimer that I am not a yeast scientist or anything, just a regular homebrewer. I'm just relaying the knowledge I have aquired from the things I've read over the years. The rehydrate vs sprinkle as well as the overpitching vs underpitching debates have been going on for a long while, and there are plenty of differing opinions. I just tend to go with the opinions based on science rather than the "It worked/works for me" ones. :mug:
 
MrMalty says to use 1.1, so instead of using part of a 2nd packet, I'd just use the whole thing. From everything I've read overpitching is better than under, so I try to err on the side of overpitching to minimize off flavors and ensure I have plenty of healthy yeast to do the job. I also can't be sure exactly how viable my yeast is, so that has to be taken into consideration. If MrMalty said to use exactly 1 packet, then I'd say it was close enough and just use one. Ideally I would pitch exactly the right amount.

MrMalty's calculator assumes that you are rehydrating the yeast. If you don't rehydrate and just sprinkle your yeast on top of the wort, you can lose up to 60% viability. That's why you'd go from 1.1 rehydrated packs to 2 packs sprinkled. Yeast isn't that expensive considering the time you spend brewing this beer, and you want to make sure you have enough to to the job right.

**I should add the disclaimer that I am not a yeast scientist or anything, just a regular homebrewer. I'm just relaying the knowledge I have aquired from the things I've read over the years. The rehydrate vs sprinkle as well as the overpitching vs underpitching debates have been going on for a long while, and there are plenty of differing opinions. I just tend to go with the opinions based on science rather than the "It worked/works for me" ones. :mug:

Rajun, excellent info thanks ! I would have never thought the .1 would even be worth talking about. You make some great points.
 
Subscribed! Next brew... did anyone try toasted pumpkin seeds with this?

Toasted pumpkin seeds added to the brew or alongside drinking it? Because I've done the latter for sure :mug:




Also, great discussion earlier about the yeast pitching. You've pretty much covered what I was planning on responding. I use two packets because basically:

- Overpitching is better than underpitching. From experience and from reading about others experiences, I've noticed no issues with overpitching.

- 1.1 packets is recommended if the yeast was packaged today. Viability needs to be taken into account. As rajun50 said, no rehydration can severely drop viability... and dernit, sometimes I just want to sprinkle it on.

- S-05 is crazy cheap at my LHBS... so meh, why not in order to ensure strong fermentation.



Once again, good luck to everybody brewing this. Please post your results, and remember, pics or it didn't happen. :)
 
I brewed a pumpkin ale on 8/4 but with a different recipe (I read almost every post here before though). I left all sugars out of the boil and added 1lb of honey on day 2 of fermentation and a half pound of brown sugar (light/dark mix) over the next 24 h. has been sitting at just below 68 °F since 8/4 and I want to keep it there until at least 8/14 (10 days). However, I need to vacate my fermentation cooler soon because I want to brew a wet hop IPA/APA :rockin:, most likely on 8/22. By then I will have racked the beer into secondary and added spices (I brewed without them). Would it be OK to cold-crash the ale in the secondary for a while, then bottle and store at room temp?

Many thanks. :mug:
 
Brewed this today and everything went surprisingly well. I have never brewed a a pumpkin beer before and after doing some reading I was concerned about a stuck sparge with the pumpkin in the mash. I added 1 pound of rice hulls to the mash and never looked back!! Vorlauf took a little longer then usual, but the mash tun drained like the pumpkin wasn't even there. This was also my first mash with a bazooka screen in the tun so that could have helped too. Smelled awesome going into the fermenter, I can't wait to try this one! Thanks for the recipe.
 
It is Reno beer night! I am brewing five gallons of pumkin ale. While drinking a pint of Reno's orange honey hefe (only I left out the orange)




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Cheers to you Reno!
 
Brewed this a week ago today. Did the extract recipe and got a OG of 1.070. Pitched two packs of S04. Took a FG reading today and it was at 1.014.
 
So I had a good and bad brew night. I fixed some efficiency issues I had on the last couple of batches and got back to 70% (BIAB), and hit my numbers. The bad news was that I forgot to add the pie spices to the boil. So I will have to do a tincture at kegging time. I have heard that spices done post boil will taste stronger, so I may need to scale down the amount of spices that I add. Has anyone here had any experience with that?
 
Brewing this up right now and may have accidentally used 7 lbs pilsner and 13 lbs 2 row in a 10 gal batch instead of 20 lbs of 2 row is this gonna screw this whole thing up
 
Baking the pumpkin this evening along with a small yeast starter since I only have one package of 05 on hand. I love the smell of the pumpkin baking.

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Brewed up a batch on Friday. That wort boiled delicious. The samples I took were great and they were still unfermented. Lets hope it tastes as good when it is ready, though I am not going to even taste it again until at least October.
 
Need to brew this tomorrow and only have 1 oz of hallertau for it. I have some Kent Golding or fuggle to replace the other ounce. If I used one of them for the 60 min addition, any preference? I also have perle, tettnang, and willamette. I don't know if it will make much of a difference since it is 60 min, but I want this to be as close as possible since I am going to be serving it at a beer fest and want it to be the best I can make it. I hope 6 weeks will be enough time to meld everything together!
 
Brewday went nice and smooth. Ended right on with 1.065 OG. Cooled and just pitched both packs of us05. I have to tell you this is easily the best tasting wort I've tasted. Wow.
 
D_Nyholm said:
Need to brew this tomorrow and only have 1 oz of hallertau for it. I have some Kent Golding or fuggle to replace the other ounce. If I used one of them for the 60 min addition, any preference? I also have perle, tettnang, and willamette. I don't know if it will make much of a difference since it is 60 min, but I want this to be as close as possible since I am going to be serving it at a beer fest and want it to be the best I can make it. I hope 6 weeks will be enough time to meld everything together!
Of those hops, the Tettenang or Perle is closest to Hallertau. The Tettenang is prob the best choice for flavor comparison. This is a spiced ale however so hop selection isn't really critical. Pro-rate your addition by alpha-acid and you'll be fine (I.e. 1oz of a 5% AA hop =0.5 oz of a 10% AA)

n240sxguy said:
I'm getting ready to brew this Monday morning. What's the best yeast out of S-04, S-05, and Nottingham?

If you have a preference use whichever. They are all pretty close. S-04 and Notty are going to provide a slight tartness and , for me that would make the US-05 the best choice but it's really personal preference.

Reno may have better thoughts.
 
n240sxguy said:
I'm getting ready to brew this Monday morning. What's the best yeast out of S-04, S-05, and Nottingham?

IMO with the incredible flavor already in the wort sticking with something that's going to keep it as close to that flavor as possible is best.
 
From my experiences, S-05 and Notty give you a clean yeast profile when fermented cooler (low 60's) whereas S-04 is more bready like the Whitbread strains.

Personally I prefer the former two choices... allows everything else to shine through.
 
Has anyone tossed in a couple oz of special B into this?

Planning on making this this weekend and thought it might be a nice addition as well as a bourbon soaked vanilla bean
 
Made a batch this weekend, thanks for the recipe! Pretty much used exactly what you have although I used Northern Brewer for bittering, and only 9lbs of 2-row. Cooked the pumpkin for about 60 minutes. Didn't have rice hulls but went for it anyways... wasn't too bad. First running's came to a crawl with about 1/2 gallon to go, sparge wasn't too bad. Powerful pumpkin pie smell once the McCormick Spice was added, smells very appetizing. Fermenting with S-05. Excited to try in a couple of months.
 
Thank god for always using a blow off tube. This was bubbling like an animal and has actually ran up my blowoff tube about halfway. Have to fix that then I wonder if it will still be shooting bubbles.
 
Brewed this on Sunday and it sure smelled good. Ran into some problems though. I biab and the bag ripped with all the grains ( did a 10 gallon batch so almost 25 lbs of grain). As i lifted the bag out, 2-3 lbs of grain went into the wort. Spend 30 minutes dipping a strainer in getting all the grains out and lost quite a bit of wort doing so. Ended up with 10 gallons of 1.064 instead of the 11.5 I was shooting for. One fermenter sure has a lot of trub in it SL I am only going to able to keg about 8.5 gallons or so :(
 
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