Autumn Seasonal Beer Thunderstruck Pumpkin Ale (AG and Extract versions)

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FuzzeWuzze said:
So what seems to be the general consensus on what the best spice(brand & name) besides the Pampered Chef stuff?

There is no real place to purchase it here in Portland Oregon area as far as i can tell, and i dont want to pay $6.75 to ship a $6 2.5oz container of spice.
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Its only 2.5 ounces but you could seriously brew like 100 batches of this beer with it and it's smells amazing.
 
FuzzeWuzze said:
So what seems to be the general consensus on what the best spice(brand & name) besides the Pampered Chef stuff?

There is no real place to purchase it here in Portland Oregon area as far as i can tell, and i dont want to pay $6.75 to ship a $6 2.5oz container of spice.
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It would be much cheaper to make your own. This is supposed to be a good DIY version of the Pampered Chef spice- http://www.food.com/recipe/baking-spice-copycat-pampered-chef-cinnamon-plus-mix-45672
 
tuckferrorists said:
Its only 2.5 ounces but you could seriously brew like 100 batches of this beer with it and it's smells amazing.
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Found a clone of the Cinnamon Plus recipe so ill probably just throw that together myself, seems like a lot of people want to recreate it.
So for those of you that dont want to buy it at the crazy high price, you can always make your own with common items.
It seems the main key most people say is the orange peel, but i guess a lot of LHBS carry this and you can just grind it up in a coffee grinder.
Atleast thats my plan saturday :)

http://www.food.com/recipe/baking-spice-copycat-pampered-chef-cinnamon-plus-mix-45672
 
FuzzeWuzze said:
Found a clone of the Cinnamon Plus recipe so ill probably just throw that together myself, seems like a lot of people want to recreate it.
So for those of you that dont want to buy it at the crazy high price, you can always make your own with common items.
It seems the main key most people say is the orange peel, but i guess a lot of LHBS carry this and you can just grind it up in a coffee grinder.
Atleast thats my plan saturday :)

http://www.food.com/recipe/baking-spice-copycat-pampered-chef-cinnamon-plus-mix-45672
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Just picked up some ground orange peel from the supermarket last night for around $1-$2. Looking forward to using my Penzey's cinnamon for the first time.
 
MMJfan said:
I needed some cooking tools so that justified the shipping costs. Besides, by the time I go to the store and buy all of the spices needed to make the DIY Cinnamon Plus, I've got well over the $6.75 to buy the actual thing...
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Lol i had a bad deal last time buying extracts online, so im wary!

I bought a hazelnut extract from the only online store i could find it at. They didnt have it in stock so i waited nearly 3 weeks to get it, as they had to order it from their supplier then ship it to me. $6 to ship the $4 extract, it sucked but i had to have it for my Nutella Stout(Chocolate Stout+Hazelnut extract)

I get the extract, and look at the label and my stomach dropped.
Hazelnut Extract
Made for Brewcraft LLC, Portland Oregon

I then just had to look it up, and Brewcraft has a store like 30 minutes from me.

So i waited 3 weeks,and paid $6 to ship an extract from Oregon, to New York, then shipped back to me in Oregon...lol
 
For the extract recipe it says to steep flaked wheat. I've heard so many things about whether it's ok to steep certain grains or not. What would you guys think of substituting 1 pound or 3 lbs of the light dme for wheat dme. From what I've read, steeping this type of grain like this won't add any gravity but could somehow affect the beer in a negative way. Is this true?
 
I'm doing a partial mash version of this tomorrow, mashing some 2-row in with the steeping grains and supplementing with DME. Since I'll be doing a partial stovetop boil and topping up with water in the carboy, should I top up to 6 gallons or 5? When the recipe says the yield will be slightly less than 5 gallons is that initially, meaning I'll lose a gallon to the boil or that I'll lose a gallon to trub racking to the secondary?
 
BrettV said:
I'm doing a partial mash version of this tomorrow, mashing some 2-row in with the steeping grains and supplementing with DME. Since I'll be doing a partial stovetop boil and topping up with water in the carboy, should I top up to 6 gallons or 5? When the recipe says the yield will be slightly less than 5 gallons is that initially, meaning I'll lose a gallon to the boil or that I'll lose a gallon to trub racking to the secondary?
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You will lose a gallon to the trub from the pumpkin in the primary. So top to 6-6.5 gal in carboy so you will have 4.5-5 gal after racking off the trub.
 
Just whipped this up last week and I have a couple questions. It only bubbled for like 12 hours, is this normal or should I repitch? Do I add the spices before kegging or add them now? Thanks
 
franks160 said:
Just whipped this up last week and I have a couple questions. It only bubbled for like 12 hours, is this normal or should I repitch? Do I add the spices before kegging or add them now? Thanks
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Take a gravity reading. That's the only way to tell. Mine bubbled for at least 4 days, but who knows, you're fermentation may be finished. Also I added the spices when I transferred it to a secondary. If you don't plan on a secondary, just add while kegging.
 
Thanks, moscoeb. One last question: in regards to when to add the spice tea, could you get away with adding it a few days before bottling to get the strongest possible flavor, or does it need the full secondary 7-10 days to marry with the beer/settle?
 
BrettV said:
Thanks, moscoeb. One last question: in regards to when to add the spice tea, could you get away with adding it a few days before bottling to get the strongest possible flavor, or does it need the full secondary 7-10 days to marry with the beer/settle?
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Yuri stated the later you add the spices the stronger they are. I guess you could add them a few days prior to bottling. Just make sure you mix it well. I'm going to bottle in a few days and it's been a week for me.
 
Sorry if this has been covered but this is a pretty long thread. I was wondering if anyone has baked their pumpkin ahead of time and froze it to save time on brew day?
 
Wow...OK, this is very bizarre. Anyone else get an unusually high OG with this despite brewing according to the recipe? I brewed this today following the recipe almost to a T, only changing the extract version to a partial mash. My grain bill looked like this:

60 oz. pumpkin
3 lbs 8 oz. 2-row
8 oz. biscuit malt
4 oz. flaked wheat
3 lbs light DME
1 lb. 8 oz. pilsner DME

1 oz. US Goldings 4.9%

Mashed in 2 gallons of water at 162, temp dropped to 152 with grain and I left it for 40 minutes. I put the grains in 1.5 gallons of sparge water at 160, tea bagged, and then let it sit with the cover on for 15 minutes. Boiled all 3.5 gallons of wort on the stove, lost about .5 gallons to the boil, topped up with 3 gallons water in the carboy. Hopville's calculator says I should have come in around 1.054, which is damn close to what the OG is listed as. My OG? 1.089. Anyone see something I did wrong? What in the world caused such a huge bump in gravity, and what sort of results can I expect? I put in a 1 liter starter of 1469 West Yorkshire, but if the gravity is really that high will that be enough yeast to ferment out that much sugar? I'm at a loss here.
 
BrettV said:
Wow...OK, this is very bizarre. Anyone else get an unusually high OG with this despite brewing according to the recipe? I brewed this today following the recipe almost to a T, only changing the extract version to a partial mash. My grain bill looked like this:

60 oz. pumpkin
3 lbs 8 oz. 2-row
8 oz. biscuit malt
4 oz. flaked wheat
3 lbs light DME
1 lb. 8 oz. pilsner DME

1 oz. US Goldings 4.9%

Mashed in 2 gallons of water at 162, temp dropped to 152 with grain and I left it for 40 minutes. I put the grains in 1.5 gallons of sparge water at 160, tea bagged, and then let it sit with the cover on for 15 minutes. Boiled all 3.5 gallons of wort on the stove, lost about .5 gallons to the boil, topped up with 3 gallons water in the carboy. Hopville's calculator says I should have come in around 1.054, which is damn close to what the OG is listed as. My OG? 1.089. Anyone see something I did wrong? What in the world caused such a huge bump in gravity, and what sort of results can I expect? I put in a 1 liter starter of 1469 West Yorkshire, but if the gravity is really that high will that be enough yeast to ferment out that much sugar? I'm at a loss here.
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Did you stir/mix before reading? Hydro or refract? Temp compensation? Doesn't sound right. At 75% eff = 1.054 then 135% eff =1.088. Not possible.
 
Stevo2569 said:
Did you stir/mix before reading? Hydro or refract? Temp compensation? Doesn't sound right. At 75% eff = 1.054 then 135% eff =1.088. Not possible.
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Check your Hopville volume and your actual volume did you put 5gal or 6.5gal into primary?
 
I shook the hell out of the carboy before taking the reading, and I took the reading with a hydrometer. I compensated for the temp, which at that point the sample was roughly 80 degrees in my stifling kitchen, and then even stuck the sample in the fridge for a little while to get it closer to 60 degrees and still got the same reading. The final volume was 6 gallons, and that was what I put into hopville for my batch size. I can show you the page here: http://hopville.com/recipe/1627906/spice-herb-or-vegetable-beer-recipes/thunderstruck-pumpkin-ale It really seems like I did everything correctly. This is a head scratcher.
 
Brewed this weekend love the color. it doesn't taste bad either. I am excited for the finished product.
 
Has anyone compared the effect of baking the pumpkin vs not? It's a step I'd love to avoid, especially in the hot summer.
 
BrettV said:
I shook the hell out of the carboy before taking the reading, and I took the reading with a hydrometer. I compensated for the temp, which at that point the sample was roughly 80 degrees in my stifling kitchen, and then even stuck the sample in the fridge for a little while to get it closer to 60 degrees and still got the same reading. The final volume was 6 gallons, and that was what I put into hopville for my batch size. I can show you the page here: http://hopville.com/recipe/1627906/spice-herb-or-vegetable-beer-recipes/thunderstruck-pumpkin-ale It really seems like I did everything correctly. This is a head scratcher.
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I love Hopville, but it's a free program. 3lb 12oz pumpkin, cooked only yields 1.001 starting gravity when entered alone. I think it's safe to say that's wrong and it should be around 1.034... Enjoy your imperial thunderstruck ale
 
brewski09 said:
I love Hopville, but it's a free program. 3lb 12oz pumpkin, cooked only yields 1.001 starting gravity when entered alone. I think it's safe to say that's wrong and it should be around 1.034... Enjoy your imperial thunderstruck ale
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Fair enough, but again, that was what the recipe called for. 60 oz of pumpkin. And the OG given by the OP was 1.054, who has claimed to have brewed this countless times over the years. If we're all adding the same amount of pumpkin to the boil, why is my OG 1.089 and his 1.054?
 
Transferred my batch from my fermenting bucket to the carboy today. Planning on letting it clear in the carboy for 2 weeks or so and then bottle! This brew looks amazing! Can't wait for the finished product!
 
Made this for the first time yesterday as my first All grain brew ever with my rubbermaid mash tun. Took the 15 gallon batch and split it down to a 5 gallon batch. Ended up with almost exactly 5 gallons after my boil, forgot to add some extra top off water so im sure im going to lose 1/4th of a gallon to trub.

It did come out perfect though, i measured my OG last night and compensating for temperature i got 1.056 @ like 73% efficiency.

I was a little apprehensive because when i was sparging my additional water temp seemed to not bring the temp up high enough. Seemed to stop at around 161.5, but i stirred it and let it sit for 10 minutes like i have read to do, and it came out good OG....
 
Fuzze- 161 is a perfect sparge temp if you're letting it sit for a few minutes. Check out DeathBrewer's thread on easy partial mash brewing: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/easy-partial-mash-brewing-pics-75231/. He mentions that you can still get some conversion in the sparge if you keep the temperature a little lower and let it sit. I think 175 is really only if you're going to do a pour-over method, because water that hot will extract tannins if left in contact with the grain for too long.

On my front, Krausen has been at it for about 2 days now. The first 2 days it was like watching a Guinness continually being poured, there was so much cascading going on around the sides. Because of the volume (and my seemingly ridiculously high gravity) I have a blowoff tube emptying into a cup of sanitized water. I actually had to empty that cup and clean out the tube today because they were both full of foamy gunk. Fermentation seems to have calmed a little today, but the cup of sanitized water is still bubbling away. Very curious to see how this possibly imperial Thunderstruck turns out.
 
BrettV said:
Fuzze- 161 is a perfect sparge temp if you're letting it sit for a few minutes. Check out DeathBrewer's thread on easy partial mash brewing: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/easy-partial-mash-brewing-pics-75231/. He mentions that you can still get some conversion in the sparge if you keep the temperature a little lower and let it sit. I think 175 is really only if you're going to do a pour-over method, because water that hot will extract tannins if left in contact with the grain for too long.
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Thanks, i figured if i hit my OG that's all that really matters, but it was a stressful hour boiling and cooling before i could measure.

Also saw your making a nutella stout, assuming its mjap52's(reddit) it is delicious. Kegged mine about 2 weeks ago and have been tapping it, so good. I took his advice and put in more bakers chocolate in the boil.
 
Actually, no, I inherited another homebrew starter kit recently that included an extract/specialty grain stout, and I thought I would make it a little more interesting with some cocoa nibs and hazelnut extract, but if you could point me toward his recipe I'd appreciate it. Perhaps I can still use the kit as a base.
 
1st off thanks for posting the recipe!

I did a similar version to this, but I excluded the "spice tea" since I was worried it would be almost overkill for the way I went about things. Short and sweet of it was that I cut your 15gallon AG into a 3rd and went from there. I "baked" the pumpkin in the oven with a bit of cinnamon sprinkled on it until it started the carmelize. I then mixed it up in the dish and let it bake again until it was just slightly carmelizing again. At this time I sprinkled just a hair more cinnamon onto the pumpkin. I placed the pumpkin in a nylon bag and let it sit in my mash for the entire hour. Everything came pouring out nicely into my bucket and the house smelled like pure pumpkin pie. Wife walked in and was like !#%@ what smells so good! Needless to say we were both VERY excited to try this.

I am about half way through my bottle conditioning on this, and just had to taste it early! Honestly I am a bit letdown and I wanted to ask if forgoing the spice tea would play that much into the flavor difference I am noticing. I figured with how it smelt that it was going to be very pumpkiny. It is not bad by any stretch of the imagination ( I am really quite impressed with it) but there is only a slight taste of pumpkin. It (to me) tastes a great deal like a Sam Adams Octoberfest with a nice hint of pumpkin. Do you think the "spice tea" woudl make that much of a difference in the taste? Everything I did to it was done at the beginning. I did nothing after it was fermenting/fermented other than move it to a 2ndary, and bottle it.
 
Unfortunately, yes, the reason you're let down is that pumpkin ales don't really get their flavor from pumpkin: they get it from the spices. By cooking the cinnamon with the pumpkin and then boiling it for an hour, you greatly reduced its potency. Cinnamon flavor fades over time, which is why the recipe recommends the spice tea in the secondary.
 
BrettV said:
Unfortunately, yes, the reason you're let down is that pumpkin ales don't really get their flavor from pumpkin: they get it from the spices. By cooking the cinnamon with the pumpkin and then boiling it for an hour, you greatly reduced its potency. Cinnamon flavor fades over time, which is why the recipe recommends the spice tea in the secondary.
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I don't even use pumpkin anymore in mine. It's just the spices that I'm after.
 
Here is roughly what I am getting from beersmith after scaling the 15 gallon AG version. Thinking about pumping up the pale malt a bit and maybe rounding up everything else a touch to get to the gravity the OP has (1.057). Anyone have any experience with this or advice otherwise?

Est orig Gravity: 1.048
Final Gravity: 1.012

7 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 71.2 %
1 lbs 11.2 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 2 17.3 %
12.8 oz Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 3 8.1 %
5.3 oz Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM) Grain 4 3.4 %
1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 16.6 IBUs
1.0 pkg SafAle English Ale (DCL/Fermentis #S-04) [23.66 ml] Yeast 6 -
 
awarner322 said:
Here is roughly what I am getting from beersmith after scaling the 15 gallon AG version. Thinking about pumping up the pale malt a bit and maybe rounding up everything else a touch to get to the gravity the OP has (1.057). Anyone have any experience with this or advice otherwise?

Est orig Gravity: 1.048
Final Gravity: 1.012

7 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 71.2 %
1 lbs 11.2 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 2 17.3 %
12.8 oz Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 3 8.1 %
5.3 oz Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM) Grain 4 3.4 %
1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 16.6 IBUs
1.0 pkg SafAle English Ale (DCL/Fermentis #S-04) [23.66 ml] Yeast 6 -
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I brewed it exactly as OP did, cut to 5 gallons with the same stuff you listed there.

I ended up @ 1.056 OG, @ 73%, my first ever AG brew ...so i dont know that you need to alter it much. I think i had maybe 6 oz of Flaked wheat, and usually just rounded up my oz's for everything since the brew shop has analog scales.
 
Bottled this one year ago and just opened a bottle. Still delicious. Spices have fade a bit but nice ans balance with a good malt backbone structure
 
Can anyone help with some of my questions? Sorry if these were already covered but there sure are a lot of pages in this thread.

1 - I do partial mashing on the stove top in a pot (BIAB method). I usually mash about 7 to 8 total pounds of grain due to the capacity if my pot. Do I just put the pumpkin in the bag and mash as usual? If so, no pumpkin in the boil or primary?

2 - There are a few different versions of pumpkin beer recipes on here that are all similar but slightly different. Has anyone tried them all? Any tips or any combinations of the various recipes been done where improvements have been noted?

Thanks!
 
My OG for extract was 1.052. I pulled it off pumpkin into secondary after 12 days, bottled 7 7 days later and my FG was 1.008. Was a bit surprised it dropped that low. Didn't taste very alcoholic, but 5.78% is a bit higher than I was expecting.

I used 1332 Northwest Ale with a starter.
 

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