Malting Pumpkin Seeds?

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BuonAnno

BuonAnno

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Last night I’m relaxing on the couch watching a ball game when my wife leans over from the computer and says, “Hey when you do your pumpkin ale this year is there anyway you could malt the pumpkin seeds and add them to the mash? It may allow the yeast to create some unique esters.”

Now let me say that I love my wife and she is incredibly supportive of this hobby and clears 5 hours a week for me to brew but……. hearing this from her is like hearing a 2 month old child recite the Gettysburg Address. It just doesn’t happen. So I ask why she would know to ask me that and she says that Dogfish Head announced they were brewing their Punkin Ale today and she read that they use malted seeds in their mash.

Well the first thing I did this morning was come here because I was positive someone had tried this but all I see are threads discussing adding them toasted to the secondary.

So my question to you all is, Has anyone tried malting the seeds before? If not, I feel as if I have an experiment on my hands!
 
I've never seen it but it's very interesting, sounds like fun. I'm wondering where to get bulk raw pumpkin seeds now, like 50 lbs. That would be a lot of pumpkin scraping. Health food stores probably have it.
 
COLObrewer said:
I've never seen it but it's very interesting, sounds like fun. I'm wondering where to get bulk raw pumpkin seeds now, like 50 lbs. That would be a lot of pumpkin scraping. Health food stores probably have it.
Click to expand...

Yeah thats what I was thinking too. I was thinking of using maybe 5 lbs in the mash and then going for the canned opumpkin in the secondary. My only issue is that I tend to heavily spice my pumpkin ale so I may not notice the subtle changes offered by the malted seed so.......

What I may do is put together a fairly clean recipe to test it. Maybe a 3 gallon batch using

5# MO
5# Malted Pumpkin Seed

.5 oz Willamette (60)

Ferment with a really clean ale yeast like US 05.
 
Well this sounded like an amazing idea, but sadly looking at google, there is nothing about malting your own pumpkin seeds for brewing, except for this thread, LOL.

It doesn't mean it's not possible, jut that no one's apparantly tried it. I think it is worth a try. I think Colobrewer's got a tutorial on home malting, I would use it and try it with a pumpkin's worth of seeds. And if it works, scale it up.

There are however plenty of recipes that have toasted pumpkin seeds in the boil. It appears that Sam Caligone might have a recipe in extreme brewing.

But just because there's no info on anyone doing it. Please don't let it discourage you from trying. Too many folks come on here, have great ideas and are looking for someone who already has done it, then if noone has done it, the idea dies. I think this really bares trying out. Even if you only ended up with a few ounces, or a pound, even in a 1 - 2.5 gallon test batch, it might add a lot of flavor.

So don't back off on this nifty idea.

:mug:
 
Revvy said:
But just because there's no info on anyone doing it. Please don't let it discourage you from trying. Too many folks come on here, have great ideas and are looking for someone who already has done it, then if noone has done it, the idea dies.
Click to expand...

I'm actually excited that it has never been done before! Nothing like a good challenge.

I just read through COLObrewer's fantastic thread about Home Malting and I think I'm going to start this weekend. I'm only starting with 5 lbs of seeds and I think I'm going to use my old Mash Tun for the soaking (Does that sound doable COLObrewer?).

I'll stick with the recipe listed above unless anyone can think of a better idea.
 
No reason not to try but, my only comment is;

I wouldn't expect much from the seed. The germ to seed coat ratio for a creal grain is pretty high. The opposite applies to pumpkin seed. In that there is not much germ inside that seed coat.

I am not saying this is not do-able. I am just saying don;t expect much yield from pumpkin seed.

That said, it will be interesting to hear what kind of flavor contribution this may have.
 
I was just staring at my garden last night waiting to see the first of my giant pumpkins start and had the same thought. It should be easy enough to get a few pounds of seeds, but will they germinate right away or would you have to overwinter seeds from this fall's pumpkins?
 
Might even look at whether oir not pumpkin seed needs to be fermented to germinate. Lest you are using prepared garden seed. Not sure about pumpkin but I do know that there are several wet type fruit/vegetable seeds that must be fermented to allow germination (like tomatoe seed).
 
BuonAnno said:
. . . . .I'm only starting with 5 lbs of seeds and I think I'm going to use my old Mash Tun for the soaking (Does that sound doable COLObrewer?). . . . .
Click to expand...

It sounds like a great idea, you can use the manifold/screen to drain, you do need to move them around though, especially when they are airing out. You could however pump air through the manifold to aerate.

Every time I talk to someone about malting it seems there is always a sentence that states: "You need to move the grains around" whatever stage of malting it's about. I think that's my new favorite motto and/or life phylosophy.

Keep on malting my friends:mug:

"You need to move the grains around"
 
pumpkin seeds sprout pretty easily so it shouldn't be to big of a deal to malt them. Most seeds I see at the store are toasted and/or salted.
 
I know that many health food stores sell "Raw Pumpkin Seeds". I'm trying to find out if they would be suitable for malting.

If not my wife freezes a few pounds each Fall to roast throughout the year. I just don't really want to dip into her stash unless necessary.
 
WPStrassburg said:
I was just staring at my garden last night waiting to see the first of my giant pumpkins start and had the same thought. It should be easy enough to get a few pounds of seeds, but will they germinate right away or would you have to overwinter seeds from this fall's pumpkins?
Click to expand...

They will germinate right away. Sometimes when I cut open a pumpkin from my garden it will have a few seeds that have germinated right inside the pumpkin.
 
In fact it HAS been done by someone... Search for "secret ingredient" to find a comical thread.

However he didn't malt them but did what I do. You just roast the hell out of them until they begin to caramelize. I found more success in the secondary because they flavor diminishes as they age.

It is a unique, cool flavor, but drink it green. I havn't liked it enough to do more than experiment.

But actually malting them does sound interesting...
 
Why not just get some summer or butternut squash, and add those to the mash. Cook them, core them, and mash them. That's what I did, except I used a sieve to keep the seeds out. Guess I should have mashed those too, though they wouldn't have been malted. You'll probably get a good amount of seed just from the squash that you add... if you are planning to do so.
 
I think it would be difficult to mash pumpkin seeds, I think simply toasting them and then grinding up and adding to the mash would be better way to go. You might want to cook them up separately first to gelatinize the starches. Are you hoping to get enzymes to help with the conversion process or are you looking for a flavor difference? I think the former is not worth it, just add some 6-row to help conversion. Now the later could be interesting. Can you say crystal pumpkin malt?

Technical botany stuff:
Pumpkins being a dicot have no, or very little endosperm, compared to the cereals (monocots) which typically have a large starchy endosperm. During dicot seed development there is an initial endosperm (3N) formed, but this is consumed by the developing embryo in most all dicots. In place of a starchy endosperm, for food storage, dicots produce a pair of cotyledons that contains some starch, and typically much more protein and oils compared to a monocot endosperm. The cotyledons don't lend themselves to the typical reactions that occur during malting of cereals.

Back to brewing:

To try this, I would germinate a few seeds for various lengths of time, dry them and taste them. My gut thoughts would be that you would want to stop the process shortly after you see root emergence. Once the cotyledons pop out I suspect they probably wouldn't taste very good. Anyone want pumpkin sprouts in their salad? You might want to grow them in the dark to inhibit chlorophyll production.

Actually, now that I think about it, I do know that zuchinni sprouts do not taste very good. That's an advantage of working with plants, one can eat one's research subjects.
 
pjj2ba said:
I think it would be difficult to mash pumpkin seeds, I think simply toasting them and then grinding up and adding to the mash would be better way to go. You might want to cook them up separately first to gelatinize the starches. Are you hoping to get enzymes to help with the conversion process or are you looking for a flavor difference? I think the former is not worth it, just add some 6-row to help conversion. Now the later could be interesting. Can you say crystal pumpkin malt?

Technical botany stuff:
Pumpkins being a dicot have no, or very little endosperm, compared to the cereals (monocots) which typically have a large starchy endosperm. During dicot seed development there is an initial endosperm (3N) formed, but this is consumed by the developing embryo in most all dicots. In place of a starchy endosperm, for food storage, dicots produce a pair of cotyledons that contains some starch, and typically much more protein and oils compared to a monocot endosperm. The cotyledons don't lend themselves to the typical reactions that occur during malting of cereals.

Back to brewing:

To try this, I would germinate a few seeds for various lengths of time, dry them and taste them. My gut thoughts would be that you would want to stop the process shortly after you see root emergence. Once the cotyledons pop out I suspect they probably wouldn't taste very good. Anyone want pumpkin sprouts in their salad? You might want to grow them in the dark to inhibit chlorophyll production.

Actually, now that I think about it, I do know that zuchinni sprouts do not taste very good. That's an advantage of working with plants, one can eat one's research subjects.
Click to expand...

Good info here Pjj2ba. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience.
 
I hate to resurrect a zombie thread, but I haven't found any info and I don't think it says how this poster's beer turned out! I'm planning on doing the same thing myself in a 1 gallon batch. I'll be posting the results!
 
As I understand it, the cotyledon will eat up most of the sugars and starches rather quickly, leaving mostly unfermentables and oils. I might still try it, though.
 
I used six row with regular pumpkin meat and it seems to have turned out great. It might work for the seeds as well. Who knows! Give it a shot!
 
I never heard of pumpkin seed beer and I realized I had bought one. I was in a specialty beer store in Rzeszow Poland and bought one of every beer they had to try. The brewers name is Core and it's from Austria.
The ingredients say water, barley, hops, and pumpkin seeds.
I was very impressed its good and tastes like a beer not a pumpkin cake.
 

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