All Grain Pumpkin Ale Problems - Help!

I'm having some issues with a pumpkin ale that I'm brewing. Here's a little background (sorry, this is going to be long).

I'm pretty new to all grain brewing; this was my second batch of all grain (have done a bunch of extract and partial mash in the past). I tried a pumpkin ale recipe that I found on one of these forums and scaled it down from 5 gals to 3 gals (don't have a big enough brew pot to handle a 5 gal boil). From what I can tell so far, the results have been pretty awful.

I added canned pumpkin, a yam that I baked in the oven and the grains to my mash. Added brown sugar, hops, and pumpkin pie spice to the wort during hte boil. O.G. came out at about 1.085. After 5 days in primary with what seemed to be a pretty healthy fermentation, I racked into my secondary, took another gravity measurement and taste tested. That's where the problems come in....

The beer has strong alcohol flavors and almost no pumpkin flavor at all. The gravity reading that I took today was about 1.01. That doesn't seem right.

My theory is that my mash temperatures were off and I didn't get enough (or any?) fermentable sugars from my grains. The original high gravity reading was mostly precipitate from the pumpkin, yams, hops, etc., and my only fermentable sugar was the brown sugar I added during the boil. Hence, very little character other than alcohol and the quick change from 1.085 OG to 1.01 today.

Does that make sense? Can anyone with a little more experience with all grain comment? I think this batch is a lost cause, but I'd like to try to avoid the same mistakes again.

What were your mash temperatures, and how long did you mash for?

I could see 1.010 after 5 days.

I've never used pumpkin or yams in a beer or mash so I can't speak to their fermentability.

I'm having some issues with a pumpkin ale that I'm brewing. Here's a little background (sorry, this is going to be long).

I'm pretty new to all grain brewing; this was my second batch of all grain (have done a bunch of extract and partial mash in the past). I tried a pumpkin ale recipe that I found on one of these forums and scaled it down from 5 gals to 3 gals (don't have a big enough brew pot to handle a 5 gal boil). From what I can tell so far, the results have been pretty awful.

I added canned pumpkin, a yam that I baked in the oven and the grains to my mash. Added brown sugar, hops, and pumpkin pie spice to the wort during hte boil. O.G. came out at about 1.085. After 5 days in primary with what seemed to be a pretty healthy fermentation, I racked into my secondary, took another gravity measurement and taste tested. That's where the problems come in....

The beer has strong alcohol flavors and almost no pumpkin flavor at all. The gravity reading that I took today was about 1.01. That doesn't seem right.

My theory is that my mash temperatures were off and I didn't get enough (or any?) fermentable sugars from my grains. The original high gravity reading was mostly precipitate from the pumpkin, yams, hops, etc., and my only fermentable sugar was the brown sugar I added during the boil. Hence, very little character other than alcohol and the quick change from 1.085 OG to 1.01 today.

Does that make sense? Can anyone with a little more experience with all grain comment? I think this batch is a lost cause, but I'd like to try to avoid the same mistakes again.

Why did you feel the need to post this in two different forums?

Materials like pumkpin flesh and hops don't contribute to your hydrometer reading. Only soluble materials affect the hydro reading. So, the hydro reading is the dissolved sugars from something.

Your OG measurement was probably correct. Maybe you could post your recipe here. The final gravity FG looks about right if you had a bunch of brown sugar in there. The reason you smell alcohol is because your beer has a lot of it in there! About 10% ABV if those gravities are correct.

I'm surprised you don't taste the spices. When during the boil did you add them?

What temp did you ferment at?

we would need to know the exact amounts of each ingredient to know for sure, but there is little chance that you added enough brown sugar to 3 gallons of wort to yield an OG of 1.085. Also, unless you used a ginormous yeast starter, and used bionic yeast, I doubt you got 1.085 down to 1.010 in 5 days. one of those readings just can't be right.

I have had beers over 1.090 ferment out in 5 days so I don't think there is any issues there. That doesn't mean they are done and I leave them on the primary yeast cake for another few weeks to clean up. The alcohol flavors are probably due to fermentation temps, or the brown sugar depending on quantity used.

I would have left it in the primary for a lot longer if you had easily detectable fusels.

IXVolt said:

What were your mash temperatures, and how long did you mash for?

I could see 1.010 after 5 days.

I've never used pumpkin or yams in a beer or mash so I can't speak to their fermentability.

Click to expand...

I mashed for about an hour at about 150 F

tasq said:

Why did you feel the need to post this in two different forums?

Click to expand...

First time posting on these forums and I wasn't sure which would be the appropriate topic to post a troubleshooting question in.

passedpawn said:

Materials like pumkpin flesh and hops don't contribute to your hydrometer reading. Only soluble materials affect the hydro reading. So, the hydro reading is the dissolved sugars from something.

Your OG measurement was probably correct. Maybe you could post your recipe here. The final gravity FG looks about right if you had a bunch of brown sugar in there. The reason you smell alcohol is because your beer has a lot of it in there! About 10% ABV if those gravities are correct.

I'm surprised you don't taste the spices. When during the boil did you add them?

What temp did you ferment at?

Click to expand...

Here's the recipe I used. I scaled down a 5 gallon recipe to 2.5-3 gallons, but added a bit more grain because the first all grain batch I did was very inefficient and came out way too low OG

Mash:
7lbs pale 2 row malt
1/2 lb special roast
1/2 lb crystal (60)
1 can pumpkin (1 lb 13oz)
1 yam (~1 lb)

mashed for 1 hour at about 150 F

Boil:
1/2 oz hallertauer (60 min)
9 oz brown sugar (60 min)
1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice (15 minutes)
1/2 oz hallertauer (5 min)


Based on everybody's comments, it sounds like I just used more grain and brown sugar than I should have and came out with too much alcohol. I used a different mash tun and lauter tun than the first all grain batch that I tried, so I guess trying to add extra grain to compensate for inefficiency of my former set-up was a mistake.

Thanks a lot for the help.

How much pumpkin/yam did you add? I put two 28 ounce cans of spiced pumpkin in my last pumkin ale mash, and it turned out tastings like friggin pumpkin pie. But that's 56 ounces...it was ALOT of pumpkin.

I also have no idea if yam imparts flavor the same way pumpkin does.

Germelli1 said:

I have had beers over 1.090 ferment out in 5 days so I don't think there is any issues there. That doesn't mean they are done and I leave them on the primary yeast cake for another few weeks to clean up. The alcohol flavors are probably due to fermentation temps, or the brown sugar depending on quantity used.

I would have left it in the primary for a lot longer if you had easily detectable fusels.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the response.

I used about 9 oz of brown sugar in the boil and 9 lbs of grain for the mash. I think I got a little overzealous with my grains: if I scaled the 5 gal recipe to 3 gals directly, it would've called for 7lbs of grain, but I added a little more because the OG of my last all grain batch came out way too low and I was worried about efficiency. I built a better mash tun/lauter tun set-up between that batch and this one, so I think that extra grain was unnecessary.

I already racked into secondary unfortunately, but I'll keep the longer primary fermentation in mind if I run into this type of issue again.

Thanks again for the help.

TopherM said:

How much pumpkin/yam did you add? I put two 28 ounce cans of spiced pumpkin in my last pumkin ale mash, and it turned out tastings like friggin pumpkin pie. But that's 56 ounces...it was ALOT of pumpkin.

I also have no idea if yam imparts flavor the same way pumpkin does.

Click to expand...

I used one 29 oz can of pumpkin (just plain pumpkin, not spiced) and a yam that weighed somewhere around 16 oz. I also added a tbsp of pumpkin pie spice towards the end of the boil.

The cooled wort that I tasted right before racking into my primary fermenter had a great spicy, pumpkin flavor to it, but when I tasted it today I got nothing but alcohol.

dml263 said:

Thanks for the response.

I used about 9 oz of brown sugar in the boil and 9 lbs of grain for the mash. I think I got a little overzealous with my grains: if I scaled the 5 gal recipe to 3 gals directly, it would've called for 7lbs of grain, but I added a little more because the OG of my last all grain batch came out way too low and I was worried about efficiency. I built a better mash tun/lauter tun set-up between that batch and this one, so I think that extra grain was unnecessary.

I already racked into secondary unfortunately, but I'll keep the longer primary fermentation in mind if I run into this type of issue again.

Thanks again for the help.

Click to expand...

Ok that little sugar should not be leading to alcohol flavors! Not a big loss on the primary, but I would let it bulk condition in the secondary until some of those flavors are gone!

What temps has it been fermenting at?

From 1.085 to 1.010 I'll bet it has a strong alcohol flavor

Subtle tastes take time to develop, especially over a hot alcohol flavor. Let it sit several months and you should start tasting the pumpkin.

dml263 said:

First time posting on these forums and I wasn't sure which would be the appropriate topic to post a troubleshooting question in.

Click to expand...

Cross posting on any forum is considered poor etiquette. You now have people replying in 2 threads, and most likely repeating infomation.

There is no need for two.

Germelli1 said:

Ok that little sugar should not be leading to alcohol flavors! Not a big loss on the primary, but I would let it bulk condition in the secondary until some of those flavors are gone!

What temps has it been fermenting at?

Click to expand...

Yeah, I was planning on keeping it in secondary for a good while then bottle aging it for a while too.

I'd say on average the fermentation temp has been in the mid-70's. Unfortunately, my apartment is on the 2nd Floor and doesn't have central air, so it's not the easiest place to regulate the temperature.

tasq said:

Cross posting on any forum is considered poor etiquette. You now have people replying in 2 threads, and most likely repeating infomation.

There is no need for two.

Click to expand...

Got it. Won't happen again..

dml263 said:

Got it. Won't happen again..

Click to expand...

As a side note... I'm not trying to play forum police, just letting you know.

Happy Friday!

That might be where the hot alcohol flavors are coming from, but that sounds identical to the conditions of my first 5 beers (mid seventies temps 2nd floor college apartment). One thing I learned from those batches is time healed most of the fermentation flaws!

tasq said:

As a side note... I'm not trying to play forum police, just letting you know.

Happy Friday!

Click to expand...

No worries, I appreciate the heads up. I don't want to be the annoying guy blowing up all the forums.

Have a good weekend.

Germelli1 said:

That might be where the hot alcohol flavors are coming from, but that sounds identical to the conditions of my first 5 beers (mid seventies temps 2nd floor college apartment). One thing I learned from those batches is time healed most of the fermentation flaws!

Click to expand...

This heat wave we're having right now certainly isn't helping matters either. Good to know your batches improved with time though. I'll just keep aging it for a while and see what happens. Even if it's still undrinkable at least I learned a few things. Thanks again for the help.

On a different note, thanks to whoever merged the two threads that I had going. Wasn't sure which topic to post under, so I posted two which turned out to be a bad idea, and I couldn't figure out how to merge them.

Sounds like you may have a good imperial pumpkin ale ready for October! I wouldn't touch it until then to let it mellow out. As previously mentioned, try to leave your beers on the yeast cake for 3 weeks or so because those little buggers aren't finished doing all of their magic until about then! It will help round out some of those hot alcohol flavors!

Also, if you need more spice, make a spice "potion" using vodka and pumpkin pie spice and add it before bottling. Sample it with different concentrations and scale up from what tastes good!

rgontasz said:

Sounds like you may have a good imperial pumpkin ale ready for October! I wouldn't touch it until then to let it mellow out. As previously mentioned, try to leave your beers on the yeast cake for 3 weeks or so because those little buggers aren't finished doing all of their magic until about then! It will help round out some of those hot alcohol flavors!

Also, if you need more spice, make a spice "potion" using vodka and pumpkin pie spice and add it before bottling. Sample it with different concentrations and scale up from what tastes good!

Click to expand...

Thanks. I like the spice "potion" idea. I was trying to think of a way to add extra spice without worrying about contaminating anything. I'll give it a couple months first and see how it ages out.