Pumpkin mead

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PaddyMurphy

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Okay, I'm thinking of trying a pumpkin mead as soon as I have an empty carboy (which should be soon-ish). All the threads on this topic seem to be old, and I don't want to start resurrecting zombies, so I was thinking about something like this:
  1. Buy Pumpkin
  2. ???
  3. PROFIT!!
More seriously:
Cube and roast the pumpkin flesh (but how much? for how long and at what temperature? I don't know yet. Could use some help on this)

Primary:
Honey: 2-3 lbs per gallon (any recommendations on type of honey?)
Yeast: Lalvin D47
Pectic enzyme (how much? No idea.)

Allow primary to ferment over the cubed roasted pumpkin bits for how long? A month? Until fermentation stops or slows?

Secondary
cinnamon stick
maybe a clove

Any suggestions to help out a newbie?
 
You might want to note that the majority of pumpkin beers do not get their pumpkin flavor from the actual pumpkin. It's more the spices that remind the palate of pumpkin pie. Also quite a few use squash saying it provides more pumpkin flavor than pumpkin itself. Just something to keep in mind. The pumpkin may just give you a vegetable flavor you're not expecting.
 
That's why I was thinking roast the pumpkin. That's supposed to caramelize the flesh and start breaking down the sugars a bit to get more pumpkin flavor out of them.

So for a 1 gallon batch, maybe have a cinnamon stick, a clove, and maybe some ginger in the secondary? Help it get that pumpkin pie taste?
 
Pumpkin Mead

Ingredients:
6 - 7 cans natural canned pumpkin caramelized in oven
2 lb crushed 6 row malt
5 gallons water

13 lbs mild honey
1/2 cup Grade C Maple syrup

Spices:
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
dash ground cloves
1 tsp bitter orange peel

2 vanilla beans made into extract
2 tsp yeast nutrient
2 tsp yeast energizer
2 Lalvin D47

Spread pumpkin onto cookie sheets lined with parchment paper and bake at 350 degrees until browned.

Add bagged 6 row malt and baked pumpkin to water. Heat to 150 - 155 degrees and hold at temp for 30 minutes. Remove grain bag.

Stir in honey, maple syrup and spices at last 5 minutes of mash. Chill to under 100 degrees.

Rehydrate yeast. Add 1 tsp of both yeast nutrient and energizer to rehydrated yeast.

Rack to fermenter and top off with cold water. Aerate. Pitch yeast mixture when the temp reaches 70-75 degrees. Aerate.

24 hours:
Add 1/2 tsp of both yeast nutrient and energizer 24 hours after yeast is pitched.

48 hours:
Add last 1/2 tsp of both yeast nutrient and energizer 48 hours after yeast is pitched.

When fermentation slows transfer to secondary and add vanilla extract. Allow to clear for 2 + months. Bottle and age for a year + when clear and stable.
 
I'd be hesitant to put that much pumpkin in anything. 6-7 29 oz Libbys cans? That's a massive amount. I recently made a pumpkin ale with 2 Libbys cans, and it was too much. As IP mentioned, it provides a strong vegetal flavor that I'm hoping will age out a little. Unless you pasturize it with some sweetness left and serve it still, this is going to really dry out and that pumpkin flavor is just going to stick to your tongue. I doubt very much you will like it. It is a great idea though
 
I will be starting my 3rd pumpkin mead soon. This time a Pumpkin Hazelnut.

I suggest that you use Pumpkin Pie Pumpkins and a yam for flavor, Don't really bother with cutting it up in cubes. Take the pumpkin and cut in half, remove seeds and the stringyness with them. place in a glass dish face down, that is skin side out and a little water in the container less thana 1/2 inch will be fine. Bake at 350 for 30-35 min. Then let cool and scrape into a large nylon bag. Put bad in a brewbucket and rack your mead onto it for a secondary fermentation. In a seperate hops bag place your spices. 1/2 a whole nutmeg, freshly crushed, 2 cinammon sticks and what ever else spices you wish will be fine. Then in 1 month you can take out the pumpkin and spices easily. Don't be supprised if the pumpkin is about 1/2 disolved. That's a good thing.

I follow something similar and when you do it this way you avoid lots of messyness and extra work.

My first pumpkin I peeled and then cubed and put in without roasting, too subtle of a flavor that way.

Happy Mead Making.

Matrix
 
i'm brewing inside of a pumpkin at the moment. this is the first time i've done this, but i have the help of someone that's been doing it for about 10 years. I used KC-1116. I mixed my must (about a gallon and a half) in a seperate bucket. i used about a quart and a half of honey. Then I added 1 tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice to it. then i poured everything into the pumpkin, put the cap on it, sealed it with wax. Then i used a cork screw to bore into it so i could install an airlock.

in 7-10 days i will transfer into a glass bottle.
 
Heh, would be cute to put some jack-o-lantern type stickers on it and place it outside for a couple of days during halloween. Would look freaky to the kids to see a pumpking that has a bubbling container stuck into it's head. I know that it's not good to have it outside and the 31st is too far away but funny.
 
I suggest that you use Pumpkin Pie Pumpkins and a yam for flavor, Don't really bother with cutting it up in cubes. Take the pumpkin and cut in half, remove seeds and the stringyness with them. place in a glass dish face down, that is skin side out and a little water in the container less thana 1/2 inch will be fine. Bake at 350 for 30-35 min. Then let cool and scrape into a large nylon bag. Put bad in a brewbucket and rack your mead onto it for a secondary fermentation. In a seperate hops bag place your spices. 1/2 a whole nutmeg, freshly crushed, 2 cinammon sticks and what ever else spices you wish will be fine. Then in 1 month you can take out the pumpkin and spices easily. Don't be supprised if the pumpkin is about 1/2 disolved. That's a good thing.
<snip>
My first pumpkin I peeled and then cubed and put in without roasting, too subtle of a flavor that way.

Happy Mead Making.

Matrix
Matrix, thanks, but I don't have an empty brewbucket. I've got a batch of cyser going right now, you see. That's why I was thinking a 1-gallon batch. I could put the primary into one of my 5-gallon glass carboys, that way an energetic fermentation won't blow the airlock into the ceiling and I'll actually have a gallon of mead when I rack to the secondary which would be a 1-gallon carboy. The cubing would help get the pumpkin bits through the neck of the carboy.

i'm brewing inside of a pumpkin at the moment.
Jack, you're a braver man than I.

Lots of people said:
Use canned pumpkin
Real pumpkins are abundant here, and a good deal cheaper than canned. Besides, scooping out the pumpkin will remind me of making Jack-o'-Lanterns.:D
 
PaddyMurphy said:
Real pumpkins are abundant here, and a good deal cheaper than canned. Besides, scooping out the pumpkin will remind me of making Jack-o'-Lanterns.:D

Real pumpkins are abundant here too, but you know that most pumpkins aren't desirable to eat right? Any Jack o lantern pumpkin has a watery yellow flesh that's undesirable for eating. Better to use butternut squash if you can find it
 
With only 1 gal then you would need a lot less pumpkin. Also when you cook the pumpkin it gets soft and stringy so as long as you have it in a bag a Glass carboy should be fine. Also, you don't really get an energetic fermentation if the pumpkin is in the secondary. Let the primary fermentation play out and then rack to the secondary on top of the pumpkin. That's your best bet.

Matrix
 
I assist a friend with a pumpkin ale. We baked them at 350 for an hour. The flesh was really soft and easy to scoop out. We used sweet pumpkin the only thing we could not gauge how much sugar it added. We are hitting in the 9% abv. We only used two pumpkins. Grain bill wise it should have been around 6%. So becareful on which pumpkin your using. In November I'm brewing a pumpkin ale and I'm going to use regular pumpkin to see what happens. Good Luck on your adventure in meadland. I soon will start my first mean. Im going ultra basic. I was thinking of juicing peaches, 2lbs honey, orange peel and flesh. Then using a active dry bread yeast. Like how they did back in the day.
 
I assist a friend with a pumpkin ale. We baked them at 350 for an hour. The flesh was really soft and easy to scoop out. We used sweet pumpkin the only thing we could not gauge how much sugar it added. We are hitting in the 9% abv. We only used two pumpkins. Grain bill wise it should have been around 6%. So becareful on which pumpkin your using. In November I'm brewing a pumpkin ale and I'm going to use regular pumpkin to see what happens. Good Luck on your adventure in meadland. I soon will start my first mean. Im going ultra basic. I was thinking of juicing peaches, 2lbs honey, orange peel and flesh. Then using a active dry bread yeast. Like how they did back in the day.

to kinda counter this issue, I took a reading prior to introducing it to the pumpkin. if you baked yours at 350, there should be hardly any water left in them, not enough to make a difference that is. so if you took at reading before, it'd be pretty close. maybe a little higher. I started with an OG of 1.122. I did not take a reading before sealing my pumpkin with wax however, so i don't know if it went up.

guess we'll find out next tues-wens
 
so today i racked it. it was down to 1.04 (i'm thinking the pumpkin made it go up a bit). i took off a gallon and half a funky bottle that i dont know the volume of.
 
Well, it's brewing day. I decided to try brewing this with 5 lbs of honey, instead of the normal 3 lbs. Give it that extra kick. Wound up using some summer squash hybrid that smells quite pumpkiny.

O.G. is 1.176

Damn...
 
1.176? Are you sure? Most normal 3 scale hydrometers don't even read that high... and its going to stall basically any yeast with an alcohol potential of almost 25%.
 
No, I'm not sure about the 1.176. I haven't ever used a hydrometer before, so I'm not entirely certain I used it right. What's the proper procedure for using one?
 
calicojack said:
jesus. i'd LOVE to find a yeast that would live up to that potential!

Allegedly wlp099 can tolerate something in that range, but its tricky to work with and if it stalls at 18% you're screwed. There's no way you'll get another yeast to start in that, and it would be too sweet to be enjoyable.
 
Well, I added some energizer and it's bubbling away happily. This will probably come out awfully sweet, but at least I'll know for next time.
 
Racked it today. Had to top off with water to get rid of the headspace. SG is now 1.038. With the OG being 1.176, that gives me an ABV of approximately 18% now.

Added some spices to it, specifically:
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • ½ tsp ground ginger
  • ~¼ tsp ground cloves
  • ~¼ tsp ground allspice
  • ~¼ tsp ground nutmeg
  • pinch of mace

If this turns out good I think I'm going to call it Paddy Murphy's Pumpkin Mead (PMPM or (PM)^2 for short)
 
Just racked the pumpkin pie mead. SG is 1.038, which gives an alcohol content of 18%. Snuck a glass during the transfer and it tasted like a honeyed pumpkin pie. Almost no alcohol taste at all. Should be ready for bottling by October. :)
 

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