Autumn Seasonal Beer Punkin' Ale

Thanks Reno! I'll have to send you a bottle once I get around to brewing it!

HA! That would be amazing.. I've yet to receive a botttle of homebrew in the mail from a HBT member. :rockin:

I had a pumpkin ale recipe set up for this fall but I am replacing it with this one. Should be brewing it this weekend hopefully (as long as I can find pumpkin). If I cant find the pumpkin is there any other substitutions that I should make (maybe biscuit malt?)?

kpr121 said:

I had a pumpkin ale recipe set up for this fall but I am replacing it with this one. Should be brewing it this weekend hopefully (as long as I can find pumpkin). If I cant find the pumpkin is there any other substitutions that I should make (maybe biscuit malt?)?

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Oh, I'm actually quite flattered you chose my recipe. If you don't mind me asking, what was the other recipe and why did you change?

Okay, so try local grocery stores, WalMart (*shudder*), Bodegas, etc., for some Libby's cans and if you can't find those get pie pumpkins... maybe like 0.5# over the weight of two big cans of Libby's to account for the rind. Then, instead of following the puree instructions, just chop those suckers in half, clean them and bake them meat-side-up in the oven at ~350*F for 30-45 minutes. Then scoop the soft meat (hehehehehe) into the mash and proceed as usual.

If you reeaally can't find pumpkin, I don't think biscuit malt will work as a substitute for pumpkin. Toasty/biscuity/nutty malts are meant to simulate the "crust" in this whole pumpkin pie simulation. Now, if you want to substitute pumpkin you can always use sweet potatoes or another sweet summer squash. You'd never tell the difference.

Hi guys,

I too am now looking towards making a couple batches of pumpkin ale for the fall season. I plan on making perhaps 3 or so batches with different recipes so I can compare and choose a favorite. This recipe will definitely be one of them. I have noticed a few people in this thread who have brewed it have experienced a much lower FG than anticipated. This I gather causes the dry cidery taste. How does one avoid this? Was the mash temp to blame or was it due to additional sugars added to the boil. Just trying to avoid this.

Thanks,
Chris

Well, personally I've never had a dry cidery taste in mine. Dark brown sugar isn't in very high quantities in this recipe, but DBS should add molassesy flavors.

Low mash temp could cause the low FG, but that doesn't explain the cidery taste.

From my experiences, low FG and cidery taste means bacterial infection. The flavor is due to acetaldehyde, a precursor to ethanol. However, some bacteria will convert sugars into acetaldehyde, which tends to have that cider or green apple taste/aroma.

But that's just my $0.02. I'm curious if anybody else has experienced this with my recipe.

Any thoughts to dropping the brown sugar addition for "molassesy" flavors, and simply adding molasses instead?

I made https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f76/samhain-pumpkin-ale-140674/ last year, and kinda dug the layer of flavor that the molasses added. Thoughts?

Never actually used real molasses in a brew. But I'm sure it would be delicious. Whatever's clever

Ordered the grain bill, yeast, and hops for this today. I'll brew it up as soon as I find some pumpkin.

Reno_eNVy said:

Never actually used real molasses in a brew. But I'm sure it would be delicious. Whatever's clever

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Any idea on how much to go with? I'm not too sure how much molasses would be too much in this recipe.

Well I just searched around and molasses is supposed to have a very strong flavor in beer, apparently.

BeerSmith puts it at 5% Max in batch.

Stupid question: I was building this in Beersmith, for a brew next weekend. What style would you throw this in to? American Amber doesn't work.

Old_E said:

Stupid question: I was building this in Beersmith, for a brew next weekend. What style would you throw this in to? American Amber doesn't work.

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What do you mean by "doesn't work?"

When I was building my pumpkin ale recipe in beer smith, I used Amber Ale. Do you mean that the "style" scale is off for hops? Because I just ignored that and created the recipe with all the other stylistic aspects of Amber, minus the IBU range.

yeah, that's basically what I mean. Hops are too low, and the gravity is too high. Not a big deal at all, I just wondering if it fit better into a different style.

This would most certainly be 21A - Spice/Herb/Vegetable Beer

Brewin this as we speak

......and done! i did a 5gal all grain batch, ended a 1.065 on the nose except i didn't have as much loss i predicted so i ended with 5.5 gal not a bad evening at all!!

i'm doing thunderstruck pumpkin ale this weekend. did it last year, and it was gone by the end of the party. my ibu was a little over 13. i think for 5.5 gallons i used 1.3 oz of hersbrucker at 60 minutes

homebrewin said:

......and done! i did a 5gal all grain batch, ended a 1.065 on the nose except i didn't have as much loss i predicted so i ended with 5.5 gal not a bad evening at all!!

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How'd the hydrometer sample taste?

Also, came across Sam Adams Octoberfest and as I was thinking, "Hmm, it's that time of year" I noticed their fall variety pack. Had to pick it up.

Right now I'm enjoying their Harvest Pumpkin Ale. It's not bad but their version is over-spiced and lacks on the biscuit/toasty malts that I love from my recipe.

It's inspired me to get this brew off the ground ASAP. Time to check for Libby's every time I go to the grocery store

The hydrosample tasted great, i know its going to be awesome, thanks for the recipe.
Finding the libbys was really the hardest part, I went to three grocery stores and only found one can but then found some other organic brand that was straight pumpkin pack so I went with that

Quick question, a little off topic but it came to mind reading this recipe:

Do you need rice hulls if you BIAB?

I would assume not because you simply pull the bag out of the wort but I thought I would ask.

You know, that's a good question... I'm really not sure. Maybe somebody else with more BIAB experience can chime in.

Reno_eNVy said:

You know, that's a good question... I'm really not sure. Maybe somebody else with more BIAB experience can chime in.

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Well, I didn't brew this recipe, but I *did* brew my partial mash pumpkin ale and I didn't use rice hulls. It was BIAB style, and I had no problems with straining or sparging. You may have to work the bag around a bit (not squeezing, just sort of tilting so the liquid has an escape path), but it doesn't take long. It also helps if you have a big colander that you can put the grain bag in to let the extra wort drip out on it's own though, that way you're not standing there holding the bag for very long.

Thanks for the input!

Booya! Found these last two cans at the second grocery store I tried. 2 for $5! Lucky me

Nice find! It's nearly impossible to get this time of year. I had to settle for the overpriced organic stuff when I brewed a couple weeks ago. This year I'm gonna stock up for next year (or make my own puree to freeze).

onipar said:

Nice find! It's nearly impossible to get this time of year. I had to settle for the overpriced organic stuff when I brewed a couple weeks ago. This year I'm gonna stock up for next year (or make my own puree to freeze).

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Yeah, last year I had a rough time with it but I found the organic stuff at Safeway. Surprisingly, only $3.50 a can.

Just brewed up a batch of this bad boy, subbing 2/3 cup of molasses for the brown sugar. Gravity came in a bit lower, but I can live with a 5% brew. Smelled like pumpkin pie and autumn. I plan on racking it over 2 vanillla beans after it's 3 week primary. Thanks for he recipe Reno. I'm so stoked.

You're quite welcome. Please be sure to take good tasting notes with the molasses sub. I'm interested. Maybe we can even do a bottle-swap in a couple months.

Also, be careful with the vanilla. It can be incredibly strong and I've heard that it can really take away from what makes a pumpkin ale great. Just some food for thought.

I'm down for a trade when they're all good to go. I'm not going to go over the top on the vanilla. I may use expensive extract instead and tailor it to suit me. It'll be great either way.

Has anyone attempted the extract version of this recipe? I'm planning on trying it in a few weeks and was wondering how it turned out for others.

Doing a PM version this weekend, based on the calculations at the beginning of the thread. Would a late extract addition be a good idea?

thomismydad said:

Doing a PM version this weekend, based on the calculations at the beginning of the thread. Would a late extract addition be a good idea?

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Adding the extract earlier, as I'm sure you know, will make the beer darker. If you want the light orange hue similar to oktoberfests the do a late addition. If you want a darker orange closer to brown than early addition will do you best.


EDIT: Early addition will also create some caramelization which could add nicely to the brew.

I'm still a bit of a newb. How does the early addition cause carmelization? I guess my concern was adding 5 lbs of extract at the same time as the brown sugar. It wouldn't take anything away from the brown sugar, would it?

Nope! I boil my brown sugar for 60 minutes because I want some caramelization, which will happen to some extent if you heat sugar long enough at a hot enough temperature. Contact with the surface of the boil kettle helps as well

Do the spiced and unspiced Libby's cans look exactly the same? I found lots of the cans locally but on the ingredients list, the last ingredient was spices. The cans I found looked exactly like the one Reno posted a few posts ago.

Nevermind! I was at a Walmart, and they only had 30 oz cans that listed spices. I went to Meijer and they had tons of the Libby 29 oz cans with only pumpkin as the ingredient. The cans look similar, so be careful when purchasing!

This looks great Reno. I've been eyeing this one for a little while now waiting for some space to clear out, but I just ordered the bill for this today. Really looking forward to it.

nspaldi0 said:

Nevermind! I was at a Walmart, and they only had 30 oz cans that listed spices. I went to Meijer and they had tons of the Libby 29 oz cans with only pumpkin as the ingredient. The cans look similar, so be careful when purchasing!

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I know, right?! You did the right thing, though. Safest bet is to read the ingredient list posted below the Nutritional Facts chart.

absoluthamm said:

This looks great Reno. I've been eyeing this one for a little while now waiting for some space to clear out, but I just ordered the bill for this today. Really looking forward to it.

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Thanks for the interest and the compliments Be sure to post your results

Are you going to try to find pumpkin or just use the spice?