BeaverBrewer1
Member
Hey all. I'm new to these forums.
I just wanted to tell a tale of a scary pumpkin ale. Ok, it's not that scary, except that I have a huge and growing layer of something - starches? in secondary.
I started this fellow out in early October.
Grain bill was something like this:
250 g crystal 80
250 g crystal 40
3.75 kg 2-row
500 g special roast
to which I added something like 10 lbs of roasted pumpkin during the single infusion mash.
I added 250 g pure, raw cane sugar (a compressed puck) during the boil.
I'd heard very mixed stories about working with pumpkin. What I did is roast the pumpkin and leave it in large chunks. I figured with the sheer amounts of pumpkin in there, I'd get pumpkin flavour (if any) out, without worrying about a stuck sparge.
I have to admit that I was low on my mash temp to start with, because I didn't really bother to figure out how to account for the temperature of the pumpkin itself. In order to get up to my target I basically "decocted" some of the pumpkin into fresh water (I had room in my tun), and brought it up to boiling in the microwave. It was a bit like using hot stones, and it preserved the integrity of the pumpkin.
Anyhoo, despite quite a long mash, I ended up with a very cloudy wort, which I took to be pumpkin starches, mostly.
I fermented with WLP005, British Ale yeast. I did notice that this yeast seems to floc as soon as the temp drops a bit, so after SWMBO left the garage door open and my temp dropped (a week into primary), I brought my brew inside and finished out the primary at around 18-21 C.
I transfered it to secondary when I believe my FG was around 1.009.
I secondaried for around a week at 18 C, then transferred it to the cold room where temps have been 10-12 C. It looks like it is barely clearing, but there is an impressive layer at the bottom. If I took my gravity reading properly, I would find it hard to believe that layer was yeast, since there's not much gravity left in there, and I didn't transfer much when I racked. I'm wondering if the starches are settling out. There was an impressive layer of cold break before I poured into my fermentor, so I suppose there could still be a lot of protein left in the beer.
Any thoughts on whether starches are likely to settle? I'm basically planning on letting it sit a week or two more at 10-12, then maybe a day or two near 4C to see if it will clear completely.
Sorry for the long-winded post! Tough to find that balance between posting enough info and putting people to sleep...
I just wanted to tell a tale of a scary pumpkin ale. Ok, it's not that scary, except that I have a huge and growing layer of something - starches? in secondary.
I started this fellow out in early October.
Grain bill was something like this:
250 g crystal 80
250 g crystal 40
3.75 kg 2-row
500 g special roast
to which I added something like 10 lbs of roasted pumpkin during the single infusion mash.
I added 250 g pure, raw cane sugar (a compressed puck) during the boil.
I'd heard very mixed stories about working with pumpkin. What I did is roast the pumpkin and leave it in large chunks. I figured with the sheer amounts of pumpkin in there, I'd get pumpkin flavour (if any) out, without worrying about a stuck sparge.
I have to admit that I was low on my mash temp to start with, because I didn't really bother to figure out how to account for the temperature of the pumpkin itself. In order to get up to my target I basically "decocted" some of the pumpkin into fresh water (I had room in my tun), and brought it up to boiling in the microwave. It was a bit like using hot stones, and it preserved the integrity of the pumpkin.
Anyhoo, despite quite a long mash, I ended up with a very cloudy wort, which I took to be pumpkin starches, mostly.
I fermented with WLP005, British Ale yeast. I did notice that this yeast seems to floc as soon as the temp drops a bit, so after SWMBO left the garage door open and my temp dropped (a week into primary), I brought my brew inside and finished out the primary at around 18-21 C.
I transfered it to secondary when I believe my FG was around 1.009.
I secondaried for around a week at 18 C, then transferred it to the cold room where temps have been 10-12 C. It looks like it is barely clearing, but there is an impressive layer at the bottom. If I took my gravity reading properly, I would find it hard to believe that layer was yeast, since there's not much gravity left in there, and I didn't transfer much when I racked. I'm wondering if the starches are settling out. There was an impressive layer of cold break before I poured into my fermentor, so I suppose there could still be a lot of protein left in the beer.
Any thoughts on whether starches are likely to settle? I'm basically planning on letting it sit a week or two more at 10-12, then maybe a day or two near 4C to see if it will clear completely.
Sorry for the long-winded post! Tough to find that balance between posting enough info and putting people to sleep...