Autumn Seasonal Beer Punkin' Ale

That will actually work out quite well. I'd recommend doing it!

I changed up the extract recipe a bit. DFH is traditionally very balanced (I love how balanced their 90 minute and 120 minute are) but having never had the punkin' ale, and this being my first pumpkin beer brew, I'd rather start off lower and work my way up to more ingredients rather than over power it on my first try.

6 lbs light DME
3/4 lb Brown Sugar
1/2 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L
1/2 lb Special Roast
45.00 oz Pumpkin, Canned (Boil 60.0 min)

1 oz Hallertau (4.0% AA 60.0 min)

1 Whirlfloc tablet

Yeast - Fermentis S-04

1/2 tbsp pumpkin spice

I backed off the pumpkin a bit, down the 3 small cans (about 42oz) rather than 2 large ones. Also, I'm going down to .75lb of brown sugar rather than 1lb and only using 1oz of Hallertau. Lastly I'm using 6lbs of DME rather than 8lbs of LME which should lower the abv a bit. I've never had a dfh punkin' ale, but the only bad things I've heard about it are that it's to big for a pumpkin ale, so I'm backing off of everything a bit, trying to bring it down to about 6% abv.

mttfrog13 said:

I changed up the extract recipe a bit. DFH is traditionally very balanced (I love how balanced their 90 minute and 120 minute are) but having never had the punkin' ale, and this being my first pumpkin beer brew, I'd rather start off lower and work my way up to more ingredients rather than over power it on my first try.

6 lbs light DME
3/4 lb Brown Sugar
1/2 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L
1/2 lb Special Roast
45.00 oz Pumpkin, Canned (Boil 60.0 min)

1 oz Hallertau (4.0% AA 60.0 min)

1 Whirlfloc tablet

Yeast - Fermentis S-04

1/2 tbsp pumpkin spice

I backed off the pumpkin a bit, down the 3 small cans (about 42oz) rather than 2 large ones. Also, I'm going down to .75lb of brown sugar rather than 1lb and only using 1oz of Hallertau. Lastly I'm using 6lbs of DME rather than 8lbs of LME which should lower the abv a bit. I've never had a dfh punkin' ale, but the only bad things I've heard about it are that it's to big for a pumpkin ale, so I'm backing off of everything a bit, trying to bring it down to about 6% abv.

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Who said its too big for a pumpkin ale? DFH Punkin is my favorite fall release and it's the boldness of the pumpkin and spice balanced by the caramel, raisin, and alcohol flavors combined that make it great.

brewmaster12 said:

Who said its too big for a pumpkin ale? DFH Punkin is my favorite fall release and it's the boldness of the pumpkin and spice balanced by the caramel, raisin, and alcohol flavors combined that make it great.

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This!

Don't get me wrong mttfrog3, your recipe looks tasty. I just like my special seasonals to be a little bold. And the base recipe doesn't taste as strong as it is... which isn't terribly strong for a veggie/spice ale.

My own recipe is near identical, and goes from 1.072 to 1.008ish everytime, with a small backboost of lactose. I have had nothing but rave reviews. Love the early fall warmer imho.

brewmaster12 said:

Who said its too big for a pumpkin ale? DFH Punkin is my favorite fall release and it's the boldness of the pumpkin and spice balanced by the caramel, raisin, and alcohol flavors combined that make it great.

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If I had this beer I'm sure it would be my favorite fall seasonal as well but I've literally only had two pumpkin ales before, Sam Adams, and Smuttynose. How does dfh compare?

Anyway, it's more that I'm just nervous about trying to brew this with having never brewed a pumpkin ale. Also I've read that it's good to use a yeast starter with higher gravity beers which I won't be doing.

Like I said, dfh can make awesome high abv balanced beer, but myself, only on my 2nd 5 gallon batch will probably mess something up. I'd just rather start here, and then increase either the pumpkin, spice, brown sugar or extract on my 2 attempt.

Thanks for the recipe Reno. I'm doing a partial-mash version this weekend. Read EVERY post on here to get tips. Will definitely bake the pumpkin, and then put it in a bag and steep it along with my other grains. Not going to boil the pumpkin. I'm going to use Wyeast 1056 - the smackpack - and only one......do you think that's ok? I have some yeast nutrient stuff at home, should I add a little to my yeast when I pitch it? I'm gathering from the posts that one pack of yeast isn't enough. I don't have time to get more so that's why I asked about the yeast nutrient stuff. Not even sure why I had this stuff at home, and what it is. Haven't seen any females posting on this thread about brewing Punkin Ale.. wonder if I'm the first???? Brewing DFH Indian brown ale tonight.

Welcome to HBT! I'm glad your first post is about my recipe :rockin:

One smack pack will work but isn't ideal. If you have a bit of extra extract you can make a yeast starter and get the proper pitching rate.

Reno_eNVy said:

One smack pack will work but isn't ideal. If you have a bit of extra extract you can make a yeast starter and get the proper pitching rate.

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Yes yock, definitely make a starter for this. Your results will no doubt be improved. And it's not hard, so don't let it intimidate you.

Just find a big jar of some sort and mix up some wort using 100 g/liter (about 3.5 oz or 1/2 cup), boil the wort for about 15 min, cool, and then dump the yeast in (using good sanitization practices, of course). And then shake it periodically; the more the better. About 24 hrs later put it in the fridge and let it settle out for about 12-24 hrs.

Then you can decant off the fermented wort, leaving just a bit to mix with the yeast so you can pour it in your fermenter. Voila!

As for the yeast nutrient: add about 1/2 tsp to your boil in the last 10 min. It will ensure good yeast growth.

Onlooker, thanks for adding detail! I sent my last message from my phone and had to cut it short. Great run-down!

And, as per Mr. Malty, you'll be fine with a 1.5 - 2.0 liter starter.

Just took a Gravity reading and mine is sitting pretty at 1.017. Hopefully it doesn't drop down too much more, it's only 5 days in. And wow, it already tastes wonderful! This is gonna be a good one.

Reno_eNVy said:

Onlooker, thanks for adding detail! I sent my last message from my phone and had to cut it short. Great run-down!

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No sweat. Glad to help .

I plan to brew this up in a couple of weeks. Sound good!

Reno_eNVy said:

Welcome to HBT! I'm glad your first post is about my recipe :rockin:

One smack pack will work but isn't ideal. If you have a bit of extra extract you can make a yeast starter and get the proper pitching rate.

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My husband works near a home brew shop. Since I'm not brewing until Saturday, can I just get a second wyeast 1056 smackpack? But I wouldn't use both for this recipe would I?

I didn't quite understand the yeast starter replies using wort. How would I do that since I'd have my wort already made. How would I get the yeast starter thing going, fridge it, let it settle a couple days, then pitch. My Punkin Ale wort would already have been made for a few days and would have needed the yeast by then. ????

If you don't have time to make a starter, you can just pitch 2 packs of yeast. In the future if you want to save some money, make a starter a few days before you brew. Just do a search on here, tons of info on starters.

^^^^^ Yes, what brew2enjoy said. You have to plan ahead for your starters. And use some plain dry malt extract (some apart from your kit) to make the starter.

I am planning on trying this tomorrow and I have a few questions. Any suggestions or help would be great. I am going to try the partial mash. My set up is very primitive, basically everything gets done in a 16qt stainless steel pot on the stove. My brother and I have brewed many partial mashes before so it's not unfamiliar territory. Usually we will mash the grains in a grain bag, drain them and sometimes sparge by placing the grain bag in a strainer and sparging right over the 16qt pot we just mashed in. Then we would add water as needed and start the boil.

My first question is would it make a difference to place the baked pumpkin puree into a grain bag? Would that cut down on the messiness?

Second, we will usually boil with enough water that we know won't cause a boil over, and then when we transfer to the carboy, add water till we hit the 5 gal mark. (We measured out 5 gal exactly on it) That has worked well so far for us, should we continue to do that or try to adjust the water for the mash, sparge, and boil accordingly?

We are looking forward to trying this out, hopefully with a little help this will turn out pretty well.

Tony, your set up sounds exactly like how we brew, so I hope someone answers your question. ......yock

Here goes! Brewing this as I speak, or type.

Made this last night. And it smelled wonderful. I did alter it a bit by adding only one can of pumpkin and used Mexican Brown sugar called Piloncillo, which in my opinion, adds a smoky, caramel, earthy like flavor that seems to be missing in regular brown sugar.

But I have seen where someone mentioned that adding real pumpkin doesn't do much at all. I somewhat disagree. Although I have used lots of pumpkin in the past, this time around, I only added 1 29 oz can of pumpkin. It adds a nice orange hue color and a vegetable "smell like" character to the finished product.

I have also heard a podcast by Basicbrewing.com, where they did a blind taste test of pumpkin beers made with and without real pumpkin. And they could tell the beer made with pumpkin because of the vegetable like character.

I've had made and drank both made with and without, and I could kinda taste that vegetable character too.

So just wondering if anyone has had a similar experience.

Once I added the spice to this the smell was awesome! Everyone in the house wanted a slice of my beer! I had poor efficiency and was under OG but the hydrometer sample tasted like drinking a pumpkin pie! The pumpkin flavor is certainly there at this point. I altered the recipe in that I put a quarter of the pumpkin in the boil. We'll see if that character carries over into the finished product.

is it ok if i roast the pumpkin the day before and then put it in the fridge overnight? or would it me much more ideal to do it right before?

Why not. It has to be cooled down anyways. I would place it in an air tight container to ensure it doesn't pickup some off flavors.

Should I use the typical 1.25 qt/lb ratio for the mash? I'm a bit confused because I see the AG recipe on the first page says to mash with 6 gallons. Are you supposed to add more water because of the pumpkin?

Just put this in the fermenter . I got 1.080 on this. Kinda high but oh well! This smells fantastic!

Wow, 1.080??? Did you use the same grain bill?

With so much activity on this thread, I am brewing my rendition tomorrow. Reno, the Northern Brewer hops dont get minty in this brew so much as earthy and herbal. Definitely adds somthing special to an already awesome beer.

ok, here we go. Steeping grains as I type - doing partial mash. Cooked my pumpkin about 5am, cooled it down, and put it in it's own mesh bag alongside the grain mesh bag. Picked up the extra bag of yeast as Reno suggested. Will post my OG next.

I didn't change the recipe but I grind grains very fine. I also did not sparge. Missed my Wort volume and had to boil two hours to get down to 5.5 gallons. Starting to think I should get some brew software that would figure it all out for me.

OG came out at 1.062 so I was off a little. What a mess, but it's in the fermenter and have a blow off tube all ready. Now, we wait....

AH! I get a new job and suddenly the thread gets assaulted. That makes me happy!

kegboy500 -- Good choice with the piloncillo. That should be really tasty.

brew2enjoy -- The extra water is indeed to accommodate for the pumpkin. Pumpkin is pretty moist but it'll still suck up a ton of water.

Waterboy42 -- Good, I was wondering about that. Glad it came out well

Brewing this tonight! The pumpkin is in the oven and I am getting ready to prep my water. I'll report back with some results later.

Brew went well. Missed my mash temp by 1* (155). Lauter & sparge were a little slow with 3/4lb of rice hulls but no problem. The color looks fantastic! My garage smelled wonderful too! Can't wait to try this one.

Nice! I can't wait until I get back into town from business to get paid so we can brew this again!

thanks for the inspiration! brewing this on friday as part of a triple brew day! .. love taking a day off work so the daughter can be at daycare and the wife is at work so nobody is bothering me

Well, I went out to the brew room to add some frozen water bottles to the swamp cooler this morning and this is what I see. I'd say the yeast are pretty happy in there! If I didn't check it this morning I would have pumpkin beer all over my ceiling by the time I got off work today:cross:

I'm going to be giving this a go Friday this week. I'll be using the pumpkin pie spice recipe a couple pages back with fresh spices. We'll see how it goes.

Mine has been in primary for 8 days and it is sitting at 1.013, its a little too dry but tastes good. For those worried about this finishing too low I would certainly try 1.5 packs instead of 2. I mashed at 153-154 and pitched 2 packs per fermenter of 1.072 well aerated wort which was enough to knock this thing out of the park quickly. It is still very early but this beer tastes great right out of the fermenter. I wish the pumpkin and the spices were more present in the taste though so I may up those amounts next time I do this brew. A very worthy recipe overall.

Cheers.

It doesn't matter whether you use 1.5 packs or two. The yeast will reproduce to the proper concentration either way and will consume the fermentable sugars until they are gone. The fg is much more dependent on mash temp.

What do you guys think of this. Changed a few things....



Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 13.00 gal
Post Boil Volume: 11.70 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 11.00 gal
Bottling Volume: 10.50 gal
Estimated OG: 1.075 SG
Estimated Color: 13.5 SRM
Estimated IBU: 24.1 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 71.8 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
2 lbs Rice Hulls (0.0 SRM) Adjunct 1 6.3 %
22 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter (Thomas Fawcett) Grain 2 68.8 %
2 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 3 6.3 %
2 lbs Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 4 6.3 %
2 lbs Victory Malt (biscuit) (Briess) (28.0 SR Grain 5 6.3 %
116.00 oz Canned Pumpkin (Mash 60.0 mins) Other 6 -
2 lbs Brown Sugar, Light (8.0 SRM) Sugar 7 6.3 %
3.00 oz Hallertauer [4.80 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 8 21.3 IBUs
1.00 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins) Fining 9 -
3.00 tbsp McCormick Pumpkin Pie Spice (Boil 10.0 m Spice 10 -
2.00 oz Hallertauer [4.80 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 11 2.8 IBUs
4.0 pkg SafAle English Ale (DCL/Fermentis #S-04) Yeast 12 -


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Full Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 32 lbs
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Mash In Add 38.50 qt of water at 170.3 F 156.0 F 60 min

Wow, long thread that has gone on for quite a few years. Is the original recipe still considered the best?