Pumpkin in Secondary?

Ok so i am brewing up a batch of pumpkin ale tomorrow and am still not sure what to do...It seems to me like mashing the pumpkin wouldn't get me very far because the boil will get rid of the flavors i want...My other 2 options are adding the pumpkin at flameout letting it ferment then racking to secondary...and lastly adding the pumpkin into secondary, I haven't heard of anyone doing this (adding pumpkin to secondary) so please give me your thoughts....

I add the pumpkin to the boil during the last 10 minutes.

THIS really needs to be stickied this time of year. "Search" is everyone's friend.

I have done plenty of reading, and am not one of those people who doesn't do research before asking a question...sorry if I re-hashed old threads...I ended up adding some to the mash and a can or so during the boil I pulled a Dual Day brewing this and an Amber...Took all day and im glad its over....11 gallons of pumpkin ale 5.5 of the amber...I split the pumpkin to 2 5.5 gallon batches and pitched with different strands. Thanks for input "Bdupree"

No offense taken, it's just that this time of year only about 10% of the people posting about pumpkin beers have read that thread or searched in the right spot, then start off by posting "I'm not sure what to do".

I know your question was addressed in that thread, so I assumed you hadn't seen it or searched, and i, personally, like to steer everyone to that thread since i consider it the end-all-be-all pumpkin thread.

Yeah unfortunately I think Yuri isn't responding much to that thread, and I read through the whole thing and googled and read everything i could find and still did not find the solution for pumpkin in secondary...I found allot of useful information however, and made my decision on what i thought would be best...I guess I'll know for next years batch what worked and what didn't...What killed me was a small MT. Having to sparge so much really compacted my grain bed! I haven't brewed many 11 gallon batches so it was fairly new. I will get better over time. my efficiency was way better than 70% and i over shot my OG which i have no problem with...The WlP002 took off already while my burton ale is still sitting...I pitched some servo on it so hopefully that gets things moving~Don't SMASH on the Newbies cactus we all had to start somewhere...: )

After reading through that whole pumpkin thread, I still can't tell if pumpkin can be added to secondary. I would like to try it for my next batch, but just want to know if there is some obvious reason this won't work that I am missing? I mainly want to get a good pumpkin flavor, not necessarily looking for the best conversion of sugar to ferment.

The people from my LHBS told me to add it to secondary to get the up front flavors, they said it would be like brewing a batch with fruit...you do it the same way, then again they both don't like or drink Pumpkin beers...However I have read that it will cause hazyness, and various other effects. Most everyone either adds it in boil,Or in the Mash. Being that I did not want have my BK get stuck while transfering to the Fermentor. I chose to suck it up and add it to the mash just for color. I did add one can to the beginning of the boil...Next time I will do one 5.5 gallon batch adding the pumpkin at flameout, And another 5.5 gallon batch putting the pumpkin in at secondary..For this batch I held back on the spices and will be adding them slowly during secondary to achieve spice perfection. Ill post my results in a year when I grow the balls to brew this again. As for your question I'd say go for it and see for yourself. Keep us posted. Good luck

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/dual-brew-days-success-failure-197156/

Link to some pictures...

I just recently brewed a pumpkin porter and did not add pumpkin into the boil. I plan on adding it to the secondary so I'll post the results once it's done fermenting and bottle conditioned. Could be about another month or so until I can post the outcome, though.

I brewed a batch of Yuri's "Thunderstruck" pumpkin ale a few months back and am very happy with the results. I added my baked pumpkin puree at the beginging of boil. Pumpkin in and of itself is not very flavorful and most of the "pumpkin pie" flavor people look for in pumpkin beers comes from the spice additions. I added a pumpkin spice "tea" when racking to my secondary using a cinnamon/nutmeg/allspice pumpkin pie spice mix and my beer turned out delicous.

I don't think that adding pumpkin to your secondary would do much for you other than cause a huge mess.

Many people don't even add pumpkin to their "pumpkin beers" as they get good results from just the spices without the pumpkin mess. I may try this next year but I do think that my pumpkin ale has a certain mouthfeel and color, that I think is attribute to the pumpkin I used, that I enjoy.

kingmatt said:

I brewed a batch of Yuri's "Thunderstruck" pumpkin ale a few months back and am very happy with the results. I added my baked pumpkin puree at the beginging of boil. Pumpkin in and of itself is not very flavorful and most of the "pumpkin pie" flavor people look for in pumpkin beers comes from the spice additions. I added a pumpkin spice "tea" when racking to my secondary using a cinnamon/nutmeg/allspice pumpkin pie spice mix and my beer turned out delicous.

I don't think that adding pumpkin to your secondary would do much for you other than cause a huge mess.

Many people don't even add pumpkin to their "pumpkin beers" as they get good results from just the spices without the pumpkin mess. I may try this next year but I do think that my pumpkin ale has a certain mouthfeel and color, that I think is attribute to the pumpkin I used, that I enjoy.

Click to expand...

We ended up doing the same thing as you with the spiced tea...It turned out great. We used 1 tsp of pumpkin pie spice but i think it could have used a little more. One batch is already gone and I have the other in secondary. I really need to keg it. One batch was pitched with WLP002 and the other with a burton Strain. It should be an interesting comparison. I enjoyed this recipe but will most likely try my own next year. Cheers

Anyone had good results with adding the pumpkin to secondary? I'm thinking about adding a small can, roasted pretty heavily in the oven beforehand

Bump, has this question ever been answered? The OP needs to update us on his findings.

I added (2) 30oz cans of Libbys Easy Pumpkin Pie Mix to my 5 gallon batch of Brewers Best Pumpkin Porter. This is basically puree that has already been spiced with cinnamon/nutmet/ginger/etc...

I dumped both cans into a baking dish, then baked for 1hour @ 350F. After it cooled I dumped it into a large a large strainer bag, and zip tied it shut.

I let it sit in the secondary for a little over a week and a half. Since there are fermentables in the pumpkin, it will start fermenting again. I tasted it 3 nights ago and it tasted great!

I went to bottle it today, and it tastes really bitter. I don't know what happened to change the flavor within 3 days, but I'm now looking for ideas to make it taste good again.

I don't want to dump the whole batch, so I'm thinking of back sweetening with some light Belgian candi syrup, and then pasteurizing it once it gets carb'd up.

Other option I can think of is brewing some Dunkin Donuts Pumpkin Spice coffee, and trying to add it to the beer.

At this point I'm willing to try anything. If anyone else has any experience please chime in.

Also, I think the pumpkin puree may have actually absorbed some of the pumpkin pie spices...idk for sure though.