Autumn Seasonal Beer Moon Hill Pumpkin Ale 2.0 (All Grain)

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onipar

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 8, 2011
Messages
1,218
Reaction score
14
Location
Tannersville
Recipe Type
All Grain
Yeast
Wyeast 1272
Yeast Starter
Your Call
Batch Size (Gallons)
5.5
Original Gravity
1.057
Final Gravity
1.013
Boiling Time (Minutes)
60
IBU
20.8
Color
14.8
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
21 Days @64-66
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
7 Days @68
Tasting Notes
This is a subtle, well balanced beer with a spice nose and a pumpkin, bready flavor.
This recipe is the all grain version of last year's Partial Mash Moon Hill Pumpkin Ale: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f76/moon-hill-pumpkin-ale-260064/

Great thanks to NordeastBrewer77 for helping with tasting notes and tweaking the recipe. We stayed true to last years PM recipe, while addressing subtle changes based on tasting notes. The main differences are as follows: A very slight increase in spices. The color is a tad bit darker, and the body should be more "medium" bodied. And we hope to have addressed the head retention issue as well. You can view our notes from last year's PM batches below:

This is NordeastBrewer77 tasting my version:




And here I am tasting his version (he had made a couple tweaks to my original PM recipe):



In the following AG recipe, we took the tasting notes you just watched to create a better version of Moon Hill, while staying true to the originally PM recipe.


Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU

5 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 42.6 %
3 lbs Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 2 25.5 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 3 8.5 %
1 lbs Wheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 4 8.5 %
12.0 oz Victory Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 5 6.4 %
8.0 oz Caramunich Malt (56.0 SRM) Grain 6 4.3 %
25.00 oz Pumpkin (Mash 60.0 mins) Other 7 -

0.75 oz Mt. Hood [6.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 8 14.8 IBUs
20.00 oz Pumpkin (Boil 60.0 mins) Other 9 -
0.50 oz Hallertauer [4.80 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 10 6.1 IBUs
8.0 oz Brown Sugar, Light [Boil for 15 min](8.0 SRM) Sugar 11 4.3 %

0.50 tsp Ginger (Boil 5.0 mins) Herb 12 -
1.00 tsp Cinnamon Stick (Boil 5.0 mins) Spice 13 -
0.50 tsp Nutmeg (Boil 5.0 mins) Spice 14 -
0.50 tsp allspice (Boil 5.0 mins) Spice 15 -

1.0 pkg American Ale II (Wyeast Labs #1272) [124.21 ml] Yeast 16 -

For optional spice tea in secondary:
0.50 tsp Cinnamon Stick (Primary 7.0 days) Spice 17 -
0.25 tsp Nutmeg (Primary 7.0 days) Spice 18 -
0.25 tsp allspice (Primary 7.0 days) Spice 19 -


Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.9 %

Mash Profile (Keeping in mind this is for a 5.5 gallon batch, you can change mash temp and steps to suit your own system as needed. What's listed below is simply what beersmith created for my equipment profile).

Mash Name: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge

Caramelize pumpkin in the oven (350 for an hour).

Mash In: Add 17.26 qt of water at 167.7 F for a mash at 154.0 F for 60 min

Sparge Step: Batch sparge with 5.37 gal of 168.0 F water

Mash Notes: I have in the recipe to mash about half of the pumpkin, but I believe I will simply boil it all this year, as I don't think there is much benefit in mashing the pumpkin. Caramelize the pumpkin in the oven before use.

Carbonate as you like.

*Spice Tea: One week before you bottle, add the spice tea mixture if preferred. I'd suggest taking a hydrometer reading and tasting the sample to determine if you want more spice flavor. This step is included to help regulate the spice flavor to your personal taste, and to add an extra layer of spice flavor/aroma. If you have a small hop bag, you can put the spices into it to steep, and add the tea and bag of spices directly to the fermentor for the remainder of your primary period. If you're doing an (optional) secondary, add the spices to this stage. Do not boil this spice tea, steep as you would a regular tea.

Created with BeerSmith

:mug:
 
Last edited by a moderator:
So, I've finally gotten my version of the recipe down to the last few tweaks before heading to the brew shop to get the ingredients. I'm thinking of brewing this next week, so I want to get my starter ready Monday or Tuesday. I'm leaning towards using all three cans of pumpkin in the boil to keep the mash clean and smooth.
I have the recipe shared in my BeerSmith2 Cloud. I'm NordeastBrewer on BS cloud. Here's what I'm looking at so far:

Recipe: Moon Hill Pumpkin Ale
Brewer: Dan
Asst Brewer: Juli
Style: Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 6.22 gal - Fermcap-S FTW, I have a 30 qt kettle!
Post Boil Volume: 5.72 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.25 gal
Bottling Volume: 5.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.069 SG
Estimated Color: 16.8 SRM
Estimated IBU: 20.8 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 76.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
5 lbs 4.1 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 34.7 %
3 lbs 2.4 oz Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 2 20.8 %
1 lbs 0.8 oz Wheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 3 6.9 %
1 lbs 0.8 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 4 6.9 %
12.6 oz Victory Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 5 5.2 %
8.4 oz Caramunich Malt (56.0 SRM) Grain 6 3.5 %
2 lbs 13.0 oz Libby's Canned Pumpkin (baked) (3.5 SRM) Sugar - Boil 60.0 min 7 18.6 %
0.79 oz Mt. Hood [6.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 8 14.7 IBUs
0.52 oz Hallertauer [4.80 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 9 6.0 IBUs
8.4 oz Brown Sugar, Light [Boil for 15 min](8.0 Sugar 10 3.5 %
0.53 tsp Ginger (Boil 5.0 mins) Herb 11 -
1.05 tsp Cinnamon Stick (Boil 5.0 mins) Spice 12 -
0.53 tsp Nutmeg (Boil 5.0 mins) Spice 13 -
0.53 tsp allspice (Boil 5.0 mins) Spice 14 -
1.0 pkg American Ale II (Wyeast Labs #1272) [124 Yeast 15 -
0.53 tsp Cinnamon Stick (Secondary 7.0 days) Spice 16 -
0.26 tsp Nutmeg (Secondary 7.0 days) Spice 17 -
0.26 tsp allspice (Secondary 7.0 days) Spice 18 -


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 15 lbs 2.3 oz
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Mash In Add 15.26 qt of water at 165.6 F 154.0 F 60 min

Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (0.77gal, 3.17gal) of 168.0 F water
Notes:
------
Second take at last year's Moon Hill Pumpkin Ale by Onipar.

Created with BeerSmith 2 - http://www.beersmith.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I do plan on using a secondary for this beer. I want the spice tea addition to be added off of the yeast cake. I also know the Wy1272 yeast fairly well, it can take a bit more time than I'd like to clear after FG is reached and I've learned that a rack to a secondary vessel can help clear it up. I'll add the tea after ~3 days in secondary and leave it until it's clear again. Last year that took ~7 days.
Looking forward to this one, Tony! Slainte!! :mug:
 
Brewing this bad boy tomorrow! :ban:

I decided to save a few bucks and use the hops I had on hand instead of buying more. Should be interesting, but I don't think it'll make a huge difference since it's mostly bittering. I used an IBU calculator to keep the IBU's the same. Using mostly hallertau mittelfrüh with some left over mt hood from last year. So, pretty close. :drunk:

One other little change I am making is that I'm going to put 2 whole cinnamon sticks (plus another half of a special "true" cinnamon stick) instead of the tsp of ground. I might stick those in at 10 mins instead of 5, just to give it enough time. The other spices are as listed.

Oh, and I'm going to use 60 ounces of pumpkin, but probably only 15 ounces at most in the mash to avoid stuck or slow mashing.

I have a 1 liter starter of the yeast going too. Can't wait to get brewing! :mug:
 
Well, there will be no Moon Hill for me this year. After a 6 hour brew day, 2 hours prep yesterday, and like $35 in ingredients, the table I was using tipped over and the wort spilled all over the driveway. My hydrometer, graduated cylinder, and beer glass broke. I'm going to go cry now. :mad:
 
OH NO!!! Dude, that f'n sucks. I'll be brewing my version in honor of your loss and I'll gladly send you some once it's bottled. Sorry that happened, man.

Thanks, man. It was one of those horrific moments every brewer dreads. I keep seeing the table tip in slow motion every time I close my eyes. Ahhhhh!

FYI, there are no emoticons on this site to appropriately convey the mingled sense of horror, depression, and anger I felt at that moment.

EDIT: Quick side note. If you are putting the majority of the pumpkin in the boil, you may have some minor problems draining it through a paint strainer bag (if you decide to try and strain it). It's doable, but it gets clogged pretty easy.
 
Ok, so I've finally gotten everything together for this one. Brewing this weekend! :rockin:
Here's what I'm going with:

BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Moon Hill Pumpkin Ale

Style: Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 6.47 gal
Post Boil Volume: 5.72 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.25 gal
Bottling Volume: 5.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.064 SG
Estimated Color: 16.5 SRM
Estimated IBU: 20.3 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 68.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 71.9 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
5 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 34.3 %
3 lbs Munich I (Weyermann) (7.1 SRM) Grain 2 20.6 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 3 6.9 %
1 lbs Pale Wheat (Dingemans) (1.6 SRM) Grain 4 6.9 %
12.0 oz Victory Malt (biscuit) (Briess) (28.0 SR Grain 5 5.1 %
8.0 oz Caramunich III (Weyermann) (71.0 SRM) Grain 6 3.4 %
2 lbs 13.0 oz Libby's Canned Pumpkin (baked) (3.5 SRM) Sugar 7 19.3 %
0.75 oz Mt. Hood [6.10 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 8 15.2 IBUs
0.50 oz Hallertauer [4.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 9 5.1 IBUs
8.0 oz Brown Sugar, Light [Boil for 15 min](8.0 Sugar 10 3.4 %
0.50 tsp Ginger (Boil 5.0 mins) Herb 11 -
1.00 tsp Cinnamon Stick (Boil 5.0 mins) Spice 12 -
0.50 tsp Nutmeg (Boil 5.0 mins) Spice 13 -
0.50 tsp allspice (Boil 5.0 mins) Spice 14 -
1.0 pkg American Ale II (Wyeast Labs #1272) [124 Yeast 15 -
0.50 tsp Cinnamon Stick (Secondary 7.0 days) Spice 16 -
0.25 tsp Nutmeg (Secondary 7.0 days) Spice 17 -
0.25 tsp allspice (Secondary 7.0 days) Spice 18 -

I'm going with all three cans of pumpkin in the boil. I'll let the beer gods and gravity sort everything out, I didn't strain or anything at all last year and ended up with a very clear brew. I'll try to leave as much junk as I can in the kettle and let the rest settle out.
To ensure this beer's ready for use by Hallow's Eve'n, I'm gonna rack it to secondary as soon as I have a stable FG to get it spiced and cleared more quickly. Here's to hopin'! :mug:
 
Ok, so I brewed this a week ago yesterday. Everything went off well, wort tasted wonderful, fermentation kicked off quickly, blah, blah. I did get horrible mash eff. and ended up ~6 points low on the OG, ~1.056. I took my first FG reading this afternoon, 1.012! It's obviously still turbo young, but I'm getting breadiness, definitely some pumpkin, spices. There's a nuttiness from the yeast that seems to go well with the bread-y malt, the sample's still pretty yeasty.... Color's nice, I think the pic shows it pretty well, though the beer's really cloudy. I'm gonna try to get this over to secondary later on this week.

HPIM1090.jpg
 
Sweet! It's looking good! Damn, I wish I wasn't so freakin' clumsy. I did finally get my ghoulish graf together this past weekend, so at least there's that.
 
I got 'er transferred over to secondary this afternoon. Man, did the pumpkin pie aroma pop out when I opened the fermenter. The beer was pretty clear going over to secondary, but I'm gonna wait a day or two 'til it's completely clear before adding the spice tea.
I had a full gallon of trub in the fermenter!!! Guess that's what I get for deciding not to filter out the pumpkin. It was obviously due to the pumpkin, it was orange-ish and I seldom get more than a quart or so of trub normally.... ahh well, I got ~4.25 gal of clear brew into secondary. Since I ended up with a lighter beer, and less than planned, I'm gonna go easy on the spices for secondary.
HPIM1096.jpg
First go-round for my new Better Bottle!! The foam is starsan.
HPIM1095.jpg
I was surprised to see this much trub when I pulled the fermenter out of the swamp bucket! I'll be filtering the pumpkin out next year for sure. :mug:
 
Yeah, that's one good argument for only mashing the pumpkin, but I feel like I get good flavor from boiling it, so I like to do that too. I had a good amount of trub even when filtering it through a grain bag. I think the pumpkin liquifies enough that most will go right through the mesh bag, but I could be mistaken.

Can't wait to hear how your batch comes out!
 
I think you're right, man. The pumpkin gets very thin and comes right through. I noticed that it almost dissolved when I boiled just canned pumpkin in water. And I think you're also right that you get more of the flavor and aroma in the boil as opposed to mashing. This year's batch is much more pumpkin-y :cross: than I remember last year's being. And I think I like it. It's crystal clear in the carboy now, so I'll spice it up tomorrow and bottle next weekend.
 
I'm glad I found this thread. I have a similar recipe in the primary now and was a little nervous. All the recipes I found mashed the pumpkin but I was determined to boil it, certain in my heart of hearts it would work. I was glad to see it break up so well in the boil, but my carboy has 3/4 gallon of pumpkin trub after only ~3 days. Freaked me out. Happy to see Im not alone!:mug:
 
I brewed this recipe a few weeks ago and it is now in the secondary awaiting the spice tea. But before I add the spices, I had a question about adding spices since this is my first time adding spices to the secondary.

I am using a better bottle for my secondary and I have a hop bag for the spices, however, if I steep with the hop bag the ground spices will fall right through since the holes in the hop bag are not fine enough to hold ground spices. Is the goal of the spice tea for the spices to mix in with the wort? Or are the spices supposed to stay in the hop bag and just the flavoring come through?

I have whole cinnamon stick and allspice (I ground using a mortar and pestle during the boil). Should I leave these both whole when steeping?

I appreciate your input!
 
I brewed this recipe a few weeks ago and it is now in the secondary awaiting the spice tea. But before I add the spices, I had a question about adding spices since this is my first time adding spices to the secondary.

I am using a better bottle for my secondary and I have a hop bag for the spices, however, if I steep with the hop bag the ground spices will fall right through since the holes in the hop bag are not fine enough to hold ground spices. Is the goal of the spice tea for the spices to mix in with the wort? Or are the spices supposed to stay in the hop bag and just the flavoring come through?

I have whole cinnamon stick and allspice (I ground using a mortar and pestle during the boil). Should I leave these both whole when steeping?

I appreciate your input!

What I did was add the spices to boiling water, steep for 10 or so mins and add direct to secondary (I used a Better Bottle too). No bag, but I did remove the stick cinnamon before adding. The "tea steep" kills two birds with one stone, sterilizes the spice and extracts the tastiness. Gravity will take car of the rest.

I bottled this about 10 days ago and it was amazing. Tony, it actually tasted like pumpkin pie this year. I got a lot of pumpkin (not spice) flavor, and a bit of a chewy mouthfeel too. I'm so psyched for this one, I think we nailed it! :rockin:
 
What I did was add the spices to boiling water, steep for 10 or so mins and add direct to secondary (I used a Better Bottle too). No bag, but I did remove the stick cinnamon before adding. The "tea steep" kills two birds with one stone, sterilizes the spice and extracts the tastiness. Gravity will take car of the rest.

I bottled this about 10 days ago and it was amazing. Tony, it actually tasted like pumpkin pie this year. I got a lot of pumpkin (not spice) flavor, and a bit of a chewy mouthfeel too. I'm so psyched for this one, I think we nailed it! :rockin:

That is the method I was reading about when adding spices, but in Onipar's original post he said not to boil so I was confused. I guess I am over thinking this too much, but I just want to get it right because I'm excited for this brew!
 
I think he means not to actually boil the tea that was being added to secondary. It's the same as if you were steeping an earl grey or green leaf tea. Boiling drives off aromatics. However, you want to preboil the water, and have it above ~170 or so so that the spices can be sterilized/pasteurized before being thrown into the beer. What I did, and have done in the past is to boil the water, 5-10 mins just to be sure. Remove the boiled water from heat, add mixture of spices and let stand for another five or ten mins (covered, and sanitized, I'm always really careful about anything hitting the beer post fermentation). Then I add that to the secondary. Works well, adds a lot of aroma. The tea will take a bit of time to blend in, and for the solids to settle, maybe a week to ten days.
 
Hey, sorry I wasn't around to answer these questions. I was without power for a week, and then in Jamaica for my brother's wedding. Thanks for answering the questions for me! :mug:

And it tastes like pumpkin pie! :ban: Pretty cool, I'm glad this year's batch turned out good. I thought our tweaks were pretty spot on too.
 
Hey, sorry I wasn't around to answer these questions. I was without power for a week, and then in Jamaica for my brother's wedding. Thanks for answering the questions for me! :mug:

And it tastes like pumpkin pie! :ban: Pretty cool, I'm glad this year's batch turned out good. I thought our tweaks were pretty spot on too.

Hey!! You're alive! Jamaica, huh? Fun times, congrats to your bro!!!

Hope I covered the questions right, I basically just went with how I did things on my batch.

You have uncanny timing, I have the first bottle in the fridge to try out today with a buddy who's also a fellow HBTer. I will post back on how it's coming along later tonight/tomorrow. I'm planning on taking a few bombers to my home brew club meeting next week too.

I have some set aside to ship to you whenever to want. :tank:
 
I'd be interested to see if anyone has had any updates on this recipe. Has anyone brewed this since 2012? I have been dying to brew this for a few years now, and finally have gotten the confidence to brew this. I'll be brewing early September, so any insight or help about recent experiments/brew sessions would be more than helpful. Thanks!
 
Hi, we made this recipe a few weeks ago.

We chose this one because the ingredients were easy to find at our local shop.

I used a 20L nylon bag to keep the pumpkin from making a mess in the brewing pot because I read it can get hard to clean. It was perfect.

I made a tea bag with the spices to add them after seven days to make sure it would not contaminate the beer. Next time I'll try the alcohol soaking method (just pure vodka for no extra taste or whisky for a bit of taste) but I had not enough time to try it.

Just moved it into secondary (picture). It already taste good enough and unquestionably smell spices.

Will let you know that it taste like in a few more weeks, it should be ready in time for Halloween!

PS We forgot to put the false bottom during that brewing, but it wasn't that hard to empty the pot as the grains seems to float naturally and we reused the nylon bag to filter the last bits. But I won't do that again.

My exact recipe (sorry I converted to metric, I'm French Canadian eheh) :

2.26 kg Pale Malt (2 Row)
1.36kg Munich Malt (6.5L)
454gr Malt Crystal (80L)
454gr Blé malté (2.2L)
340gr Victory Malt (28L)
226gr Malt Cara Munich || (46L)
708gr Pumpkin

21gr Mt. Hood (5.4%) 60min
567gr Pumpkin 60min

14gr Hallertau (4.7%) 30min

226g brown sugar yellow 15min

1 cinnamon stick 10min

0.50 tsp Ginger (Boil 5.0 mins)
1.00 tsp Cinnamon Stick (Boil 5.0 mins)
0.50 tsp Nutmeg (Boil 5.0 mins)
0.50 tsp allspice (Boil 5.0 mins)

1.050 og (very approximate, I took the reading at wrong temp)
18l topped with cold water to 20l
pH 5.0

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