I've been reading a lot on this forum and others about pumpkin ales. I plan on using real pumpkin cut into cubes and baked. Well, actually it's going to be butternut squash, but that's another topic. I do stove top partial mashes, kind of like the Australian Brew in a Bag method. I get about 65% efficiency and it's easy. I'm worried about the pumpkin clogging up my straining bag with my grains, so here was my plan. Let me know if anyone sees any problems this may cause with flavor or clarity issues:
1)Mash my grains as usual for 60 minutes in a large straining bag.
2) Remove the straining bag with the grains, put in a bag with 2 to 4 lbs of pumpkin cubes, mash/steep that for an hour.
3) Remove the straining bag with the pumpkins, boil for 1 hour
4) in the last 10 minutes of boil, add wirflock and another bag of cubed pumpkins.
5) once wort is cooled, pour into fermenting bucket, passing the wort through a straining bag that has been sterilized in hopes of grabbing as much gunk as possible.
6) pitch yeast, ferment for two weeks, transfer to secondary for two weeks
7) bottle
In stead of topping off my wort at 5 gallons, like i usually do, i was thinking about going up to 5.5 or 6, since I have read a lot of pumpkin settles out and you lose about 1 gallon to trub. Any thoughts?
1)Mash my grains as usual for 60 minutes in a large straining bag.
2) Remove the straining bag with the grains, put in a bag with 2 to 4 lbs of pumpkin cubes, mash/steep that for an hour.
3) Remove the straining bag with the pumpkins, boil for 1 hour
4) in the last 10 minutes of boil, add wirflock and another bag of cubed pumpkins.
5) once wort is cooled, pour into fermenting bucket, passing the wort through a straining bag that has been sterilized in hopes of grabbing as much gunk as possible.
6) pitch yeast, ferment for two weeks, transfer to secondary for two weeks
7) bottle
In stead of topping off my wort at 5 gallons, like i usually do, i was thinking about going up to 5.5 or 6, since I have read a lot of pumpkin settles out and you lose about 1 gallon to trub. Any thoughts?