Bottled my first pumpkin ale yesterday - things I've learned

1. Pumpkin ale is definitely more of a challenge. I've brewed many many beers and this is the first that has been a tough one to get it all right.

2. I will definitely try containing the pumpkin in a nylon mesh bag with the next batch. I had put it straight into the boil and straight into the fermenter. I'd figured most of it would settle out collect at the bottom. But on bottling day I got concerned and decided to rack into another vessel and what I did was put the tube into a nylon mesh bag to strain the beer. It worked extremely well but holy cow I lost 1.5 gallons of beer to the strained pumpkin trub!! I'm glad I did it though because when the volume started getting lower the fluid coming through the tube was thick and slow moving. Can't imagine if I'd put that in bottles!

3. Some of you may disagree, this is just my personal opinion here, but pumpkin's should probably only be done as full boils. With a partial boil, which is what I did cause I didn't yet have my Blichmann, I found that getting the volume of water correct with all that pumpkin is rather difficult. The pumpkin also seems to suck up a bunch of liquid in the boil thereby making it even harder to figure out before hand. And I found if you just top up after the OG comes out less than what was originally expected. I for one will only be doing this as a full boil from now on (heh, well I'll be doing all full boils anyway). This way I can start off with the preboil volume and not worry about the volume when I add the pumpkin. I also boiled my pumpkin for 30 minutes - the last 30 minutes of the boil. Next time I will still do 30 minutes but I will put it in with 40 minutes left and remove it at 10 minutes left. Reason? -> if the pumpkin takes away extra liquid with it I can top off the brew kettle and still boil for a bit before finishing. This way I can still hit my full 5 gallon final amount.

4. Until I open and drink one of my pumpkins I still don't know if the spice blend was right or enough. I think it is and I used a decent amount, more than most simple recipes use. It smelled amazing during the ferment and tasted amazing when I sampled the OG sample from the hydro and well as a week later when I sampled it. However, after the fermentation finished and I took the FG I didn't seem to taste the spices much at all. Who knows, may be a different story once carbed up and chilled. Either way, it's hard to tell.

So those are my personal findings. Some of you might not have had any issues so this is more of a personal lessons learned thing. But I've definitely learned a lot and know much better how to approach it next time


Rev.

As you learned, just like grain and whole hop cones soak up water, so too does pumpkin. Just account for it at the onset or be prepared to have a little less finished product.

As to the spicing, one thing you can do is take a taste just before bottling and adjust your spice level at that point. Always aim for the low side of spices and then at bottling you can make a 'spice tea' and adjust to taste. I bet it will still be a great beer. Enjoy!

I put mine in the mash and had no problems. Same amount of water, same amount of trub. I did use rice hulls to keep thinks running smooth. Pumpkin ale may be a brew that's actually easier to make AG.

I cracked my first bottle two days ago and was plesently surpised at how tasty it was. I'd never had a pumpkin brew and didn't know what to expect.

didnt read much at all but just putting my advice out there. i did my pumpkin ale a while back and did two batchs. one think i learned is to roast the pumpkin then step with grains before you add to the boil. i made another batch where i just added raw pumpkin straight to the boil and it had a weird appley taste, very strange. GOOD LUCK! i love my pumpkin reciepe

DrJekyll-HomeBrew said:

one think i learned is to roast the pumpkin then step with grains before you add to the boil. i made another batch where i just added raw pumpkin straight to the boil and it had a weird appley taste, very strange. GOOD LUCK! i love my pumpkin reciepe

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I did bake my pumpkin. It was canned pumpkin (60oz of Libby's) that I mixed in 8oz of brown sugar and baked at 350 for one hour. Problem wasn't the pumpkin or pumpkin flavor, it was mostly the process.


Rev.

I have never done a pumpkin but i would like to soon. Thanks for the advise. seems to make sense.

Thanks for the update Rev.

I have my pumpkin contained in a nylon bag sitting in the primary. I will be racking it to secondary next weekend, along with adding some cinnamon sticks and vanilla extract. The brew smelled great on brew day while boiling, but I couldnt really taste much spices when I took the OG. 2 weeks late (today) it seems like the pumpkin flavor is finally coming through a bit.

After adding some vanilla/cinnamon next week, I will determine if I need to add anything at bottling following another taste test. Really hoping this one turns out!

I decided to rack to secondary yesterday after my last post.

Added 1Tbsp vanilla and 2 cinnamon sticks soaked in some vodka.

I will taste it again at bottling to fig out what to add more of. Thoughts?

if you are doing all grain, consider mashing the pumpkin next time. it will convert some of the sugars and you won't have to deal with the mess of seperating it later.

When I did my pumpkin spiced ale I used fresh pumpkin and cubed it to between 1-2". Then I baked it for 1.5 hours at 350°. I also placed about 2 cups of water and the pumpkin absorbed most of that. After the baking process the pumpkin was much softer but not so soft that it didn't stay together in the grain bag.

It seems that most of the issues I read about in various pumpkin beer threads is from the people using canned pumpkin.

Diaperload said:

It seems that most of the issues I read about in various pumpkin beer threads is from the people using canned pumpkin.

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Yeah, because the pumpkin has been pretty much pureed. Being this was the first pumpkin I went with the easier root of canned to not have to deal with choosing the right type of pumpkin, baking it pretty much twice (once to soften then peel and rebake, etc), and having to peel it and all that. I also personally think canned would more likely lend flavor than cubed whole pumpkin due to the dissolvability of a more finely ground flesh.

But yeah, I could see cubed whole pumpkin being far easier to manage. I think though that bagging the canned pumpkin should also work quite well. I'll see when I do my next one


Rev.

I just did an all grain pumpkin and had my first stuck mash. I will deff had rice hulls if you add it to the mash.

My pumpkin ale mash was a nightmare to deal with, good thing everyone seems to like it. However, I will say that my problem was compounded by the fact that I had a faux stainless steel braid in my mashtun, damn you Home Depot. I am sure next time with a proper stainless steel braid it will still be tough but not as tough as this year. Depending on your grain bill the pumpkin in the mash does give your beer a cool orange hue.

stbnj said:

Depending on your grain bill the pumpkin in the mash does give your beer a cool orange hue.

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I hadn't mentioned it but mine was an extract recipe I formulated. I did however get an awesome orange color to it.


Rev.

Here is mine after racking to secondary

We do a "Pumpkin" Ale as well. Except we use butternut squash. It has a sweeter smoother flavor then pumpkin does. We roast the butternut in the oven and add it to the boil and fermentation. You can read more about it on our blog:
http://powellavenuebrew.com/2011/09/pumpkin-coffee-brew-day/

i Also put pumpkin, in a muslin grain bag, in the primary. (4lb canned, baked, just like you)

The bag did not contain much if any pumpkin. I lost 1.5 gallons as well, which was dissapointing.

As far as the spices, for my pumpkin i used 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. I boiled it in the wort in the last 5 minutes. i find that it is not enough, and cannot really taste much. I as really going for a shipyard pumpkinhead style, where it is basically all spices.

the wort smelled really really great for like a minute after i added the spices, just like pumpkin pie! So next time i think i will add them at 1 min or at flameout.

OK, so I got curious today... it was killing me because I didn't know how the spice blend would turn out. I had another thread about it in the recipe section but am posting the update in this thread. It's only been 4 days in the bottle... I know I know... I'm being bad and very impatient but I figured I'd sacrifice one bottle (not really a sacrifice since I'm drinking the whole thing) to find out how the spices came out.

Well... it came out great! Great taste and great smell, it's about on point with most other brands of commercial pumpkin ales - not Weyerbacher though cause theirs is over the top - theirs is my favorite but some think it's too spiced. It's obviously not carbed up much at the moment so it will only be better when it is as carbonation spreads the smells of a beer and even the taste. So far I've got a really great beer here and am super excited to see how it is after 3 weeks in the bottle. Being a 5 gallon batch only got me 27 500ml bottles (16.9oz) due to the pumpkin/trub loss I will wait the full 3 weeks bottle time for the rest of the bottles.

I went malty with this one as I wanted more of a malty amber ale base. I think too many pumpkin ales thin out of the base just to let the spices and pumpkin take the show. That's fine and understandable but I didn't want to do that. So far all is checking out wonderfully.


Rev.

andrew300 said:

if you are doing all grain, consider mashing the pumpkin next time. it will convert some of the sugars and you won't have to deal with the mess of seperating it later.

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This is the way to go in my book!

Rev, have you tried one yet?

collinsDPT said:

Rev, have you tried one yet?

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I did, two posts ago I posted about it and it was waaay better. I actually put another in the fridge today to sample tomorrow morning. Reason being I was planning on brewing another pumpkin ale batch tomorrow and was wondering if I should wait till this one is fully ready and maybe just brew up my Amber Ale tomorrow instead. I wasn't sure what to do so I stuck one more in the fridge and will taste it tomorrow but it will only be one week in the bottle. It will be enough though to tell me if I should rebrew it or go with the amber. I'm only concerned whether or not I need to tweak it a pinch.

When I tasted it at only 4 days in the bottle it was surprisingly good, so I think it will be great when fully ready. I'm just the type of person that likes to know where it needs tweaking before brewing the next batch.

Here's the funny thing... the wife and I were out in the city (NYC) and I had the Riverhorse Imperial Pumpkin Ale for the first time. And what a shock it was - tasted just like my pumpkin ale but with more alcohol!!! And mine is an extract brew. I even wondered if they used extract in theirs lol. Literally the taste was sooo similar. Anyhow, I will post again tomorrow after tasting it again.


Rev.

got it... nice work

I'm not crazy about pumpkin ales, but they are one beer that's WAY easier to make all grain. You just mash it with your grains, make sure to use rice hulls to improve the filter bed, and your wort drains out nice and clear and pumpkin-ey

bottlebomber said:

I'm not crazy about pumpkin ales, but they are one beer that's WAY easier to make all grain. You just mash it with your grains, make sure to use rice hulls to improve the filter bed, and your wort drains out nice and clear and pumpkin-ey

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Oh man, I looove pumpkin ales! Sorry to hear they're not exactly your cup of tea. I plan on doing my first all grain beers within the next month or two. Gonna do the BIAB method when I get to it. I guess for BIAB I wouldn't need rice hulls?


Rev.

Rev2010 said:

Oh man, I looove pumpkin ales! Sorry to hear they're not exactly your cup of tea. I plan on doing my first all grain beers within the next month or two. Gonna do the BIAB method when I get to it. I guess for BIAB I wouldn't need rice hulls?

Rev.

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I'm probably opening the floodgates here, but if you like making strong beers, and you don't like hefting 45 pound soaking wet grain bags and holding them up while you negotiate some kind of a strainer, and you don't like boiling grain chaff that filters through the bag, and you don't like buying a new nylon bag every few times you brew, I highly recommend the Rubbermaid mash tun conversion on the forum. It ROCKS. I'm going to use it to make a 1.120 strong scottish ale tomorrow, something that would be literally impossible doing BIAB. It works for some people and that's great, but I tried it twice and moved on. You seriously don't need a fancy three tiered setup to brew AG, I drain my wort into a 7 gallon bucket and then put it right back into my boil kettle/hot liquour tank and my beer earns applause at my homebrew meeting.

Rant over

I might get used to the pumpkin ales... the one I just made is pretty good I think it just needs to age a bit.

bottlebomber said:

I'm probably opening the floodgates here, but if you like making strong beers, and you don't like hefting 45 pound soaking wet grain bags and holding them up while you negotiate some kind of a strainer

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I hear ya man, no argument here. I've actually been thinking of simply going the traditional route. I figure I have a Blichmann 10 gallon kettle and floor burner... an MLT is chump change so why not? I may just go that route.


Rev.

Ravenshead said:

I put mine in the mash and had no problems. Same amount of water, same amount of trub. I did use rice hulls to keep thinks running smooth. Pumpkin ale may be a brew that's actually easier to make AG.

I cracked my first bottle two days ago and was plesently surpised at how tasty it was. I'd never had a pumpkin brew and didn't know what to expect.

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+1 I also placed the pumpkin in my mash BUT OMG it was a tough sparge I used 1/2 a lb of rice hulls but it wasn't enough I guess as I had probably 6 or 7 stuck sparges and it took over 2 hours to reach my pre boil volume. On a positive note I hit my highest mash eff. at 83% I guess a slow sparge is good for something.