So how did everyone's pumpkin or sweet potato ales turn out?

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Dr_Gordon_Freeman

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I am looking to find a good pumpkin or sweet potato ale recipe, and I guess now is the time to ask since you all have by now tasted your brews for the holiday. (I don't mind having mine late, I always love these flavors)

Keep in mind I am not a hop head, and what I am looking for is something that tastes kinda like pumpkin or sweet potato pie. My plan is to use the technique to aquire sweet potato syrup found in another thread:

OCCURRENCE OF DIASTASE IN THE SWEET POTATO IN RELATION TO THE PREPARATION OF SWEET POTATO SYRUP
By HC Gore
From the Bureau of Chemistry United States Department of Agriculture Washington Received for publication July 18 1920
The manufacture of syrup from sweet potatoes by the use of malt has long been a matter of public record. 1 Directions for the small scale production of sweet potato malt syrup were issued by the Department of Agriculture in February 1919. The necessity for use of malt however apparently has prevented any wide use of the method. Further work on the production of the syrup has unexpectedly revealed the fact that the sweet potato is so rich in diastase that nearly all the starch becomes converted into soluble carbohydrates by autolysis upon slow cooking. Moreover the hot pulp formed by crushing the cooked sweet potatoes drains readily thus permitting the easy recovery of the sweet juices. Sweet potato syrup therefore can easily be made without the use of malt. The method consists simply in so heating the potatoes in the water that the tissues are heated at the temperature of maximum diastatic activity for from 10 to 20 minutes then heating to boiling in order to soften the tissues crushing and separating the sweet juices from the insoluble pulp The juice is then evaporated to syrup with or without further treatment. For example 1 kilo of Porto Rico potatoes was covered with water in an aluminum kettle placed over a Fletcher burner and the water heated to 60 deg C. The gas was then turned down and the heat applied very slowly so that the temperature gradually rose from 60 to 80 deg C during an hour and from 80 to the boiling point during the next hour. The boiling was continued for ½ hour when the potatoes were thoroughly soft. They were then mashed in the water in which they were cooked and enough water was added to form a thin pulp. The sweet juice in the pulp was then freed from the insoluble pulp ingredients by suction using a Buchner funnel and filter paper and the residue on the filter repeatedly exhausted with hot water. The filtrates were combined, evaporated to a thin syrup and weighed. The weight was 714 gm and the Brix reading at 20 C was 37.6. Thus 714 X 37.6 or 268.5 gm of syrup solids had been exhausted from 1 kilo of sweet potatoes The dried pulp weighed 59 gm. The syrup was finally evaporated to a solids content of about 75 percent. It was a slightly turbid amber colored liquid with a faint pleasant odor and a sweet taste with a slight flavor of the sweet potato. It contained a little soluble starch as shown by the iodine test but not enough to cause it to thicken upon standing. The sweet potatoes can be prepared for extraction by simply cooking them in water as in preparing for table use but the resulting syrup will contain enough soluble starch to cause it to thicken upon cooling and standing. Tests on the diastatic power of extracts of sweet potato and sweet potato flour were made by Lint ner's method as described by Brown 2

Sample -- Degrees Lintner

Porto Rico fresh pulp3 -- 300
Nancy Hall “ “ 3 -- 125
Porto Rico flour4 -- 500
Nancy Hall4 -- 300
Big Stem Jersey flour4 -- 160

SUMMARY
Sweet potatoes are high in diastatic power and it is possible to convert nearly all their starch into soluble carbohydrates by slowly cooking the potatoes in water. The pulp formed by mashing the cooked potatoes with hot water drains readily permitting the easy recovery of the sweet juice.

1 US Patent 109,991 was granted to Charles Delamarre on December 6 1870
2 Brown AJ Laboratory studies for brewing students New York 1904
3 Reduced to pulp in a Herles press Herles F 8th Internal Congr Appl Chem 1913 xxvi 5
4 Produced by shredding sweet potatoes with beet knives, drying in a rapid current of hot air grinding and bolting
Click to expand...
Please post extract recipe with your review of your batch for this year!
 
this recipe came out ridiculously good:

Plumpkin Ale
Size: 5 gallons
Color: 29 HCU (~15 SRM)
Bitterness: 11 IBU
OG: 1.061 FG: -

1 lb. 8 oz. American victory
4 oz. Belgian CaraMunich
1 lb. British crystal 50-60L
Edit: Boiled 30 oz canned pumpkin for the entire 60 min (in a grain bag)

Boil:3 gallons
6 lb. Light malt extract
17 oz Maple syrup
late extract, half at 15
Hops:
1 oz. Kent Goldings (5% AA, 60 min.)

mix of 04 (dry) and 05 yeast (slurry from previous batch – half a liter maybe)
late extract, half at 15
Mash for 45 min at 155-145 – too much disparity – sparge with two cups hot water through grain bag.
3 gallons boil volume
whirlfloc at 10
one teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice at 5


OG – 1.060
FG– 1.011

added ¾ a teaspoon of spice to the priming sugar.
 
I'll let you know in a couple of weeks. Mine has been sitting in an ale pail since the middle of November, but I haven't gotten around to bottling it. Since my kegs are arriving next week, I'm just going to wait. By this time next month, I'll be pouring beer from newly installed taps in a new chest freezer turned kegerator. (Woo hoo! I hate bottling.)
 
I did Nothern's Pumpkin Ale extract kit and I have been enjoying it very much, if I had to do it again I would add a bit more spice.

Now that it has aged you an taste the spice and pumpkin more, but still would say a 1 tsp additional on the spice. Your results may vary.
 
So I reduced about 6lbs of sweet potatoes to syrup according to the instructions above. When I drained the juice off of the boiled sweet potato fiber, I think the vast majority of the starch and sugar was removed. The fiber was relatively tasteless after being drained.

I then reduced the juice from a thin soup to a thick sweet syrup by boiling. I am looking forward to using this syrup as a base in an ale.
 
I made the Mr. Beer Pumpkin "Lager" (even though it's really an Ale) and it actually turned out tasty!

http://www.mrbeer.com/product-exec/product_id/146/nm/Pumpkin_Lager

I didn't know how good it would be, that's why I choose the Mr. Beer recipe that is around 2 gallons.

I modified it a little. I racked to my Secondary Mr. Beer fermenter and added another can of Pumpkin Pie filling on top of what I boiled with. Everyone liked it when I had my family over for Thanksgiving. Unfortunately with people asking for seconds (and thirds), and my prior samplings, and Mr. Beer's 20 12-oz bottle capacity I ran out very quickly...

I'm doing it again next year, probably with the Mr. Beer ingredients as I don't know what extract to get for the equivalent of their ingredients, but I may double (or triple) the ingredients unless I find what an equivalent malt extract would be.

Steve
 
Not infected just lots of unfermentables that left it sweet and almost cloying and either not enough or too much spice depending on who you asked. I am an IPA and stout drinker so it just wasn't my cup of tea. It was fun to make though.

Dr_Gordon_Freeman said:
Any comment on what made it bad, or was it just infected?
Click to expand...
 
I'm sure others will tell you Berkbeer, you should have just stashed it away and let it sit for a while!

My first batch of pumpkin ale turned out very much to my liking. A slight pumpkin flavour that was still there, with a little bit of spice. It's very drinkable - i.e. not something you can only have one of. I just made another batch last night!

I wanted a pretty neutral ale as a base, and the aroma to be spicy, not hoppy. I made a cream ale, but omitted the finishing hops - added bittering hops only. I baked some pumpkin with pie spice sprinkled on it, them added it right to the boil, then dumped it all, pumpkin included into the primary!

The only issue with the beer is poor carbonation and head retention. The carbonation is there, it's obvious when you open a bottle, but the head disappears immediately, and the carbonation doesn't seem to last long. I wonder if I accidentally got some oil from the baking sheet on the pumpkin?
 
I put a gallon of a maarzen to the side and fermented it in a pumpkin like other threads have shown. Turned out pretty bad. Kinda like I had fermented it in a cardboard box. I tried adding some pumpkin pie spices and that just made it taste like I was trying to cover up the cardboard taste. The other 4 gallons of the maarzen turned out spectacular, so I know that the problem was the "in-the-pumpkin" fermentation.
It was a fun experiment though, and generated lots of discussion.
 
Dr_Gordon_Freeman said:
So I reduced about 6lbs of sweet potatoes to syrup according to the instructions above. When I drained the juice off of the boiled sweet potato fiber, I think the vast majority of the starch and sugar was removed. The fiber was relatively tasteless after being drained.

I then reduced the juice from a thin soup to a thick sweet syrup by boiling. I am looking forward to using this syrup as a base in an ale.
Click to expand...

So, you followed the directions, meaning you kept the temperature of the sweet potatoes between 60 and 80C for one hour?

How much water did you use? Just enough to cover them?
 
Guinness said:
So, you followed the directions, meaning you kept the temperature of the sweet potatoes between 60 and 80C for one hour?

How much water did you use? Just enough to cover them?
Click to expand...

I covered the potato shreds with just enough water to submerge them. Then I heated on low in the slow cooker/crock pot. (it is very slow) I did not take temp readings, but I estimate it would have taken around an hour or more to increase 20deg at the rate it was going. I am hoping that this was adequate for starch conversion-- the resulting syrup is quite sweet. I still haven't brewed with it yet, but I'll give an update when I do!
 
Im drinking my pumpkin ale now. It turned out pretty good. It was AG with baked pumpkin puree in the mash though. I discovered that ground cinnamon is a bad idea. It's too fine and doesn't settle out, or I used too much. It was a lttle overpowering and kinda bitter Next time I will just use a cinnamon stick or two for a couple of weeks. Aside from the minor flaw, it turned out very well.
 
my pumpkin ale tastes just like pumpkin pie. I used the AHS Pumpkin Ale mini mash with double the spices and 3lbs of libby's. Came out great!
 
So I ended up brewing Northern Brewer's smashing pumpkin ale (contains no pumpkin) with about 6 lbs of mashed sweet potatoes per the method in post number 1.

I'm pretty sure I didn't get complete conversion, as the beer seems slightly starchy. The FG was 1.018 which isn't ridiculously bad though.

It has turned out pretty good though. The spices that came with the kit aren't really showing through, maybe a bit on the aftertaste.

I guess the verdict is, next time I use adjuncts I'll either use some 6-row in the crockpot mash or I'll use some amylase enzyme to dry it out.
 
This year I am basing mine on a brown ale, and I am taking out the pumpkin completely. I upped the spices a little slightly also. I expect it to be better than last year's.
 

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