thinking about pumpkin

I am really considering making an upcoming pumpkin ale. However, if I do I would do an extract kit and have been considering the AHS pumpkin ale extract kit. However, I have shied away from the thought of making pumpkin ale because of the challenges one could potentially face once it's in the fermentor (Hi trub). I have heard some people place the canned pumkin in a grain bag during the boil to prevent all the added trub, but, does this really work? Anyone have any insight on this or have any recommendations as to how to improve on this recipe? it sounds good by itself, but I want to stay true to the PUMKIN part of it.

i did this brew last night. i used 2 small pie pumpkins (real ones) that weight 2lbs each. i cut them up into cubes and cut the outer shell off and seasoned them with allspice, nutmeg and cinnamon and threw them into the oven at 350 for 45 mins. they came out smelling good. i put half into a grain bag and added the bag right after adding the extract. once i got a rolling boil going, i added the other half to the bag. i pulled the bag out with 5 mins to go in the boil and put the bag into a strainer and used my spoon to mash the pumpkin to get all the wort out of it i could. all in all, i started with 2.5 gal of wort and ended up with pretty much most of it, if not all of it. only time will tell how much trub i'll get. i won't be able to see since i had to use a ale pail when my carboy took a header off the counter last night and broke.

I used Libby’s 100% pure pumpkin and I placed it in a grain bag to try and contain the pumpkin but it was just a waste of time. By the end the pumpkin had all left the grain bag and it was just another thing to deal with.

I’m not sure how you could do it but if you put a kit together yourself maybe you could brew like 6 gallons instead because it seems like you will pretty much lose at least a half gallon to a gallon to THE TRUB!!

I brewed one last week. I got a ton of trub from the pumpkin puree. In hindsight i would have used whole chunks either in the boil or maybe even mashed with the pumpkin.

Theres also this thread about Yuri's Thunderstruck Pumpkin Ale. I think theres a lot of good discussion on Pumpkin Ale's in general, probably worth a read and the recipe is extract as well.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f76/thunderstruck-pumpkin-ale-ag-extract-versions-26699/

Thanks a lot for the info! I guess we can conclude that using a grain bag just doesn't work, and that the only way to bypass large amounts of trub is by using a whole pumpkin. I will definitely look into the info to see what route I shall take....

For what it's worth, I've done about 4 ales with pumpkin over the years, the pinnacle being boiled, peeled pumpkin mashed in an all grain batch (NEVER AGAIN!!!). Not very romantic, but I kind of concluded that you can get most of the "pumpkin pie" flavor if you just add some pumpkin pie spice (not too much!) to the boil. Pumpkin in any form is a mess to deal with. The spice brings you 90% there in my opinion. I've done at least 2 batches with some spice, and liked the results.

Now I'm wanting to brew some pumpkin pie porter for next month!

Call me crazy, but Randy Mosher was on BBR a while back and mentioned that to brew a pumpkin ale, you really don't need to use any form of pumpkin, just the spices (allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg). I will be brewing Yuri's pumpkin recipe this weekend with canned pumpking and hope to experiment next year brewing without pumpkin.

EDIT: Try also searching for "pumpkin" and you will get a TON of hits, as this topic comes up often.

I ordered a pumpkin ale kit from midwest supplies yesterday. I am gonna use one can of libby's pumpkin.

I used a couple cans of storebought pumpkin in my Pumpkin Porter (I got creative and modified Yuri's Extract TPA). I didn't try to contain the pumpkin at all, and discovered that about 1.5 lbs of pumpkin or so ended up inside my hop bag at the end of the brew. I'd like to do it with real pie pumpkin in the future, but I do understand that the pumpkin itself doesn't really matter.

i just transfered my pumpkin ale to the secondary today and only had about 2-3 inches of trub, if that. i used real pumpkin that i chunked up and baked. when i added them to the wort, i used a fine mesh grain bag and pulled it at the end of the boil. the flavor is pretty good. it's got a distinct mild pumpkin flavor with a hint of spice. it all blends together pretty well.