Autumn Seasonal Beer Thunderstruck Pumpkin Ale (AG and Extract versions)

I way over did mine with the spice tea method, but after a few months in the bottle the flavor mellowed significantly. Its still really spicy, but it wasn't even drinkable at first.

Does any one know what base style beer this would be put in. I entered it in a competion and they hammered me because I didn't select a base style. I want to enter it again.

I got a 34.5 for a score.

I brewed up 5 gals of this last weekend. I did mash the pumpkin and didn't have any lautering/sparing problems. I did include about 0.5# of rice hulls though. I also roasted the pumpkin for 90m at 350 as suggested by some, and would also recommend it myself. It does seem to intensify the pumpkin flavor. Lastly, I added 1.5tsp pumpkin pie spice (dissolved in warm water) at flameout. Overall the wort turned out really good. It really resembled a piece of pumpkin pie, but not gross, and the balance of pumpkin and spice was pretty good. Can't wait to see how it turns out...

The base style is somewhere between a mild and a brown ale. It's a little too high in ABV for a mild, but it's a bit light for a brown. I'd go with 11C. Northern English Brown for the base style.

Want to have this completely done around early November. I was thinking about brewing the extract version (would like to do a partial mash it there is a recipe out tere). However, I cannot find pumpkin. Thought about ordering it online. I have also read various opinions about roasting times from 30 minutes to 1.5 hours, what effect will the longer roasting have. Also, has anyone tried this brew without the pumpkin and if so have you compared it to those with the pumpkin?

Thanks.

Getting ready to brew this and can't find a concensus in this thread on whether to add the pumpkin right to the boil or to put it in a grain bag?

I am brewing the extract version, thanks!

Did it at the boil and it worked perfect for me!

brewdude25 said:

Did it at the boil and it worked perfect for me!

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Yes, but did you put it in a grain bag or just dump the pumpkin right into the wort?

I used roasted "fresh" pumpkin and did not use a grain bag. I ran the wort through a metal strainer before putting it in the carboy and I still had one massive pile of trub in the bottom of the carboy but everything seemed to go fine.

I'm thinking I will just add the pumpkin and hops right into the wort and skip the bag, then just pour through a 5 gallon paint strainer when I move to my primary.

Ya i just baked it in the oven and then added it directly to the boiling wort. It worked fine, just had more trub at the bottom of the primary than usual. Just used care when transfering it and everything turned out fine. I didn't need to strain it.

brewdude25 said:

Ya i just baked it in the oven and then added it directly to the boiling wort. It worked fine, just had more trub at the bottom of the primary than usual. Just used care when transfering it and everything turned out fine. I didn't need to strain it.

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Cool, thanks for the advice

Now I just need to find some pumpkin...

Update:

Brewed this on Friday morning and just dumped the baked pumpkin right into the wort with a continual hop addition, then poured everything through a paint strainer when transferring to my primary (strained out all the hops but very little pumpkin). Put it my mini fridge with my new johnson temp controller :rockin: at 66 degrees and it was bubbling away within 3 hours. Checked on it today and airlock activity has pretty much stopped.

Going to leave it in my primary for a total of two weeks then transfer it to my secondary w/ the "spice tea" addition for a week before bottling.

Can't wait to crack one open come fall!!!

ill be making this towards the end of this week! i am going to do all grain. i plan on using .5# of rice hulls and mashing 60oz of roasted pumpkin to this (if i can find it!. walmart and krogers are both out here). im thinking of adding 2tsp directly to the boil with about 5 mins left. Im going for a taste similar to DFH punkin ale. I feel theres is nicely balanced. Thanks for the recipe!

I made a Pumpkin Ale using the extract kit below July 8th hoping to share it at a beer festival in early Sep if it works out.

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/pumpkin-ale.html

I used 60OZ of Libby's Pumpkin at end of the boil along with the recommended spices. Racked to secondary tonight and it left over 1 gallon of trub. Having expected that I made it a 6 gallon batch. Also added some whole cloves and a small amount of cinnamon and nutmeg while racking to secondary.

I have a felling at bottling i may have to make a tea with spices to get it where I want it in taste. I also think I should have added some light DME to the original boil but we will see how it tastes after bottle conditioning. Wish I had grabbed a gravity reading while racking.

I just brewed this, and all I can say is WHOA! Typically the wort just tastes like bland, bitter maltose when sampled from the hydrometer flask, but I found myself just drinking it in between sips of Sierra Nevada Torpedo.

I pretty much used the extract recipe, but I mashed/steeped 1 lb of pale malt with the biscuit, crystal 60, and wheat. Figured the enzymes would help with the specialty grains, though 1 lb of pale malt probably does not have quite enough. Used 3 lbs of Light DME and 3 lbs of Amber DME.

I baked 60 oz of Farmers Market canned pumpkin (all I could find in NOVA anywhere) for 1.5 hours at 400 F, then turned the over off and let it sit for 30 minutes. Put in the boil at 60 minutes along with 1 oz of 4.5 AA East Kent Goldings. With 5 minutes left I added 1 tsp of pumpkin pie spice. Pitched with S-04. OG was 1.052. SRM was probably 17-18.

The sample was like pumpkin pie - great buttery/silky/pumpkin flavor that had a long finish. If this holds through bottling, with some of the spice coming through, mmmm. When racking to secondary, I'll taste and add a spice tea if necessary.

I am surprised at how well the actual pumpkin squash flavor carried through the boil. My impression was that the pumpkin pie spice is what really gives the "pumpkin" flavor. Can't wait til mid October which I am strictly waiting until to drink this!

Just brewed the all grain version on Saturday. With 1 lb. of rice hulls and malt conditioning, I had no problems lautering. I did have problems hitting my mash temperature, though. I think that was just because of me not paying attention, though. I ended up mashing at about 154*F instead of 158*F. If it comes out a little dry I'll just add some maltodextrin or lactose or something.

My conversion efficiency came in a little low and resulted in a lower brewhouse efficiency that usual. My usual brewhouse efficiency is 82%, and I got 79% this time. No biggie.

I used the spice mixture given on the recipe on page 1 for the all-grain (reduced to 5 gallon proportions). I used fresh spice: freshly grated ginger root, nutmeg, and cinnamon, allspice, and cloves ground up in a coffee grinder. I just hope it doesn't come out too spicy. The wort didn't taste like it, but it's hard to tell. It smelled like gingerbread, though, which was awesome.

I'm very anxious to see how this turns out. I love pumpkin ales! It'll be ready right in October, too!

Plan on brewing this this weekend, with a 5 gal all grain conversion as best as I can estimate from reading 34 pages of posts!

7 lb pale malt
1 lb 12 oz crystal 60L
12 oz biscuit
4 oz flaked wheat
1 lb rice hulls
60 oz canned pumpkin, roasted
3 tsp pumpkin pie spice (from a spice shop about 1 block away from my homebrew store) at flameout
.75 oz goldings

Plan on mashing the pumpkin. Little nervous about this one because of the mixed results, but here goes nothing.

This looks great! I'm planning to do a Pumpkin Ale and this may be the winner. Couple quick questions and they may be obvious:

1. Is the extract recipe in the original post for a partial boil? I'm assuming I should start with 2.5 gallons like I would normally with an extract kit.

2. 60 oz of pumpkin seems like a lot to add. I plan on using a grain bag. Assuming this is a partial boil recipe, will i have enough room in a standard 12 qt. brewpot?

3. I've read alot about losing significant volume do to the pumpkin. Assuming this is a partial boil recipe, can I add some additional water (like 1/4 gallon) to compensate?

Brewed this yesterday and had an OK brew day, but not the best. Apparently there was a worldwide pumpkin shortage last year, and I had to drive around to three different places to find canned pumpkin. Got that info from an oddly informative stock boy (think Chris Farley as the security guard with too much information in Wayne's World).

Ended up using 75 oz pumpkin because I had a lot (my wife found some on her lunch after I said I couldn't find any, and we ended up with double). 1 lb rice hulls in the mash, but no stuck sparge at all! In fact, it worked a little too good, I expected a lot of grain absorbtion loss, but ended up only losing about 1 gal overall.

My pre-boil gravity reading showed a 66% efficiency, which I was happy with for this being my 3rd all grain. Problem was, my OG reading only was coming in at about 1.035, waaaay low for the recipe. I didn't have anything here to try and correct it, so we'll see how it goes. I am hoping my hydrometer is just off, it was a $7 model I bought about 8 years ago when I started brewing wine.

Everything looked & tasted great though, I am pretty sure I will add a spice tea at bottling. 3 tsp at flameout and by the time it was cooled, pretty weak flavor.

Bubbling away nicely in the 70 degree basement after about 4 hours. Hopefully fall will recognize my activities and get out of this 90 degree heat!

jgilbreth said:

Brewed this yesterday and had an OK brew day, but not the best. Apparently there was a worldwide pumpkin shortage last year, and I had to drive around to three different places to find canned pumpkin. Got that info from an oddly informative stock boy (think Chris Farley as the security guard with too much information in Wayne's World).

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I also read about the pumpkin shortage on Reddit. Sure enough, all I found were empty shelves at 4 nearby stores when I looked for canned pumpkin.

My wife has one 20oz can of pumpkin squirreled away, but she told me it was the beer or it was pumpkin pie. It was hard, but I'm siding with the pie.

So, I figured I might try something different: Buttercup squashes look like small green pumpkins. They could taste totally different, but I figured I might give them a shot.

I'm going to call this "I can't believe it's not pumpkin" Ale, which will either be clever or a sad joke depending on how it turns out.

lmorchard said:

So, I figured I might try something different: Buttercup squashes look like small green pumpkins. They could taste totally different, but I figured I might give them a shot.

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That's funny, I was frantically thinking about the same sort of thing before I could find any. I had two options, either use pumpkin butter from a PYO orchard nearby (pumpkin, sugar and spices, but $8.00 a pint!) or, since sweet potatoe pie is really close to pumpkin pie, roast and mash sweet potatoes. It would have been one heck of an experiment.

FYI, the pumpkin I found was at a higher end local grocery chain. All they had was organic pumpkin for 2.99/15 oz can.

As everyone has said, finding pumpkin right now is quite the task. I ended up ordering some from Amazon, so we will see how that turns out.

I was curious, for those who have brewed this, did you use a pumpkin pie spice blend or the cinnamon plus? I have both but was curious which way people were deciding to go.

Planning on brewing an AG version of this on Saturday, 6 gallons. I've tried to digest this whole massive thread, but a couple of quick questions:

1) While baking the pumpkin in the oven, anybody had problems with it burning onto the cookie sheet? I'm thinking about lining the cookie sheet with parchment paper just in case. Am I being paranoid? Really don't want burnt pumpkin nastiness in the mash.

2) What's the optimal strike water temperature? I guess I'll let the pumpkin from the oven cool down first, then I'm planning on "doughing in" the pumpkin first, then the rest of the grains.

Thanks for the help! Oh - I found plenty of pumpkin at a health food store. Rather pricey, but none of the regular supermarkets had any at all.

Don't worry about the pumpkin sticking or being burnt. As far as the pumpkin, all of our grocery stores are out of canned pumpkin also (due to the devastation of the crop last year) so I just bought butternut squash in the produce dept., cooked it, puree'd it, baked it, and added it to the mash. So far great flavor and amazing complexity!

I just bottled this yesterday after 2 weeks in secondary. I put the spice tea in the secondary using 1 tsp of pumpkin pie spice in 1 cup of water, plus a few extra shakes of ground ginger and nutmeg (I had also added 1 tsp of pumpkin pie spice with 5 minutes left in the boil). I was blown away by the flavor...as in it tasted delicious and the spices were not over powering. The pumpkin shined through and complimented the malt, and there was just enough spice. We'll see how it comes together in the bottle, but I'm very excited about it.

Brewed this yesterday, and the wort tasted wonderful! I did a 6-gal AG, with a few modifications to Yuri's recipe:

• 75 oz of pumpkin in the mash
• 15 oz of pumpkin in the boil
• .25 pound of molasses at 10 minutes
• .5 ounces of orange peel at 10 minutes

I let the roasted pumpkin cool down for about an hour, then doughed it in before the grains. Didn't affect the strike water temp one bit, much to my relief!

Screwed up the sparge a bit, but I think I recovered ok. OG 1.058! It's now happily bubbling away and pushing lots of crud through the blowoff tube.

I brewed the extract version of this on Saturday and we ended up just dumping the entire pumpkin into the boil, rather than letting it steep in a grain bag. Ended up right on target with 1.052.

However, it was a spur of the moment brew, and we didn't use a starter for the WLP002 - as a result, it didn't even get going until around 24 hours later. Healthy krauzen present this morning though.

I'm wondering if the lack of a 1L starter will significantly affect this beer - other than the ABV. Should I worry about repitching?

Is the total IBU for the beer in the original post (32.1) the IBU prior to the changes in the recipe? I have triple checked that I have .75 oz. of 5.0% AA Goldings boiling for 60 min in Beer Smith, and I am getting a total IBU of 13.2.

dr_finklestein said:

Don't worry about the pumpkin sticking or being burnt. As far as the pumpkin, all of our grocery stores are out of canned pumpkin also (due to the devastation of the crop last year) so I just bought butternut squash in the produce dept., cooked it, puree'd it, baked it, and added it to the mash. So far great flavor and amazing complexity!

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thats what i want to use. i bet the butternut will give a better flavor than the pumkin, the squash is so tasty. im pretty much gonna use this recipe and use the squash. making 10 gallons, keg 5 gallons for october, and bottle 5 gallons for thanksgiving.

Hi guys, long time lurker, first time poster. I decided to do this recipe a few weeks ago, got all the grain, hops, etc and then found out about this pumpkin shortage. Bummer. Tried all of the normal grocery chains in the area with no luck, and stumbled on a ton of it at Rural King of all places. I think Rural King is a midwest only chain, but if any of you are from the midwest and looking for pumpkin, that may be a good place to start.

I brewed this one this past Tuesday. I did the extract version and came in a little high with my OG at 1.056 but I think it should still be ok. Wort tasted fantastic when I drew my sample.

I am still curious what the breakdown is for people using pumpkin pie spice vs. cinnamon plus. I am sure either way, this is going to be a great beer. looking forward to it.

Just brewed this last night! I found organic pumpkin pie at Publix for about $2.50 a can. I baked the pumpkin for an hour, then let it cool for a little bit before putting it in a cheesecloth. The cloth was virtually useless as most of the pumpkin seeped out of it by the end of the boil anyways.

My biggest concern is that I had a huge O.G of 1.070. The wort tasted great but I am a little confused how/why this happened. I used 7 lbs of DME instead of 6.25, could this be why it was so high? My boil was 3 gallons, and I added about 2.5 gallons of cold water to fill my fermenter up to 5 gallons. hmm. I also didn't add any spices yet, I think I'll add a spice tea once I rack to my secondary!

My experience is limited to kits and I have never used flaked wheat. Does this get seeped in a separate muslin bag than the caramel/crystal malt & biscuit malt? I'm getting the extract version together.

ericelmer said:

Just brewed this last night! I found organic pumpkin pie at Publix for about $2.50 a can. I baked the pumpkin for an hour, then let it cool for a little bit before putting it in a cheesecloth. The cloth was virtually useless as most of the pumpkin seeped out of it by the end of the boil anyways.

My biggest concern is that I had a huge O.G of 1.070. The wort tasted great but I am a little confused how/why this happened. I used 7 lbs of DME instead of 6.25, could this be why it was so high? My boil was 3 gallons, and I added about 2.5 gallons of cold water to fill my fermenter up to 5 gallons. hmm. I also didn't add any spices yet, I think I'll add a spice tea once I rack to my secondary!

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Possibly dumb question but you weren't taking your gravity reading before you diluted it with extra water were you?

I brewed 12 gallons last night and everything went perfectly. I doughed into a lot more strike water--about 10 gallons--and used a pound of rice hulls. I also didn't pump my runnings into my BK--I decided to let gravity do the work. My sparge went quickly and ended up right on the money with a 1.052 OG.

Any thoughts on using Safeale S-05 yeast with this?

I've got a yeast cake I can dump it on top of, and hate to waste it unless it's going to make a detrimental difference...

Just brewed this one, using extract recipe. I was short on pumpkins, so used 2 whole pumpkins and then a can of pumpkin mix. Everything seemed to go well during the boil. Before cooling I strained all of the pumpkin out of the wort and then cooled. I had hardly any trub at the bottom of the can. Did I do something wrong? Everything I have read seems like you should have a lot of it. The wort is very cloudy, with small parts of pumpkin floating around in it. Will this settle out during fermentation? I tasted it and it is awesome, so hopefully I do not have to drink it with all that stuff in it.

Well, I ended up dumping half of my 10-gallon batch over the S-05 yeast cake, and pitched S-04 over the other half. Will report back on the differences.

For my 10G batch, I mostly followed a 2/3rds scaling of the AG version Yuri has at the beginning of this thread, with the following major differences:

• I used 1+ pound of rice hulls since I didn't want to futz with a stuck sparge.
• Three sugar-pie pumpkins fresh off the vines of my garden. Sugar pies are commonly used for pie baking. They are smaller than jack-o-lantern and are fairly easy to work with.
• Pumpkins were halved and scooped of seeds/guts, then baked (face up) in a 350˙F convection oven for 1 hour.
• Once cooled, they were de-skinned and smooshed thoroughly. I then heated them to 158˙F (mash temp), mixed in with rice hulls, and then put into the mash together with the grain bill.
• Next time, I will probably go after it with the stick blender to break it up a bit more. I had ZERO problems sparging -- it fly-sparged just like normal...
• 15 pounds of whole pumpkins yielded about exactly what I wanted: 8+ pounds of cooked/peeled flesh

Here's some pics of what it looked like:

Do you guys account for any water absorption from the pumpkin in the mash?