First pumpkin ale attempt

Strike water heating, canned pumpkin has been roasted, new SS braid in the tun - I think I'm ready. Stay tuned for questions to follow after reading about the slooooow draining.

Do you have rice hulls?

Thanks for the reply Gritsak. Yea, I put a pound of hulls in. Just mashed in and it smells great!

You should be good to go then! I didn't have any problems sparging when i used rice hulls. It was a tad slower than normal, but no problems with stuck sparge like others have reported when using pumpkin.

I brewed mine a little over a month ago. It's in the keg now conditioning at room temp. It tasted pretty good a week or so ago, but i've trying to hold off on tapping it until the weather gets a bit more fall-like.

I'm hoping I don't have any trouble. That's why I got a new braid for my tun. Does this take longer to mellow out - is it a longer the wait the better?

off topic - what part of Indiana are you in Gritsak?

Blackhawkbrew said:

I'm hoping I don't have any trouble. That's why I got a new braid for my tun. Does this take longer to mellow out - is it a longer the wait the better?

off topic - what part of Indiana are you in Gritsak?

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I've heard they get better after conditioning couple months, but my last sampling (which was 1 month from brew day) was pretty good. Spices were present, but not overwhelming. I'm a little worried if i sit on it too long the spices might fade and it won't taste as good. I also need to add a little maltodextrin to the keg since it dropped down to 1.012 and feels a little thin for a pumpkin ale.

I live in Bloomington, but I'm actually from the Dayton/Cincy area.

I usually have a hard time waiting on my brews!

I grew up in the Chicago area and went to college in Northwest Indiana. I also lived in Oxford, OH for a few years. Great area.

Sparge went EXTREMELY well!!! Not slow at all. Rice hulls rock!!! 7 gallons on the burner. Sample is a nice orange/amber color - looks awesome!

Yep, +1 on the rice hulls. My pumpkin is going on 2 weeks in the primary. Smelled and tasted fantastic when I dumped into the fermenter. No problems whatsoever mashing....I just went REALLY slow and did a continuous sparge to avoid having to re-stir and re-Vorlauf. Nailed the gravity to the third digit.

Hope yours works out.

Wow! This thing is still bubbling! I've never had a beer ferment this long before. Is this typical for pumpkin ales?

Just tapped mine today, after 3 weeks in primary and 3 days force carb. Tremendous, and it should get better with time. Definite pumpkin nose, not overwhelming. I recommend adding the spices as a tea at kegging/bottling. When I make it next year, I will bump up the bittering hops a bit, or go to something with higher AA than EKG.

Good luck with it!