Imperial Pumpkin

I'm trying to brew an imperial pumpkin beer, similar to the southern tier pumpking. I talked to the guy at the brewshop about how to go about adding the pumpkin flavor. He recommended fermenting the pumpkin for a week to extract the enzymes for more of the flavor, then racking the beer on top of the pumpkin, and ferment till bottling. I tried doing this and added a sanitation tablet to the 7 lbs of pureed pumpkin. (I crushed the tablet and mixed it in) When I opened the fermentor after a week, there was a lot of mold. Does anyone know what could have gone wrong and have any recommendations of how to do this? I was careful to sanitize the bucket and airlock and don't really know how I went wrong.

I went out and bought some more pumpkin puree and I'm thinking of trying to ferment it for 5 days with about 8 ounces of vodka, then racking the beer into the secondary on top the pumpkin. Any sort of advice will be helpful. Thanks.

I'm not a chemistry expert, but I'm pretty sure the starches in pumpkin are too complex to be broken down by standard yeast (at least that's what I've read). I've read that a cereal mash of the pumpkin with some 6-row is the most recommended. At a minimum, I would mash the pumpkin with your grain bill.

Some people add it to the boil, although the times I have done that, I haven't been happy with the mouthfeel or taste addition from the pumpkin.

As to why the mold... If you added a sanitation tablet, I'm not certain what went wrong. It's either your bucket wasn't quite as sanitary as you'd thought or the sanitation tablet wasn't potent enough. Typically when I'm adding flavor items, I don't add them to the beer until the abv will naturally protect the beer from infection. From your description, it sounds like that's what you did, but I couldn't be sure.

At any rate, I'm sorry this brew didn't turn out as planned. I love fall because it means it's pumpkin beer season! Good luck getting it fixed for the next round.

People seem to just throw the pumpkin in the mash after roasting it first, which might be to gelatinize the starches. Do not just try to ferment the pumpkin, that just seems like a mistake. With those campden tablets, they probably killed the mold spores on the pumpkin (if anything), but did nothing for the ones that are floating around in the air.

I just started looking into a pumpkin ale for next month, and from what I've read you add the pumpkin to your mash. Suggested temp of 152. This was taken from northern brewer.

"If you want to incorporate actual vegetables in this recipe, you'll need to provide your own 8 to 10 pound pumpkin (winter squash like butternut or acorn will work if pumpkin is out of season). Cut up the gourd, discard the innards, and roast or microwave the pieces until soft and cooked through, then peel. Mash the peeled, cooked pumpkin flesh with the included grains at 152°F for 1 hour."

I am doing a pumpkin stout this fall, and this is what I did with the pumpkin, can someone advise me whether or not this is a sound strategy in terms of adding some subtle pumpkin?

Cut up the "meat" of the pumpkin into small (Dice sized?) cubes, spread them out on a cookie sheet, spiced them with typical pumpkin spices, cinnamon, nutmeg, etc, baked them for an hour or so in the oven, throw the finished product into the mash.

I decided not to throw them in the boil, but if I did I would have probably put them in a grain bag. I was worried about the slurry of pumpkin if purred in a blender or food processor, my chunks probably would have stayed together well enough in a grain bag during the boil. I prefer a subtle pumpkin beer rather than a pumpkin pie in a bottle style beer, but that is just me.

I used about 2 pounds of pumpkin cubes for a 6 gallon batch. It remains to be seen how it turns out, but my fingers are crossed.

moxie said:

I am doing a pumpkin stout this fall, and this is what I did with the pumpkin, can someone advise me whether or not this is a sound strategy in terms of adding some subtle pumpkin?

Cut up the "meat" of the pumpkin into small (Dice sized?) cubes, spread them out on a cookie sheet, spiced them with typical pumpkin spices, cinnamon, nutmeg, etc, baked them for an hour or so in the oven, throw the finished product into the mash.

I decided not to throw them in the boil, but if I did I would have probably put them in a grain bag. I was worried about the slurry of pumpkin if purred in a blender or food processor, my chunks probably would have stayed together well enough in a grain bag during the boil. I prefer a subtle pumpkin beer rather than a pumpkin pie in a bottle style beer, but that is just me.

I used about 2 pounds of pumpkin cubes for a 6 gallon batch. It remains to be seen how it turns out, but my fingers are crossed.

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The process sounds OK. Cooking the pumpkin to soften and caramelize it was a good idea.

I see two problems (or rather, potential opportunities for next time). Baking the spices likely cooked off most of the essential oils in the spices - especially in terms of aroma. My guess is that you won't get much there.

Second- I would have used more pumpkin. Standard pumpkin ale recipes use upwards of 4 lbs. Those recipes have a grain profile much less assertive than a stout. The pumpkin may have a rough go of breaking through the roasted barley or black patent.

At the end of the day, you'll most likely have a solid beer. It just may not be quite as signature "pumpkin" as some. Then again, if you really don't like pumpkin pie in a bottle, you may have hit a winner!

Let us know how it turns out.

Thank you for the advice, I will keep that in mind for the next one. I have a couple more pumpkins still on the vine, so if this one leaves something to be desired, I will give it another shot.

Should I bake the pumpkin cubes, take it out of the oven, and THEN spice it? Should I just add the spices to the primary? I wouldn't mind getting some distinctive pumpkin flavours out of it, just not overwhelming like some I have tried in the past.

moxie said:

Thank you for the advice, I will keep that in mind for the next one. I have a couple more pumpkins still on the vine, so if this one leaves something to be desired, I will give it another shot.

Should I bake the pumpkin cubes, take it out of the oven, and THEN spice it? Should I just add the spices to the primary? I wouldn't mind getting some distinctive pumpkin flavours out of it, just not overwhelming like some I have tried in the past.

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If it were me, I would bake the pumpkin and add that to the mash without spicing it. I would then add your spices to the boil as you would hops. I add mine at 20min for flavor and then again at 5 for aroma. The spices really act the same way hops do in that manner.

Another method would be to make a spice tea and add it to secondary (a bit at a time and taste test to get to desired level. The downfall here is that the tea doesn't add much in the way of aroma- mainly taste.

I would use (I actually DO use) the first method but both should work.

Okay, excellent. Thanks again.

Ok I just had a really crazy idea...

One of the flavors usually missing when trying to make a Pumpkin like beer is the graham cracker crust.

I am thinking about actually making 2 pumpkin pies with graham cracker crust and somehow incorporating it into my batch.

I don't think anyone would be able to argue that I am actually getting pumpkin pie in a bottle using this technique.

Would I add it to the boil, mash, or fermentation? I really might have to give this a try.

Instead of screwing around with pie and pie crust give this a shot.

Use some dark brown sugar, a touch of vanilla and some honey or honey malt. Mash rather high like 154-156 and when you bottle add 10-15ml of pure vanilla extract to the bucket for 5g. I did 10ml in my batch and by god it tastes like a liquid pie. I'll be making a second batch as soon as canned pumpkin hits the shelves. I suggest also going light on the spices leaving out all spice, ginger and clove. I only used 3 cinnamon sticks and 1/4tsp of fresh ground nutmeg. I fermented with WLP028 Edinburg and it cleared up beautifully. I couldn't be happier with my first pumpkin ale batch. Also I added 1lb of beech smoked malt which I think helped the flavor but it doesn't even come close to being noticeable as a smoked flavor.

As for how to incorperate the pumpkin I did it in my mash and mine came out with a beautiful deep copper color. The base grain was marris otter. You can find my recipe listed in the pumpkin tips thread near the end.

try throwing in some biscuit malt if you want that graham cracker sensation. I don't want pumpkin pie in a bottle, so I wouldn't add it.

B