Pumpkin Ale

Hi folks,

Into the minutia here but.. Do you guys grease the pan before adding the pumpkin purée to bake for an hour? Not sure if it is ok for some of that residual grease to make it into the beer. On the other hand, I could see things getting a bit stuck to the pan!

Also, do I need to use rice hullls in my mash? I am dumping in 60 oz of puree. I hate to drive back to the LHBS.. (my MT is a 10G home depot drink cooler)

Thanks!

Coat the pan with tin foil, put the puree on that. And yes, you'll definitely need rice hulls, almost a pound. You could always add it to the boil if you don't want to drive back. You'll just end up with a ton or trub in the primary.

I would use a silpat, ceramic, or nonstick surface. No grease. But then again, I personally wouldn't use puree over the larger solid chunks of real pumpkin.

Thanks! I assume the only place to find rice hulls is the LHBS..?

scoobybrew73 said:

Thanks! I assume the only place to find rice hulls is the LHBS..?

Click to expand...

Yup.

I never use any oil or grease and never had any problems. And yeah, rice hulls, and use a good amount of them too. Be sure to soak them with water first so they don't take away too much wort.


Rev.

Thank you all for your help. I am pumped to try this out!

scoobybrew73 said:

Thanks! I assume the only place to find rice hulls is the LHBS..?

Click to expand...

Actually, my LHBS doesn't have rice hulls. And looking around town neither does the food coop. Turns out there is a product called PHB (I think that was it)... which I found at a hydroponics homegrowing store.

It's an alternative grow media... 50lb bag of rice hulls was $16




**edit**

It was PBH, http://www.hhydro.com/PBH-Rice-Hulls.html

I would avoid any process that adds oil to the beer. Think head taming; If your head goes overboard in the glass, what do you do? rub your finger on your nose and dip it into the head. That's oil. I did a pumpkin ale last weekend using 2 cans of unspiced pumpkin pie filling. I spread it out on a 13x9 baking dish and baked it for 60 minutes at 350. Wondereful aroma. Then I added it to the mash water as it was approaching strike temp. No need to add oil, there was no sticking, just a tiny bit of caramenization at the perimeter. Slid right off the pan cleanly.

Parchment paper

Just used a non stick baking/lasagna type pan for mine..just spread out 60z onto it fairly evenly, baked, then when cool scooped directly into the mash with a spatula