Fresh Pumpkin - Mash or Not??

I have about 5 pounds of processed fresh pumpkin ready for a Pumpkin Ale. To prepare I chunked the pumpkins, roasted it at 400F for about an hour until soft and caremelized, then removed skinand ran it through a food mill. In essence this is just what you get when you open a can of processed pumpkin. My wife uses the same stuff to make homemade pumpkin pie.

So, I see some pumpkin ale recipes that call for the pumkin in the mash, others just add a can of processed pumpkin into the brew kettle with 10 minutes left. Is there really any starch to covert in my pumpkin?? Can't I just dump it into the BK??

On a related question I have a cannister of "Pumpkin Pie Spice". Is 4 teaspoons too much to add to BK in the last few minutes? Too little?

Thanks.

Alan

I'm still waiting for my own Pumpkin Ale to ferment out, but here's what I can tell so far, based on mine and the one brewed at a buddy's place last summer:

1) Last summer, we added pumpkin during the boil. I don't remember smelling much of a pumpkin aroma in the wort, and I _know_ we could only barely taste any pumpkin in the finished product. Note, we also did NOT roast the canned pumpkin prior to boiling, so this could have also played a role.

2) A couple weekends ago, I roasted up 4 cans of pumpkin (again, the roasting could be a difference maker too) and mashed with it. If mashing, definitely use rice hulls; a lot of people complained of slow sparges with large amounts of pumpkin in the mash tun - I used 2lbs of hulls and my batch sparging was plenty quick. While chilling the wort, we all agreed it smelled just like pumpkin pie - and a taste of the sample for OG definitely had a lot of pumpkin flavor in it.

On the spices, I think 4 teaspoons would be too much. I found one recommendation to use 3 tsp of cinnamon and 1 tsp of pumpkin pie spice, but I haven't tried it myself. It seems that pumpkin pie spice itself contains a higher proportion of things like cloves and nutmeg than you probably want; when I noticed a container in our spice cupboard of pumpkin pie spice, SWMBO informed me that she's never liked a pie made with the stuff, that it was always wrong in some way - if it won't make a good pie, I doubt (on its own at least) it'll make a good beer.

I put fresh pumkin in my mash but did not run it through the food processor - I just cut it into chunks and threw them in the mash - turned out great.

Your best option is to add the pumpkin in the last five minutes of the boil. There are some fermentable sugars in the pumpkin and allowing it to sit through primary would ensure that you get a maximum amount of pumpkin flavor.

brandonrosenbloom said:

Your best option is to add the pumpkin in the last five minutes of the boil. There are some fermentable sugars in the pumpkin and allowing it to sit through primary would ensure that you get a maximum amount of pumpkin flavor.

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But then you wind up with so much mess.

Last night was brew night for my pumpkin ale, and it was a REAL challange. But I muddled through. Now I just wonder if the beer will survive .

I decided to mash the pumpkin with my grain. I didn't have any rice hulls, but I figured that since the pumpkin had been processed through my food mill that I wouldn't have a problem. Oh how wrong I was. I mash in a 54 quart rectangular coleman cooler with a copper pipe manifold. When I opened the valve to vorlouf I got exactly one cup of wort before I got stuck. I added some sparge water, stirred, tried again.....same thing.

Well crud, it was decision time. Ditch the whole batch and re-run it on the weekend? Or try to make it work?

I was already committed to brewing, so I improvized. I got my giant metal colendar from the kitched, set it atop a plastic bucket and slowly laddled the mash into it. When it was full I poured sparge water over the top to hopefully get some of the sugars out before I dumped that and repeated until I rinsed all the mash and had collected about 7 gallons.

Into the keegle it went. I boiled it out, added hops, pumpkin seasonings, wirfloc, cooled, pitched and into the carboy. As of 8:00 AM I had good fermentation activity. Amazingly I was only off about 1/2 gallon on my finished volume, and the OG was pretty close 1.058 estimated, 1.054 actual.

Now I wonder what effect the rag tag sparge method I used will have on the finished product. It does smell pretty nice though, and even by this morning there was a LOT of settling out noted.

What do you think?

Alan

Good effort on saving it! I'm doing a pumpkin ale soon, might end up using a butternut squash though as I can't find pumpkins yet.

Not sure how I'm going to do it, maybe mash, maybe in the boil, maybe in strike water as I heat it... then whether or not to bake it.

I did use butternut squash from my garden. The flavor and aroma was very nice. I sliced them in half, 4 of them, and baked them at 400F for about an hour and 15 minutes. I let them cool, then ran through my food mill.

As mentioned above, if you plan to put the pumpkin/squash in your mash you probably need a better plan than mine, although frankly I am not sure how I would have done it differently. Maybe the squash in muslin bags and a couple pounds of rice hulls???

I still wonder if it is neccessary to put the pumpkin in the mash?? What purpose does it serve???

Good luck to you and your brew day!

Alan

Well, when I mashed mine, I simply tossed in 2 lbs rice hulls (overkill? maybe a little), my grains, and my pumpkin, and just mixed everything together. Never had an issue with flow rates...

As for why to mash - well, Pumpkin is pretty starchy, isn't it? I'd imagine there's at least a small amount of conversion going on there in the mash.

stratslinger said:

As for why to mash - well, Pumpkin is pretty starchy, isn't it? I'd imagine there's at least a small amount of conversion going on there in the mash.

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I am no chemist by ANY stretch, but wouldn't baking the pumpkin first convert/release the sugars? Isn't that why squash gets all sweet and carmelized when you roast it??

Alan

What the guy at my LHBS told me is that baking the squash carmelized some of the sugars, making them less fermentable, which should in turn leave some pumpkin flavor in teh finished beer. But, of the other sugars and starches in the Pumpkin, I'm sure at least some of them can still be broken down further by the amylase and other enzymes in the base malt in your mash.

I did a 10G imperial pumpkin ale about a month ago and used 8lbs of canned pumpkin which I added to my mash along with my grains in my 75qt rectangular MLT with a cpvc manifold. I added 1lb of rice hulls and sparged slowly and it never got stuck. When it was time to mash in I added the strike water, waited for the cooler to absorb the heat, added my grains and then added the pumpkin which I had pre-heated in my oven to match the mash temp.

Smelled like pumpkin during the mash, smelled like pumpkin pie during the boil and I could taste the pumpkin in the OG sample. Fermented for a little over 2 weeks, starting temp was 65 which it sat at until vigorous fermentation subsided. I then raised the temp to 72 and let it sit like that until I racked it into secondary on top of vanilla. The SG sample tasted oustanding, very much like pumpkin pie.

Since the beer was at 8%ABV going into the secondary it will sit until the end of Sept. which I have a feeling will reduce the impact of some of the spices I added so I might have to add a little back in before I keg and bottle this stuff.

I have brewed two AG pumpkins in the past. First was around 8%ABV and the second I did a bit lesser at 4%. Both were delicious but could have used more pumpkin punch in the form of spices. I was always told it is better to under-do the spices than overdo them. As for the stuck sparge, I myself did use 2lbs of rice hulls. I did not want a stuck sparge and I didn't get one. It was a local pumpkin that was as well roasted and carmelized.

Sorry to hijack, but how much real vanilla extract are you folks using in secondary? Will McCormick's do the trick?

Here is a recipe I want to try Can any one go over it and see if the instructions sound good if not make corrections for me.

Im kinda confused with the part about boiling the pumpkin after i boil it do I discard it, then mash my grains? And the amount of water in the recipe is just 2 gal here and some gal there shouldnt it be based on the weight of grain?

Reading here I think I will mash my grains and pumpkin. I will roast to cans of pumpkin. If using rice hulls do you mash them too?

Final question can I pour my mash into my bottling bucket and sparge in it through the spigot?



Briess Pilsen Extra Light Liquid Extract 3 lbs
Briess 6-Row Malt 2 lbs
Briess 2-Row Brewer's Malt 1 lbs
Briess Golden Light Dry Extract 1 lbs
Crisp Maris Otter 12 oz
Briess Bavarian Wheat Dry Extract 8 oz
Briess 2 Row Caramel 80 8 oz
Caramel Munich 6 oz
Biscuit 4 oz
Briess Victory 4 oz
Mt. Hood Pellets .75 oz @ 60 mins
Hallertau Pellets, German .5 oz @ 30 mins

Recipe Notes

Extras

*2 29 oz cans or ~3-4 lbs fresh pumpkin (probably 2 pie pumpkins).

*1.5 tsp pumpkin pie spice (5 mins) [consider mixing your own instead of using pre-mixed]

*.5 lb brown sugar (this will add some flavor and kick up the ABV a bit

*.5 tsp cinnamon, .25 tsp nutmeg, .25 allspice (make an 8 oz. spice tea and add to secondary. Do this to taste.).

Caramelize pumpkin in the oven (350 for an hour/15 minutes broiled).

Boil pumpkin for 30 minutes in 2gal water for 30 minutes.

Add cold water increase volume to 2gal - mash grains at 155 for 45 minutes.

Sparge grains with 1gal hot water. (I'm figuring roughly a gallon of lost water to absorption)

Add water to bring to 3 gallons after mash and sparge (if needed).

Bring to boil. Add light DME and first hop addition (.75 oz Mt. Hood)

At 30 mins add second hop addition. (.5 oz Hallertau)

At 15 add a pinch of Irish Moss

At 10 mins add the LME, wheat DME, brown sugar, and spice mixture

Chill, add top off water to fermenter, pitch yeast, aerate, etc.

Franc103 said:

Sorry to hijack, but how much real vanilla extract are you folks using in secondary? Will McCormick's do the trick?

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No, you should look for high quality vanilla extract. I had a choice between Madagascar or Mexican vanilla both of which were $15 for 4 ounces @ Williams-Sonoma. After tasting the difference and hearing which one is used where in cooking/baking I opted for the Mexican variety.

I used 2 tsp per 5 gallons in the secondary, just barely noticeable.

There is a HUGE difference between high quality extract and the stuff you get at a grocery store.

The more I look at it, the less sure I am about that recipe... A partial mash with a grain bill consisting of 7 different grains sounds overly complex, and more than a few seem redundant. Also, of course it depends on your tastes, but I'd think that the second hop addition is going to distract from the pumpkin and spices in your finished product. Lastly, maybe someone can clarify this, but it seems that brewing with the spices AND using a spice tea in secondary could over spice the brew...

You're right about the pumpkin too - you want to roast in the oven to caramelize, but I don't see any use in boiling it prior to your mash.

Water volumes should always be figured based on the grain bill - I did my pumpkin ale at 1.5qt/lb of grain and hulls, figuring that the pumpkin might absorb extra water.

Also, I'd definitely avoid mashing in your bottling bucket... For one, the bucket is unlikely to maintain your mash temperature. Secondly, and more importantly, there's nothing to stop the pumpkin and grains from clogging up your spigot. That's why you see so many threads with folks talking about false bottoms, manifolds, and bazooka screens for their tuns; they're all meant to keep the grist out of your valves...

adurotec said:

No, you should look for high quality vanilla extract. I had a choice between Madagascar or Mexican vanilla both of which were $15 for 4 ounces @ Williams-Sonoma. After tasting the difference and hearing which one is used where in cooking/baking I opted for the Mexican variety.

I used 2 tsp per 5 gallons in the secondary, just barely noticeable.

There is a HUGE difference between high quality extract and the stuff you get at a grocery store.

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Once you have high quality vanilla you'll never want to go back to McCorkmick again

stratslinger said:

The more I look at it, the less sure I am about that recipe... A partial mash with a grain bill consisting of 7 different grains sounds overly complex, and more than a few seem redundant. Also, of course it depends on your tastes, but I'd think that the second hop addition is going to distract from the pumpkin and spices in your finished product. Lastly, maybe someone can clarify this, but it seems that brewing with the spices AND using a spice tea in secondary could over spice the brew...

You're right about the pumpkin too - you want to roast in the oven to caramelize, but I don't see any use in boiling it prior to your mash.

Water volumes should always be figured based on the grain bill - I did my pumpkin ale at 1.5qt/lb of grain and hulls, figuring that the pumpkin might absorb extra water.

Also, I'd definitely avoid mashing in your bottling bucket... For one, the bucket is unlikely to maintain your mash temperature. Secondly, and more importantly, there's nothing to stop the pumpkin and grains from clogging up your spigot. That's why you see so many threads with folks talking about false bottoms, manifolds, and bazooka screens for their tuns; they're all meant to keep the grist out of your valves...

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I kinda liked the fact it had all that grain, I found the recipe kit on brewmasterwearhouse.com The other partial mash kits had barley any more grain then an extract kit and only like .75 oz of hops. I like hops. I was not planning on the spice tea i think that was over kill i was just posting the recipe. I was going to use a 5 gal paint strainer in my bottling bucket and mashing with the rice hull i figured it would be good since no gunk would be in the spigot. and i was going to mash in my brew kettle then sparge in my bottling bucket. If i have 6.125 lb of grain with the rice hulls do i include the weight of the pumpkin to determine the amount of water? please some more of your advice

I just did my Pumpkin Ale 2 weeks ago. I used 3 large cans of Libbys' pumpkin puree. Roasted and mashed it. I used 1.5 lb rice hulls. No stuck sparge.

I chose to mash it vs add it to the BK, because if hop and hot break material is a PITA for my counterflow chiller, then 5 pounds of pumpkin would wreak havoc. The pumpkin added some nice flavor but the best part was the nice orange hue it imparted to the wort. However, my MLT cooler is now stained.

I am going to rack it to secondary tomorrow.

I used pumpkin pie spice and tossed it in at 5 min. I plan to taste it before bottling and will add some if I needed it. I read somewhere on this forum about making a tincture.

They said to take 100 ml of vodka and mix in the spice and let sit for 2 weeks. Then if you want to adjust the flavor, just add the strained vodka tincture which will have picked up the flavors of the spices.

I have tried two different pumpkin recipes neither of which call for using pumpkin, only spices. Both have tasted like... well... spiced beer but nothing resembling what I want from a pumpkin beer. So screw it... just picked up 60 ounces of canned pumpkin. I'm going with the mash but thought about 45 ounces in the mash and 15 in the boil. Or I may mash it all. I just really want that pumpkin to shine through. One recipe I looked at called for 1 pound of brown sugar for the full boil and although I like the idea that sounds like a crap ton of brown sugar. Hopefully ill find that perfect recipe soon.

Racked my pumpkin to secondary today (using YuriRage's thunderstruck pumpkin recipe) and WOW! Gonna give it a week to clear a little more, but the sample tasted awesome! Just enough pumpkin comes through, though I could go for more spice... I went with spices in the boil, and I'm a bit afraid to overspice at this point with a spice tea...

And again, I mashed with 60oz of canned pumpkin, which I roasted for about 40 minutes.

As for that partial mash, I still have the same concerns I stated, but for full disclosure, I'm not even close to the point I could assemble my own recipes yet, so I could be way off base. Process wise, it sounds like you're on the right track - muslin bag or paint strainer should do the trick. Figure the weight of your hulls in your volume calculations, but not the pumpkin.

So I decided not to go with the partial mash recipe that had a 7 lb grain bill. Instead I ordered mine from American brewmaster. It has 4.75 lbs of grain and 3.3 lb of LME. Im gonna use real pumpkin I have a huge pumpkin I plan on using like 8 lbs. But How much water do I mash with then? I also want to add some of my pumpkin to the boil as well maybe like a pound with 20 min left.

bovineblitz said:

Once you have high quality vanilla you'll never want to go back to McCorkmick again

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I make my own. I put a few vanilla beans into a bottle of good bourbon. When the bottle gets low, top up with more bourbon.