Imperial Pumpkin

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

HopTrap

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 18, 2009
Messages
118
Reaction score
0
Location
Lynchburg, VA
Looking to start getting something in the pipe so it will be aged a bit for the fall. Anyone have a good recipe? Any ideas on Lager vs Ale? What is the best base beer? I have seen people use ambers, I was wondering is a winter beer spiced a bit would work or maybe a pumpkin porter?

Thoughts or advice would be appreciated.
 
I've never see anybody try an imperial pumpkin, but using a spiced winter warmer as the base sounds like a good idea to me.
 
I'll be doing a big pumpkin beer later this year when my sugar pumpkins ripen up. The two possibilities I've been considering are like you mentioned, an old ale type beer with spices, and an oktoberfest with pumpkin but no spices. For the oktoberfest, I can see doing a decoction mash with the roasted pumpkin added. I think that would be really nice, with the added benefit that the pumpkin sludge should be nicely filtered out by the grain bed during the vorlauf and sparge. They both sound good to me, and I may do each depending on how much pumpkin I have available!
 
As I am pretty afraid that this is going to turn out terrible I decided to try a 3 gal test batch first. Here is what I am looking at (trying to keep it simple)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 3.00 gal
Boil Size: 4.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.090 SG
Estimated Color: 14.8 SRM
Estimated IBU: 67.1 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes


8 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM)
1 lbs Munich Malt (9.0 SRM)
2.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (60 min)
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (15 min)
1.00 lb Pumpkin (Boil 45.0 min) (Libby's Canned)
2.00 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice (Boil 5.0 min)
1 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056)


45 min Mash In Add 12.50 qt of water at 170.5 F 158.0 F
10 min Mash Out Add 5.00 qt of water at 196.6 F 168.0 F


As I am very new at recipie formulation, does anything just stick out like a sore thumb to anyone of you with more experience?
 
I JUST brewed this one up. I brewed an extract pumpkin ale with Midwest's Pumpkin Ale recipe kit as a base last year. It was terrible until it aged about 5 months, then it was one of the better Pumpkin Ales I'd tasted. I've since made the jump to all grain, and this was my all grain attempt to replicate last year's success:

Ingredients

Amount Item Type % or IBU
12.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 77.4 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 6.5 %
0.50 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 3.2 %
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 3.2 %
2.00 oz Mt. Hood [6.00%] (60 min) Hops 34.2 IBU
0.28 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
1.50 oz Pumpkin Pie Spice (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
5.00 lb Pumpkin - Libby's All Natural Canned (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
1.50 lb Brown Sugar, Light (8.0 SRM) Sugar 9.7 %
1 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) Yeast-Ale



Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.081 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.019 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 8.1 %
Bitterness: 34.2 IBU
Est Color: 9.5 SRM
 
Back
Top