recipe critique - smoked pumpkin porter

so im going to try to making a wide variety of pumpkin beers this year. ive made a pumpkin saison and a regular pumpkin ale so far. This is what im thinking for a smoked pumpkin porter:



Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
5 lbs Smoked Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 1 47.6 %
3 lbs Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 2 28.6 %
1 lbs Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 3 9.5 %
12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 4 7.1 %
12.0 oz Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM) Grain 5 7.1 %
0.25 oz Summit [17.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 8 17.8 IBUs
0.75 oz Willamette [5.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 7 17.3 IBUs
2.00 Items Pumpkin (Mash 60.0 mins) Other 6 -
3.00 Items Cinnamon Stick (Boil 10.0 mins) Spice 9 -
7.00 Items Cloves (Boil 0.0 mins) Spice 10 -
3.00 tbsp Nutmeg (Boil 0.0 mins) Spice 11 -

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.054 SG Measured Original Gravity: 1.046 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.012 SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.010 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.6 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 4.7 %
Bitterness: 35.0 IBUs Calories: 151.6 kcal/12oz
Est Color: 32.3 SRM


Ive never made a smoked porter, so the recipe is based off of https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f77/loon-lake-smoked-porter-award-winner-90531/ . I simply added some pumpkin and some spices. I am having a hard time imaging what this would end up like, but only one way to tell right? Think the smoke will over power the spices?

While I don't mind a smokey beer from time to time, I mostly like smoke in beers to be a background flavor that adds complexity rather than overwhelming flavor. So take my opinion with that in mind.

I think that's enough smoked malt to overpower the spices and probably the pumpkin to a large extent. Are you even sure smoke and pumpkin go together? If it were me I would probably try smoking pumpkin to see if that even produces a good combination of flavors. It may or may not. If it does, I would probably consider using smoked pumpkin and reducing the amount of smoked malt (and replacing it with regular 2 row) to give the smoke more pumpkin and less bacony flavor.

The recipe is awesome. What I would do, though, is add pumpkin spice and powdered cinamon at the end of the boil.

One more thing. I would consider droping some of the smoked malt a bit for this recipe. Having strong flavors in a pumpkin beer can sometimes lead to the pumpkin flavor being overpowered. I don't think I would add more than 3lbs of smoked malt. Maybe something like 4lbs 2-Row, and 1lb smoked malt.

Porter flavor will trump the pumpkin flavor...

Remember, just because two flavors are great on their own doesn't mean they'll be great together. I don't see how the semi-sweet, spice flavors of a nice pumpkin ale will work at all with a smokey flavor. When was the last time you had a smokey pumpkin pie?

Having said that, homebrewing is all about experimenting, so knock yourself out. Who knows, it might be the best thing you'll ever make! (I just doubt it...)

It isn't direct evidence, but I use smoked meat (I've used all kinds, but prefer chicken or/and sausage) in my butternut squash soup. I like the combo. But as mentioned previously, I would think that it would be easy to cover up the pumpkin/spices with that percentage of smoked malt.

i think at 5lbs the smoke will overpower all the flavors... the biggest thing is to know what kinda smoked malt your looking at too.. i use the cherry wood smoked malt alot with my smoked beers and a lb goes a long way... i used 1.5lbs in one brew and its is very noticable on flavor and aroma, and almost over powers the brew.. good thing that is what i was looking for

so that the smoke does not overwhelm the spices i would not go more than 3 lbs depending on what type. if your using briess cherrywood no more than 1 lb.

and as one of the other posters said, reduce it and replace with 2-row is a good idea

sounds like 5 lbs is definitely too much. maybe ill try it with 1 pound and see how it turns out. ill agree, i dont have too high of hopes for it, but i really want to try it for some reason. ill probably do it in a couple of weeks

I've had a pumpkin porter before & it was one of the best beers I've ever had. The problem is that the roasty flavors of the porter were very subdued so the pumpkin & spices could shine through. I think the roasted flavor in this recipe will be where it needs to be...just a touch from the chocolate malt. However, I'm with everyone that the smoke will most likely overpower everything else.

Plus, I don't know how a bacon-like flavor will mix with a pumpkin/spice flavor, but I'm extremely interested in how this turns out...I wouldn't have the balls to try something this out there because there's a good chance it's either going to be awesome or terrible...probably not much middle ground here.

Good luck!

I think this is an awesome idea, I was planning on the same thing.

I'm thinking of just using Jamil's Smoked Porter recipe, and adding pumpkin/spices, maybe some chocolate.

I'm alos planning a Sour Pumpkin Ale based on Jolly Pumpkin La Parcela.

Old thread but did anyone actually try this?
I am thinking of doing a recipe without the smoked malt but with lightly apple or cherry wood smoked pumpkin.

Belgium Smoked Pumpkin Porter
8lb marris otter
2lb Munich
.5lb caramunich or crystal
.5lb carapils
.5lb chocolate
.5lb acidulated (ph adjustment)
1lb dark homemade syrup
2 baking pumpkins in mash, previously lightly smoked with apple or cherry wood
25 ibu, Saaz
OG ~1.06
WLP530
+ spice additions that I am not set on.

Anyone do something similar who could comment on this recipe?

I did a pumpkin brown ale a while back with 2 pie pumpkins. I smoked one with applewood and baked the other in the oven. I'm glad did, because smoking both would have been more smokey than I wanted. A porter could support a little more smoke than a brown ale, but that was just my experience. It was a tasty brew!

mredge73 said:

Old thread but did anyone actually try this?
I am thinking of doing a recipe without the smoked malt but with lightly apple or cherry wood smoked pumpkin.

Belgium Smoked Pumpkin Porter
8lb marris otter
2lb Munich
.5lb caramunich or crystal
.5lb carapils
.5lb chocolate
.5lb acidulated (ph adjustment)
1lb dark homemade syrup
2 baking pumpkins in mash, previously lightly smoked with apple or cherry wood
25 ibu, Saaz
OG ~1.06
WLP530
+ spice additions that I am not set on.

Anyone do something similar who could comment on this recipe?

Click to expand...

Honestly? You've got flavor coming from: chocolate malt, crystal, dark homemade syrup, smoked pumpkin, Belgian yeast, and some spices. Thats WAYYY to many different/clashing flavors for me, I can't really imagine how it would taste. It would either be some absolutely terrific combo that's rarely done, or just a muddy mess. I would drop the Belgian Yeast for the first stab at it, and get the base beer down with something more neutral.

It isn't that much different than the OPs recipe which isn't much different than [thread=74927]Revvy's[/thread], just mine has a Belgian twist.

I suppose I should either pick the Belgium or Smoked instead of trying to do them both at the same time. The Belgium yeast is the spicy version opposed to the fruity version, so I may hold off spices altogether until bottle time.
The reason that I wanted to add the sugar is to dry it out, I would like FG as close to 1.010 as possible but I could sub dextrose for the candy sugar.