Autumn Seasonal Beer Thunderstruck Pumpkin Ale (AG and Extract versions)

Well, I'm cooling down my 15g batch, and I will also emphasize that your sparge will SUCK!

I started getting the brew situated at 7am and it's now almost 3:30 and I'm finally cooling. I can say that it smells great, and should be a pretty kick arse beer.

Side note - I hit 10.58 today, and I didn't even end up sparging through my cooler... We ended up using a strainer and sparging the grains (ALL OF THEM) like someone would for a PM batch. It sucked, but we still ended up with 14 gallons of beautiful beer!

Joe C said:

Side note - I hit 10.58 today, and I didn't even end up sparging through my cooler... We ended up using a strainer and sparging the grains (ALL OF THEM) like someone would for a PM batch. It sucked, but we still ended up with 14 gallons of beautiful beer!

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Got me scared now Did you use any rice hulls?

That I did.

Spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrggggggiiiiiiiinnnnnnnggggggggggg

Gonna be a late night... looking forward to drinkin it in a couple months though!

hahahahaha

First pull...like a champ! haha

Looks good! Now go punch that bag.

Scut_Monkey said:

Looks good! Now go punch that bag.

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With my ever-expanding waistline...that's not the first time that I've heard that.

lol

brewing today! (extract) very optimistic for this brew

I am just now drinking this brew - Very Tasty!

I did a couple minor changes - as a bit of an experiment, I "continuously hopped" - added a bit of hops every 10-5 minutes during the entire boil (DFH-inspired move). I also added the full oz of hops.

3 weeks in the bottle and this tastes great - very nicely balanced, the spices are present but not overwhelming. Looking forward to brewing this again.

into hour four of 7.5 gallons of this recipe. the sparge was so slow! it smells amazing though. almost done with the boil. with ten minutes i added ginger, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, sweet orange peel, mace, and cardamom. I mashed the pumpkin (9 lb) and added a teaspoon of amalyse to assist the mash and hit OG dead on with 75%-ish efficiency (1.058). I am going to ferment with WLP013 London Ale. I can't wait, thanks for the legendary recipe Yuri

mine is sitting in my primary... 5 hour lag time. unfortunatly my hydrometer broke last night before i got my SG, luckily i still have a sample in my test tube sealed and waiting for a new hydrometer. Oddly enough there is a micro crack somewhere in the hydrometer and it let water into it... even with the water on the inside i still had 1.28 as an OG, even though it will be much higher with a new hydrometer.

note on brewing extract, don't even try to put the pumpkin into a grain bag, just throw the pumpkin right in.

I put the pumpkin in the boil. Just ended up with more trub in the primary. I wouldn't try it in the Mash. It would have taken way too long. It came out fantastic.

Sacdan said:

I put the pumpkin in the boil. Just ended up with more trub in the primary. I wouldn't try it in the Mash. It would have taken way too long. It came out fantastic.

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yeah, the sparge took forever

Just finished brewing mine. The sparge really was uneventful for me and took the normal amount of time. However, I used a full pound of rice hulls in a 12 pound grain bill. I figured my time was worth the money. Thanks Yuri for the great recipe. Smelled great and made me want to eat a pie.

This beer was great! So good that less than two weeks after taping the keg its almost gone! Good thing the wife bought twice the amount of pumpkin needed! So I guess this weekend I will be making this again for Christmas. This time I am thinking of adding a little more hops and also some orange peal.

orange peel is a great idea. I added it to mine along with cinn, nutmeg, mace, cardamom, and clove

Mine's been in the bottle for a week now, and wow, I think I went a little overboard on the spices!! I added 1 tsp of Pumpkin Pie Spice at flameout and 1tsp at bottling, and dang, it tastes like a Cinnamon Ale. Heh. The head's pretty weak, too, even though I added head retention powder. Think another month in the bottle will mellow out the spices and improve the head?

Well 1 week in the bottle is at best barely time enough to carb a beer.

I suspect more time will increase head and mellow flavors.

I made this awhile back and it is good. I mashed the pumpkin added 2 Tbps of pumpkin pie spice with 5 min left. racked after 10 days added 1 Tbsp pumpkin pie spice. At bottling I added 1/2 cup Lacto.

I just took it to the local brew pub (Kuhnhenns) and let the owners taste it, they both said that it was a very good pumpkin ale and that I should enter it in competitions. I just happen to take it up there the same day that they brought out their Pumpkin ale.

Here is what I did yesterday to make this beer really something interesting. I crushed up 2 ginger snap cookies w/ half of a honey graham cracker. Put in 1/2 a tsp of green (or whatever color you want) decorating sugar...Dipped the rim of the glass as you would w/ a margarita and dipped the wet glass into the crumbles...The entire beer you find yourself moving the glass around to get some more of the cookie taste in w/ the beer. Think of it as adding the crust to the pumpkin pie It was awesome and I'm telling you TRY IT!

Ok, I tasted this at one week. It was yummy, spicey but seems a bit "thin" Head as light and thin.

Tasted another brew, at 2 weeks. WOW. The head was fluffy and the spices had melded together, the thinness was nearly gone. I fully suspect 1 more week and this will be go from yummy and delicious to absolutely amazing.

its finally sitting in a keg, i think i timed it perfectly for being ready for thanksgiving. we will see. can't wait to try it.

tomwirsing said:

The "tea" refers to boiling the spices in some water to sanitize. The boiling water extracts the spices flavors and you have a sanitized, spice flavored, solution you can safely add.

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How long would you recommend boiling the spices?

After aging and carbonating it, it is ready for thanksgiving. and i couldn't help myself, so i decided to try it. A-MAZING

i am going to brew up a batch to have in the summer just because i can

Just tried mine after 3 weeks of carbonating, and it is awesome.

I just wanted to say...This is a great brew...It really does need to age a bit though. I just had a bottle about 4 or 5 weeks out and its was fabulous.

The spices were perfect, and it has a crisp malty aftertaste that lingers along with the spices. All thinness originally reported was gone. The beer is light in terms of body but it is well balanced with a nice mouth feel from the pumpkin.

I like this beer sooo much I bought 10 cans of pumpkin so I can make it again. Going to do this all grain next time.

Yuri, thanks a lot for the recipe. The pumpkin mess is WELL worth it.

I just submitted this to my first competition and WON best in category!

I did the extract version, and just tweaked a couple things - added the full oz of hops, and did "continous" hopping, adding a couple pellets every 5 minutes or so. I also added a pinch more pumpkin spice.

Thanks Yuri! This brew is my best so far, and has been a great hit with co-workers and friends/family. I am hoping to brew this again soon!

dmbnpj said:

How long would you recommend boiling the spices?

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Well I boiled the spices in about a cup of water and it came out to be a sludge. I added that to my fermentation bucket. Hope it comes out ok.

With Careful planning I had my beer ready for Thanksgiving.

I do have to say that everything that could have possibly go wrong with the mash did go wrong, it got stuck 3 times even fith a truckload of rice huls, but I am not that kind of a person that woud give up easily.
Surprisingly it came out great!

Everyone loved the beer.
Thanks Yuri for the recipe

Mine has this 'flavor'...hard for me to discern whether the beer is "green" or whether that is the pumpkin flavor.
It has been in bottles since 11/9. I cracked it open today.

Ok, going to make this one again it was so good. Plus its going to be my second all grain batch. Wish me luck...

BenS said:

Has anyone ever just left this in a primary for 3 to 4 weeks instead of putting it in the secondary? I'm wondering if leaving it on the pumpkin trub for a bit longer would help or hurt the final taste and mouthfeel. Any thoughts?

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I just bottled a pumpkin porter (extract) in which I had boiled a whole pumpkin along with the LME and hops. I left it in the primary for 4 - 5 weeks because of my lack of bottles and time. I primed with a cup of DME and the first draw from the bottling bucket tasted a bit sour. The leftovers at the end were more spicey and less sour, however. When I went to dump the trub in the compost bin, I stuck my head in the bucket and the smell made me want to puke. Hopefully, the beer will mellow out. I'm going to give it a while.

I'll post again in a month when I try a bottle, however, I have nothing to compare it to since this is my first pumpkin beer. Check out my blog and you can read about my other skrew up.

dmbnpj said:

Well I boiled the spices in about a cup of water and it came out to be a sludge. I added that to my fermentation bucket. Hope it comes out ok.

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A year ago I did a cinnamon and nutmeg infusion for a holiday ale and it turned sludgey. I've also got some sludge issues with my current pumpkin porter. I think some of these ground spices are not completely water soluable.

i'm a season behind, but i think i'm going to make this. just read the whole thread and it sounds like the consensus for the best pumpkin flavor is to do 60oz of pumpkin per 5gal in the mash? you guys still agree?

mb2696 said:

i'm a season behind, but i think i'm going to make this. just read the whole thread and it sounds like the consensus for the best pumpkin flavor is to do 60oz of pumpkin per 5gal in the mash? you guys still agree?

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I used 60oz. I did roast it in the oven for about 1.5 hours and the flavor did increase and became more rich tasting. I still haven't tapped it yet but all the samples point to a great beer.

Just remember to account for the pumpkin in calculating your strike temperature.

Scut_Monkey said:

I used 60oz. I did roast it in the oven for about 1.5 hours and the flavor did increase and became more rich tasting. I still haven't tapped it yet but all the samples point to a great beer.

Just remember to account for the pumpkin in calculating your strike temperature.

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thanks. as far as strike temp... i do the "overheat stike, transfer to mash tun, let cool down to strike temp, then mash in" method. i was thinking of just adding the pumpkin in with the strike water and letting the water/pumpkin mix cool down to strike temp, then mashing in

also, did you do the spice tea method at secondary or did you boil the spices? either way, how did it turn out in terms of pumpkin/spice balance? i don't want the spices to be too strong and i want to be able to taste the pumpkin

I added the recommended spices at flame out. After sampling I then added the same quantity of spices to the secondary with a spice tea. It seems to be where I want it now which is pumpkin pie like but not gross.

Scut_Monkey said:

I added the recommended spices at flame out. After sampling I then added the same quantity of spices to the secondary with a spice tea. It seems to be where I want it now which is pumpkin pie like but not gross.

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good to know...thats basically what i'm shooting for (pumpkin pie like but not gross).