extract pumpkin ale

Hi all, brewing my 4th batch tomorrow night. Midwest pumpkin ale kit. I've read a lot of pumpkin ale threads and most talk about doing a mini mash. I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet. Any suggestions for my batch? Am planning to roast pumpkin with brown sugar and pumpkin pie spice. Put in a bag and steep with the grains. Any thoughts?

Careful on the pumpkin!
i just racked my punkin ale to secondary last night, was a 5 gallon batch with about 60 oz of pumpkin in it,, i ended up with the bottom 1.5 gallons of my fermenting bucket ALL PULP! clogged my siphon and everything. youll probably end up like me and only end up with 4 galons or so in your secondary.

and try molasses instead of brown sugar, the flavor will be more pronounced.

I'm. . . honestly not convinced that's a good plan.

They way I understand it, pumpkin has a lot of starches in it that need to be mashed. Roasting will help - in the same way that the malting process is the first step of a mash - but it won't get you all the way there. In order to break down all the starches and make them fermentable, you need a mash with enzymes.*

So, in other words, if you steep the pumpkin, you'll just be rinsing long-chain dextrines into your beer, which will give it a big mouthfeel, but not much added sweetness or pumpkin flavor. Instead it might taste a little starchy.

I just looked up the kit you mention, and the instructions call for adding the pumpkin in the last five minutes of the boil. Since that's how the kit was designed, I would try that and get a baseline before I monkeyed too much with the procedure.

*DISCLAIMER: This is based on my own experience and what I've read/been told - I am not a pumpkin-ologist and can't personally vouch for the science.

I definitely wouldn't steep the grains and the pumpkin together. The last pumpkin I did had me add it in the last 15 minutes of the boil. I can't imagine good things coming from doing it with your steeping grains at 155 degrees. You would probably lose a ton of pumpkin flavor as a result. Just pick up a second steeping grain bag and use that solely for pumpkin. Add it in the last 15 minutes of the boil. My $.02.

I agree that for the first time around you may want to stick to the instructions for the kit.

Hey Onipar: can you PLEASE tell me what the bad wolf was? I stopped watching after Tennent left (didn't have strong feelings about him, just kinda lost track of the series.) Not knowing still bothers me, though.

pericles said:

Hey Onipar: can you PLEASE tell me what the bad wolf was? I stopped watching after Tennent left (didn't have strong feelings about him, just kinda lost track of the series.) Not knowing still bothers me, though.

Click to expand...

Bad Wolf was mostly explained while Tennent was still on the show from what I remember. I'm still not completely sold on Matt Smith. He's good and all, but it's just not the same. But I guess that's how it goes with Doctor Who. I'll PM you so I don't post spoilers here.

From what I have read, putting the pumpkin in with the mash is the best way to do it. Roast it first then throw it in the mash. This will keep your FG close to the estimated...the pumpkin MAY add just a few points. Mashing will also keep more pumpkin flavor. Putting it in the boil (from what I have heard) does very little for the beer.

My advice... experiment. You can read all you want but you will never truly know unless you do it yourself. If you want to steep it with some grains, do it and see what happens. The worst that can happen is the beer does taste as good as you want...but you still have beer.

I just ordered a pumpkin ale kit from AHS (extract). I know I will not be adding pumpkin to the boil or mini mash. I may split this into two batches. One with just spices and the second I may rack to secondary and put some pumpkin in that for a week or so to see what the difference is.

I'm going to go against the grain here and suggest it's better to boil the pumpkin. First, I'll say that in my own recipe, I decided to implement both a mash *and* boil of the pumpkin, to layer flavor. I did a lot of research, and most people are split on the issue. This is one source that explains why the boil may be a better choice:

"...they informed me that it is not important to attempt a conversion of the starches in the pumpkin, as there isn't enough sugar derived to justify the effort. In fact, if you combine the pumpkin with the grains during steep and sparge, you are almost guaranteed to clog your equipment therefore mashing should not even be implemented."

"Since the purpose of adding pumpkin to the beer is to derive color and flavor, what better place to extract both qualities than in the boil. At first, I questioned this idea and asked if a 1.5 hour boil of pumpkin will impart a vegetable character to the beer, but I should know better then to have questioned the Masters. Based on Scott's recommendation, we introduced the 38-lbs of caramelized canned pumpkins to the wort at the very beginning of the boil." [note, this was for a large-scale recipe. They do offer a homebrew scaled recipe in the article though].

http://www.audioholics.com/news/edi...e-brew-recipe-and-commercial-microbrew-recipe

They also have interesting suggestions for spicing that is different from a lot of other suggestions.

Something else that I've been told is that there really isn't a lot of flavor to pumpkin (raw, roasted, or otherwise.) The flavor that most of us expect when we think "pumpkin" is really gotten from the spices added to pumpkin pie.

When I make pumpkin beers, I don't add pumpkin at all. Instead, I just add pumpkin pie spice in the last minute of the boil. No one has ever told me that it didn't taste like a pumpkin beer, and it avoids messing around with vegetables. The technique is Jamil's, so I can't take credit for it, but I thought it'd be good to pass along.

I mentioned this in another thread... Oddly enough, on my brew day, I threw in 45 OZ of canned pumpkin, without roasting it or anything, in addition to the pumpkin spices... Pumpkin went in with 5 minutes left in the boil, spices went in the final minute.

When I moved it to primary, there was almost zero trace of pumpkin "flesh" left. There may have been some pulp that i didnt notice, but the bottom of my kettle was clean as a whistle. This was a 2.5 gal boil, BTW.

Wort tasted excellent and it's been fermenting since Tuesday nicely.

I made the AHS pumpkin last week and I added 30 oz of canned pumpkin to the boil. I first topped the pumpkin with brown sugar and roasted it for 30 minutes. No idea if this was the right thing to do but my wort sample looked great and it was the first time that I actually liked the taste of the wort...it tasted really good.

IMO, and this is just from brewing it last week, the pumpkin adds some really nice color to it. It gave it a nice orange color to it.

pericles said:

Hey Onipar: can you PLEASE tell me what the bad wolf was? I stopped watching after Tennent left (didn't have strong feelings about him, just kinda lost track of the series.) Not knowing still bothers me, though.

Click to expand...

onipar said:

Bad Wolf was mostly explained while Tennent was still on the show from what I remember. I'm still not completely sold on Matt Smith. He's good and all, but it's just not the same. But I guess that's how it goes with Doctor Who. I'll PM you so I don't post spoilers here.

Click to expand...

pericles said:

Something else that I've been told is that there really isn't a lot of flavor to pumpkin (raw, roasted, or otherwise.) The flavor that most of us expect when we think "pumpkin" is really gotten from the spices added to pumpkin pie.

When I make pumpkin beers, I don't add pumpkin at all. Instead, I just add pumpkin pie spice in the last minute of the boil. No one has ever told me that it didn't taste like a pumpkin beer, and it avoids messing around with vegetables. The technique is Jamil's, so I can't take credit for it, but I thought it'd be good to pass along.

Click to expand...

WTH happened in the middle of this thread? That was pretty, um, interesting?

pericles said:

Hey Onipar: can you PLEASE tell me what the bad wolf was? I stopped watching after Tennent left (didn't have strong feelings about him, just kinda lost track of the series.) Not knowing still bothers me, though.

Click to expand...

Bad Wolf was a phrase that cropped up all the way through new series 1 of Doctor Who, and a couple of times since.

It turned out that the Bad Wolf entity was a super being with god like powers, created when Rose absorbed the energy from the heart of the Tardis, while attempting to get back to Satellite 5 to help the Doctor defeat the Daleks in the episode "Parting of the Ways".

When she arrived, The Rose/Bad Wolf entity destroyed the entire Dalek fleet, including the Dalek Emperor, and brought all the people they had killed back to life - including Captain Jack Harkness who became immortal as a result. She then took the words "Bad Wolf" from the sign in satellite 5 and spread them through all space and time as clues for her past self to return to Satellite 5 and save the Doctor (i.e. to do what she had just done).

The Doctor then had to extract the Tardis energy from Rose before it killed her. He did this by kissing her and absorbing the energy himself. This caused all the cells in his body to start decomposing, so he had to regenerate into his 10th incarnation.

I should know.... I'm such a big fan of Who, Torchwood, Primeval, etc that I joined the BBC as Creative Director.... In fact, I get to work on the concept for the new Top Gear season 18 promos! Jealous yet? :rockin:

Oh and Pumpkin Ale is awesome... LOL

Zixxer10R said:

WTH happened in the middle of this thread? That was pretty, um, interesting?

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Ha! He was asking because of my "brewery" name. I sent him a PM about it.

mannye, yes I'm jealous! Gah! How the heck did you pull that off? Hey, any room for a writer? I focus mostly on horror, but I can rock the scifi too. :rockin:

This thread just took an interesting turn......

Yeah, i'm subscribed just because of the Top Gear references. I guess if Dr. Who is that awesome i'm gonna have to start watching it.

What season should i start on?

Here's a monkey wrench I'll gladly throw into the gears of this thread: Substituting the pumpkin with sweet potatoes in the same amounts produces a more favorable beer to my tastebuds. I've never done it personally, but my buddy Justin took a Dogfish Punkin clone recipe, used sweet potatoes in direct replacement of the pumpkin, and the results were magical.

Tim_Kreitz said:

Here's a monkey wrench I'll gladly throw into the gears of this thread: Substituting the pumpkin with sweet potatoes in the same amounts produces a more favorable beer to my tastebuds. I've never done it personally, but my buddy Justin took a Dogfish Punkin clone recipe, used sweet potatoes in direct replacement of the pumpkin, and the results were magical.

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Yams? Canned? Candied? Baked? Inquiring minds want to know.

We need to know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My guess would be that like bones for broth, everything is better when baked. Even me!

Strangelove said:

Yams? Canned? Candied? Baked? Inquiring minds want to know.

Click to expand...

Zixxer10R said:

We need to know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Click to expand...

LOL. Okay, okay.

I have solicited the recipe from him. Will post it when I hear back.

Zixxer10R said:

Yeah, i'm subscribed just because of the Top Gear references. I guess if Dr. Who is that awesome i'm gonna have to start watching it.

What season should i start on?

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start with the ninth doctor Christopher Eccleston mostly because you get ot see a lot of the fabulous Billie Piper as Rose, his super hot blonde companion.

Then go on to the 10th doctor and my favorite so far David Tennant who played the character from the end of Eccleston's doctor in '05 to the current one. Tennant had some Billie Piper as well, but then had some annoying companions with the exception of Martha Jones who is also a looker.


Then we get to the current doctor who I don't really like that much yet, but is growing on me. However, the only reason to watch this latest series is for the hottest companion in the history of Doctor Who, Amy Pond, played by Karen Gillan. And the last season was shot in the USA with some fun scenes in Dick Nixon's oval office.

and it goes very well with punkin ale.

mannye said:

start with the ninth doctor Christopher Eccleston mostly because you get ot see a lot of the fabulous Billie Piper as Rose, his super hot blonde companion.

Then go on to the 10th doctor and my favorite so far David Tennant who played the character from the end of Eccleston's doctor in '05 to the current one. Tennant had some Billie Piper as well, but then had some annoying companions with the exception of Martha Jones who is also a looker.


Then we get to the current doctor who I don't really like that much yet, but is growing on me. However, the only reason to watch this latest series is for the hottest companion in the history of Doctor Who, Amy Pond, played by Karen Gillan. And the last season was shot in the USA with some fun scenes in Dick Nixon's oval office.

and it goes very well with punkin ale.

Click to expand...

+1000

Agreed with all of this. I feel the same about Matt Smith, but I've only watched one season with him so far, so I'm hoping he'll grow on me.

mannye said:

start with the ninth doctor Christopher Eccleston mostly because you get ot see a lot of the fabulous Billie Piper as Rose, his super hot blonde companion.

Then go on to the 10th doctor and my favorite so far David Tennant who played the character from the end of Eccleston's doctor in '05 to the current one. Tennant had some Billie Piper as well, but then had some annoying companions with the exception of Martha Jones who is also a looker.


Then we get to the current doctor who I don't really like that much yet, but is growing on me. However, the only reason to watch this latest series is for the hottest companion in the history of Doctor Who, Amy Pond, played by Karen Gillan. And the last season was shot in the USA with some fun scenes in Dick Nixon's oval office.

and it goes very well with punkin ale.

Click to expand...

Billie Piper has to be my most favorite call girl actually.

Zixxer10R said:

Billie Piper has to be my most favorite call girl actually.

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Yes indeed! the funny thing about that show is that there's a scene where she sleeps with Matt Smith!

Tim_Kreitz said:

Here's a monkey wrench I'll gladly throw into the gears of this thread: Substituting the pumpkin with sweet potatoes in the same amounts produces a more favorable beer to my tastebuds. I've never done it personally, but my buddy Justin took a Dogfish Punkin clone recipe, used sweet potatoes in direct replacement of the pumpkin, and the results were magical.

Click to expand...

hate to bring this thread back to life but im about to do a pumpkin ale tonight and would like to know if the product used was canned yams or sweet potatoes? or fresh?????