Pumpkin Ale recipe!

Alright, so I was sitting down the other day drinking Harvest Moon (which isn't bad but its not good either), and I thought to my self its high time to try a pumpkin ale! This is going to be my 4th batch ever, and all my friends say that my beer is freakin delicious, so I must be doing something right lol.

Anyways, I go to my local homebrew store and talk to the guy there. I explain that I don't want a strong hop characteristic because I don't want to over power the pumpkin and spices, and that I want an amber ale style beer base. He initially wanted me to just add pumkin pie spice to the secondary to impart the flavors with no pumpkin at all. I immediatly disaggree with him, and this is what we came up with for 5 Gal:

EDIT: I made some adjustments to the recipe that I did on brewday.

1/2 lb Munich
1/2 lb Biscuit
7 lbs LME
4% AAU Tettanager, 1 oz
Wyeast #1332
3 lbs canned pumpkin (Not canned pumpkin pie mix)
5 Whole Cloves
1 Tbl Nutmeg
1/2 Tsp Ginger
1 Whole Vanilla bean
4 Cinnamon Sticks, crushed
2 Stirring Spoon full Molasses (about 1/2 cup)

Before starting, spread the canned pumpkin out on a cookie sheet and bake in the oven at 400F until carmalized, about 30 min.

Bring water to 150 F and steep grains for 30 mins, then sparge with 4 cups of water.

Bring to boil, add LME and hops. Boil for 45 min.

While waiting for boil, set aside spices. Crush the cinnamon sticks until coarse. Cut the vanilla bean in half, then split each section down the middle taking care not to cut in half again. Once split, gently seperate and scrap the inside of the bean with the back of your knife and put the contents in your spice bowl.

At 45 Min, add spices and boil for 15 more min.

Cool Wort to 80F and pitch yeast.

And there it is! What do you guys think? Any suggestions?

Well... brewday is this weekend. Would love some opinions on my recipe Mostly want to know if the spices that I will be using are going to be too much, and if I should use more hops or not. Thanks!

Can't tell you about the spices, as I just made a pumpkin porter with canned pie mix, however if you want it to really come out then use less hops. Around 20 or so otherwise you start overpowering the spices you are using.

Hope this helps

Are you using fresh spices or store ground? I used about 5 cloves, 1/2 seed nutmeg, 1/4 ginger diced, 2 cinamon sticks whole. Put it all in cheese cloth and boiled last 15 min.

Make sure your pumpkin doesn't have perservitives. I would also use more, but I'm not sure if you're not mashing it.

As far as spices go, I plan to use McCormick brand, real cinnamon sticks and real vanilla (I don't exactly remember the specific name, but they come in glass bottles with black tops.) The pumpkin I'm using is libbey's canned pumpkin, ingredients say nothing about preservatives. I'm thinking about taking the corriander out completely though, I smelled my spice packet last night and am thinking that won't lend any seasonal flavoring lol. Its great in Witbiers which are fruitesqe, just I now think its going to put some off flavors in my beer.

And what do you mean by "Around 20 or so otherwise you start overpowering the spices you are using." What is 20? 20 Minutes?

IBU's. Hop bitterness.

Personally I don't feel like the hop addition you have is going to overpower the spices.

9 IBU's total in this recipe, yea I don't think its going to matter much. Thanks for all the replies! Brewday is going to be Saturday, I'll let everyone know how its going to turn out. I don't have a glass carboy anymore (slipped of the counter when I was cleaning it... 6 Gal of water all over the kitchen, not to mention glass EVERYWHERE...), I'll take pics of what I got and post.

Well, brewed and bubbling away in the primary, and man I have to say its pumpkin pie so far lol, can't wait to taste it.

Not to mention we had a couple mishaps, #1 putting too much water in the brew pot, I didn't take into account the pumpkin. #2 being a boil over, never thought I would get that on my electric stove...

one thing you'll notice is that the pumpkin takes up a LOT of space in the carboy. i did a similar recipe and i ended up with about 3 gallons of beer. it was pretty good though, it's a shame i lost the recipe in my move. make sure to set a few bottles aside for at least a few months, to give the beer time to mellow out.