Continuous Growing Sludgepile in Pumpkin Ale 2ary

Hey all. I'm new to these forums.

I just wanted to tell a tale of a scary pumpkin ale. Ok, it's not that scary, except that I have a huge and growing layer of something - starches? in secondary.

I started this fellow out in early October.

Grain bill was something like this:
250 g crystal 80
250 g crystal 40
3.75 kg 2-row
500 g special roast

to which I added something like 10 lbs of roasted pumpkin during the single infusion mash.

I added 250 g pure, raw cane sugar (a compressed puck) during the boil.

I'd heard very mixed stories about working with pumpkin. What I did is roast the pumpkin and leave it in large chunks. I figured with the sheer amounts of pumpkin in there, I'd get pumpkin flavour (if any) out, without worrying about a stuck sparge.

I have to admit that I was low on my mash temp to start with, because I didn't really bother to figure out how to account for the temperature of the pumpkin itself. In order to get up to my target I basically "decocted" some of the pumpkin into fresh water (I had room in my tun), and brought it up to boiling in the microwave. It was a bit like using hot stones, and it preserved the integrity of the pumpkin.

Anyhoo, despite quite a long mash, I ended up with a very cloudy wort, which I took to be pumpkin starches, mostly.

I fermented with WLP005, British Ale yeast. I did notice that this yeast seems to floc as soon as the temp drops a bit, so after SWMBO left the garage door open and my temp dropped (a week into primary), I brought my brew inside and finished out the primary at around 18-21 C.

I transfered it to secondary when I believe my FG was around 1.009.

I secondaried for around a week at 18 C, then transferred it to the cold room where temps have been 10-12 C. It looks like it is barely clearing, but there is an impressive layer at the bottom. If I took my gravity reading properly, I would find it hard to believe that layer was yeast, since there's not much gravity left in there, and I didn't transfer much when I racked. I'm wondering if the starches are settling out. There was an impressive layer of cold break before I poured into my fermentor, so I suppose there could still be a lot of protein left in the beer.

Any thoughts on whether starches are likely to settle? I'm basically planning on letting it sit a week or two more at 10-12, then maybe a day or two near 4C to see if it will clear completely.

Sorry for the long-winded post! Tough to find that balance between posting enough info and putting people to sleep...

Pumpkin is high fiber stuff. You're not seeing starches most likely, just roughage.

My first thought was also random pumpkin stuffs as well.

This was the case with my pumpkin ale...be patient and it will settle. When I racked, I kept the tip of the cane above the cake and got very, very clear beer!

If it does not settle, (that's a LOT of pumpkin), try some gelatin

Well that's reassuring. I was sure that I was going to be stuck with cloudy beer. Now I'm just kinda sure

Next question: given that WLP005 flocs like a S O B, if I put it down to 4 C for a few days or a week, you think there will still be enough in suspension at bottling?

I used around 4-5 pounds of pumpkin in the mash, let it sit in the primary for a little over 4 weeks and like jeremyx, I kept the tip of the want above the cake, and had crystal clear beer going into the keg.

BeaverBrewer1 said:

Well that's reassuring. I was sure that I was going to be stuck with cloudy beer. Now I'm just kinda sure

Next question: given that WLP005 flocs like a S O B, if I put it down to 4 C for a few days or a week, you think there will still be enough in suspension at bottling?

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Crystal clear beer (unfiltered) to the naked eye, even if isinglass or other fining agents are used, still has about 10,000 - 100,000 yeast cells per ml, which is more than enough to carbonate. It takes a little longer than normal but it turns out fine. I cold crashed a beer once (got too busy to get around to it) for an entire week at 35F and it carbed fine. Took 3 weeks at room temps but it turned out very nice.