When to add pumpkin

I know there are a lot of threads on brewing pumpkin beer, but I would like to focus on when to add the pumpkin to an extract recipe. I've heard to steep it prior to the boil, in the boil, or to the secondary. What is everyone's thoughts?
Thanks
Todd

I made a pumpkin tea by cutting the pumpkin up in chunks, putting them in the oven until they became less hard (20 mins or so) and putting them in the freezer after that. Then the next day I boiled them in water for ~20 minutes or so and filtered it off. By heating and freezing you lyse the cells in the meat, so you get most of the ingredients out. I used that as a base for my AG brew. I guess you can use it directly in the boil too.
Cheers
Jasper

So you are saying to boil them in water after heating/freezing and use that water as part of your boil water? So you add your extract and steeping grains to that?

yeah, cut in chunks, oven, cool, freeze, boil and filter.

Then you have this pumpkin tea you can use as a base for your steeping and extract. I never extract brewed so I used this tea as base in my mash. Basically I dont think it matters as long as you boil it so you get rid of some of the proteins.

Cheers
Jasper

Are you using fresh or can? Can pumpkin can be spread on a baking sheet and cooked. Then add it to the boil. Fresh can be cut up and baked. Add it to the boil.

I plan on using real pumpkin.

I brewed up a pumpkin beer about a month ago and spread 3 cans of pumpkin out on a baking sheet and baked it at 350 for about an hour, then I just added it right to the boil with my extract; turned out great!

In the end it does not matter as long as you give the pumpkin the time to fall apart. The fruit is pretty hard. If you use canned version its a different story I never had it from a can.

kingmatt said:

I brewed up a pumpkin beer about a month ago and spread 3 cans of pumpkin out on a baking sheet and baked it at 350 for about an hour, then I just added it right to the boil with my extract; turned out great!

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I did the same thing. I added half of the pumpkin at 30 mins and the other half at 55 minutes with the spices.

I am planning on using 2-3 cans of pumpkin for my extract pumpkin ale that I picked up from AHS. Those that said you added it during the boil did you put it in a muslin bag?

I recently brewed Smashing Pumpkin Ale from NB. I baked two 15oz cans of pure pumpkin in the oven at 350 for 35 mins. I then put this in a grain bag, along with 3lbs of 6row, and the specialty grains that came with the kit. I found that, for the most part, the pumpkin dissolved into the water. I say "for the most part" because after an hour of soaking everything, my 3.5gal wort was down closer to 1gal. The pumpkin stuck to the edges of the grain bag and kept most of the water in! It took me a good 30 more mins to strain that out into another pot and put it back into my kettle for the boil. Of the 15 or so brews I've done, this ended up being my toughest yet. I brewed a week ago today so I can't say how it turned out yet though....

I did not use a muslin bag. I just added the pumpkin directly into the boiling water.

I brewed AHS pumpkin ale last year and it was a bit hit. I baked 2 2lbs cans of pumpkin on a cookie sheet for an hour then added it to a bag in which it dissolved and made a very tough transfer. This year I plan on just dumping the pumpkin right in the boil with no bag. This year I am going to prepare to make 6 gallons and use some DME if my gravity is off due to large amounts of pumpkin and other stuff at the bottom of the fermenter

The Northern Brewer instructions also suggest using 6-row to mash the pumpkin. Does anybody know the reason for this? Does pumpkin convert like grain? It seems this would push the gravity way up beyond what I'm looking for. I suppose I could adjust the amount of LME that I add according to the direction, but then I'm paying for ingredients I'm not using.

NorCalAngler said:

The Northern Brewer instructions also suggest using 6-row to mash the pumpkin. Does anybody know the reason for this? Does pumpkin convert like grain? It seems this would push the gravity way up beyond what I'm looking for. I suppose I could adjust the amount of LME that I add according to the direction, but then I'm paying for ingredients I'm not using.

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Pumpkin does convert but I'm not sure how much... I've heard "not much" to "some"... never real numbers.

6-row has more higher diastatic power than 2-Row which may help get better conversion.

Waiting for real pumpkins to be available... should have this aged and carbed as a new years beer.

will post some final numbers when I get them... may not help for this years batch but maybe for next years.

This thread has been very helpful! I just ordered the AHS Pumpkin kit and plan on brewing it soon!

Wish I could be more help... but plan in baking pumpkin chunks for an hour at 350°... even if I don't get great conversion (changed recipe to 6 row) I've heard it's the best way to get a bit of roasty pumpkin-ness. seems like best way. using traditional pumpkin pie spices (cinnamon, ginger ((fresh ginger is strong so may go with a small amount of dry)), mace, all-spice, and nutmeg ((( might dry hop with a few whole cloves, at 1 per gallon I want spicey))) ) and dried sweet orange peel in last few minutes of boil.