looking to make a pumpkin pie mead for Thanksgiving

Is it too late? I've only got space to make a one gallon batch as well, any advice? I'm still pretty new to beer brewing and making mead.

No, it isn't too late. To drink by Thanksgiving, keep your original gravity a little lower - maybe 1.080 - 1.090 and it will be ready sooner. I made a sweet potato pie mead, very similar to pumpkin pie, several years ago in March and drank it for Thanksgiving. I still have a bottle left.

Since sweet potato have a lot of starch/carbohydrates to it. Would it be useful in a mead to use amylase enzymes to help break down the complex sugars for consumption by the yeast? Summersolsrice, if you did not use enzymes to break down the starch did you have any issues with clearing or such?

I did a pumpkin mead, it took forever, but it cleared eventually. I didn't use enzyme or a clearing agent. If I make it again, I would do both.

Arpolis said:

Since sweet potato have a lot of starch/carbohydrates to it. Would it be useful in a mead to use amylase enzymes to help break down the complex sugars for consumption by the yeast? Summersolsrice, if you did not use enzymes to break down the starch did you have any issues with clearing or such?

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No, I didn't use or do anything different and it took the normal amount of time to clear. There were, however, a great deal of lees (sediment) and I had to be very careful while racking. I also left behind a huge amount of slurry. I did have a very tasty and drinkable mead at Thanksgiving after a March start.

summersolstice said:

No, it isn't too late. To drink by Thanksgiving, keep your original gravity a little lower - maybe 1.080 - 1.090 and it will be ready sooner. I made a sweet potato pie mead, very similar to pumpkin pie, several years ago in March and drank it for Thanksgiving. I still have a bottle left.

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Would you be willing to share your recipe for reference? My plan was three pounds of honey, maybe a half can of puree pumpkin, pinches of nutmeg, cloves, brown sugar, a cinnamon stick and pumpkin pie spice, then use a bread yeast. Would a sweet mead yeast be a better choice though?

Think I'm going to wait on this until I get some more experience under my belt.

SummerSolstice has his pumpkin pie recipes posted in the Recipes section. I'm going to start a 2 gallon batch this weekend and hope that it's done by thanksgivings.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f80/sweet-potato-pie-mead-75582/

The difference is I'm going to use Lavin EC-1118 in hopes of a faster fermentation and more time to age.