Autumn Seasonal Beer Punkin' Ale

Transferred mine to secondary last night. FG was at 1.014. Looks and tastes great! Only 2 weeks in secondary and 2-4 in the bottle to go. Can't wait!

BlakeL said:

I'm not going to have time this weekend to cook the pumpkin, do a partial mash, boil and then clean up. Should I throw the uncooked pumpkin directly into mash or cook it tomorrow and refrigerate until i'm ready to use it?

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I brewed this last weekend and forgot to bake the pumpkin. It absorbed more water then I thought it would, but still turned out great. I used rice hulls and didnt get a stuck sparge.

Brewing right now. Sparging... Smells and tastes great. Not that every beer being brewed doesn't ;-)

I was going to attach pics, but the app crashes when I try. Bummer. It's pretty!

Medevac_Chief said:

Well I live in Heidelberg, Germany and will be moving to Wiesbaden which is an hour away from where I live now. I get a few strange looks being that im in the so-called "mother land" of beer, but the varitey of beer just isnt here i.e IPA's, Stouts, Porters, and fall type seasonals.

But I just wanted to know if I brewed this now if it would be ok to move after airlock activity has stoped. I feel like I rushed this last year, and really want to give it time to mellow out.

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I would suggest moving it carefully and not removing the airlock. Try to get it into the secondary before moving as to nit kick up the trub.

aberry said:

I brewed this last weekend and forgot to bake the pumpkin. It absorbed more water then I thought it would, but still turned out great. I used rice hulls and didnt get a stuck sparge.

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I was going to exclude it but I watched Northern Brewer's video about their pumpkin ale and they don't cook it either.

Brewed this today, plugged everything in to Beersmith to get proper sparge volumes (I fly sparge) and for reasons I have yet to determine, I hit an OG of 1.085 . Just over 5 gallons of strike water, just over 4.5 gallons sparge water. Didn't use rice hulls, used 4 small cans of pumpkin (a bit cheaper) for a total of 60oz, and used biscuit instead of victory. Sparge didn't stick, but was flowing slow enough towards the end, so I cut it off a bit early. A bit shy of 5 gallons in the fermenter. Any ideas? Still smelled and tasted wonderful.

hyperboarder said:

Brewed this today, plugged everything in to Beersmith to get proper sparge volumes (I fly sparge) and for reasons I have yet to determine, I hit an OG of 1.085 . Just over 5 gallons of strike water, just over 4.5 gallons sparge water. Didn't use rice hulls, used 4 small cans of pumpkin (a bit cheaper) for a total of 60oz, and used biscuit instead of victory. Sparge didn't stick, but was flowing slow enough towards the end, so I cut it off a bit early. A bit shy of 5 gallons in the fermenter. Any ideas? Still smelled and tasted wonderful.

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I also fly sparged and hit 1.081. I bet you were just more efficient with the fly sparge. No complaints. Higher gravity = more fun.

I brewed this recipe using a long neck pumpkin scaled to a 6 gallon batch. I think using real pumpkins is the way to go if you can find them since they are less mushy (more stringy) and less likely to create a stuck sparge. I also stir it in after the grain and only stir it in the top third of the mash. I use 1.75 qt/lb of water and the pumpkin pulp kind of floats on top. My OG was 1.074. This was partly due to a measuring error in my brown sugar where I added .25 lbs more brown sugar than I should have. I brewed this as my first brew using my new Blichmann Tower of Power. I posted a short video on YouTube.

I used 1/2lb rice hulls and had no issues at all with sparging.

I didn't think the canned pumpkin was bad at all once mixed with the mash, and it seemed to settle on top of the grain bed... or at least that's what it looked like post sparge.

Brewed this today. Only my second AG. Achieved 65% eff. (have to work on that). Real good flavor on the hydrometer. Hoping this will be ready for Halloween. Question; I am doing a batch sparge, should I be drawing it off at a slow rate or just open the valve and drain it off fast?

NMG318 said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56-WRCGk8o4

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Nice! Thanks for posting the video! And I love hearing opinions on using real pumpkin.

Tfurey7 said:

Brewed this today. Only my second AG. Achieved 65% eff. (have to work on that). Real good flavor on the hydrometer. Hoping this will be ready for Halloween. Question; I am doing a batch sparge, should I be drawing it off at a slow rate or just open the valve and drain it off fast?

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Meh, depends. On this beer I definitely start slow. It helps avoid getting it stuck.

Made this yesterday, I substuted crystal for hallertau and used a whole real pumpkin. I did a rest at 105 to try and break up the starches to help with sparging, but nothing to compare to. Gravity was spot on, smelled awesome and super pumpkin color. I'll post pic of glass once it's done.

I've heard of people saying that real pumpkin can give a vegetable taste to the mix. Can any comment on their experiences and if they didn't have any off favors what type of real pumpkin they used. Thanks

Medevac_Chief said:

I've heard of people saying that real pumpkin can give a vegetable taste to the mix. Can any comment on their experiences and if they didn't have any off favors what type of real pumpkin they used. Thanks

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The canned pumpkin is real, too, and will certainly add a vegetative/squash taste. Not an "off flavor" in this style, in my most humble opinion.

I've heard of raw pumpkin giving odd flavors. But don't have any personal experience using raw pumpkin.

I brewed a 5.5gal batch of this on 8/19. OG was 1.062, 9/13 checked gravity....1.011. Beer had slight alcohol back taste to it, not much pumpkin flavor. Transfered to secondary and stuck it in my Keezer at 39*. As soon as I get my CO2 tank filled I will keg & carbonate. This will be the first beer I keg.....looking forward to it!

Good thing I brewed 10 gallons of this stuff. We had some friends over for football yesterday and about kicked the first keg! Great recipe Reno, you are right that it is very similar to DFH Punkin.

Has anyone subbed munich for vienna in the recipe? I'm on lunch and I'm using my phone to look through this thread right now. I already have everything I need to brew this. Just no vienna;-)

brew2enjoy said:

Good thing I brewed 10 gallons of this stuff. We had some friends over for football yesterday and about kicked the first keg! Great recipe Reno, you are right that it is very similar to DFH Punkin.

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That is a huge compliment! Thank you... sharing might be my favorite thing about homebrewing.

Double_D said:

Has anyone subbed munich for vienna in the recipe? I'm on lunch and I'm using my phone to look through this thread right now. I already have everything I need to brew this. Just no vienna;-)

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I don't have experience in that but it should work just fine. Munich will probably just give you a crisper malty flavor; kinda like comparing base malts, like the bready flavor of Marris Otter to the crisp flavor of German 2-row.

Reno_eNVy said:

I don't have experience in that but it should work just fine. Munich will probably just give you a crisper malty flavor; kinda like comparing base malts, like the bready flavor of Marris Otter to the crisp flavor of German 2-row.

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Thank you!

Reno! Omg! I just tapped the pumpkin holy hell its good. Its up there on my list as one of the bests! Great recipe! To any who change the op recipe your missing out. I would not change it in any way.

RandomBeerGuy said:

Reno! Omg! I just tapped the pumpkin holy hell its good. Its up there on my list as one of the bests! Great recipe! To any who change the op recipe your missing out. I would not change it in any way.

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Thank you so much! I'm incredibly happy it worked out so well for you.

Your welcome i need to thank you for the recipe. I have a couple friends over and they are loving it as much as I am. Im going to make a 15 gallon batch of this very soon.

Well I made the PM version of this on 9/9 and just a little over a week later it's already already down to 1.010 from 1.064. Pretty good attenuation for S-04, which leads me to believe I might have messed up my mash temps. The sample tasted great; all the spices and pumpkin pie notes were there, though I might end up back-sweetening it a tad since it fermented fairly dry. This brew is looking promising.. can't wait til I can crack open a bottle!

so do you add the pumpkin to the mash and is there a risk of stuck mash or would rice hulls be the answer to that
btw recipe looks great very excited

moonpig said:

so do you add the pumpkin to the mash and is there a risk of stuck mash or would rice hulls be the answer to that
btw recipe looks great very excited

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Ha this might be the most discussed topic in this thread.

Yes, add to mash.

Yes, it will probably get stuck if you use the can puree.

Yes, rice hulls will help. About 0.5-1.0#


Hope that helps

I use a false bottom and had no problems with stuck sparge at all with 1lb of rice hulls. When I went to drain my first runnings and start the sparge the flow was literally a trickle and I was real worried but after the pump primed it had no problem pulling through the grain bed. If anyone has a gravity fed system it might present a problem...

I did a partial mash with a paint strainer bag. It got pretty gunked up with the purée and made a mess but I think it'll turn out alright. Will adding rice hulls when doing biab help?

Aargh! I'm at day 25 in Primary and it's still bubbling through the airlock! With the way this smelled and tasted going into the primary, I'm anxious for this to finish. I will probably let it go another 2 weeks or so before checking it. I didn't plan on using a secondary, so I'll give it some extra time and see how it looks when it's finished.

Red_Scooter said:

Aargh! I'm at day 25 in Primary and it's still bubbling through the airlock! With the way this smelled and tasted going into the primary, I'm anxious for this to finish. I will probably let it go another 2 weeks or so before checking it. I didn't plan on using a secondary, so I'll give it some extra time and see how it looks when it's finished.

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Bubbling isn't necessarily a clear sign of fermentation. A lot of times off-gasing will create airlock action. Take a gravity reading now and again in 3-5 days. If it's stable then it's done.

Getting ready to brew this again. Previously I thought the mash temp was 154 and now it appears to be 156. Was that revised or am I missing something.

So I kegged this recipe last night. 3 weeks primary, 4 days secondary cold crashed at 33*, the beer was clear going into the keg. 2 weeks on the gas and it should be ready to drink right around the 1st of October...can't wait.

Anyone tried a beer like this with a Steam (SF Lager) Yeast (WLP810)? I'm thinking it will help with the lower attenuation to keep the beer in the teens. I generally get more malt flavors from this yeast and I have a cake in the fridge I just used for OktoberFAST.

Is there any reason this won't work out well being that this is a spice/vegetal beer? It's a super clean yeast. Will it drop too much out?

Also, I have 2-row in bulk, also Pale Ale malt. I'm wondering if the Pale Ale malt will be better, a more biscuity, malty characteristic that I like in my PA's/IPA's and Marzens.

RandalG said:

Getting ready to brew this again. Previously I thought the mash temp was 154 and now it appears to be 156. Was that revised or am I missing something.

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I think it is 154 but a typo says 156??? I see it as both through-out the thread. You'd be good with both, little more body with 156. I just brewed this up on Sunday and mashed at 154.

Yeah either way is fine. But I don't think I changed it... I could be crazy, though.

I just like 156 because it helps keep the FG in the high 'teens.

I brewed this on Sunday according to the original recipe. I have a false bottom in my cooler mash tun and used a half lb of rice hulls. The mash and sparge went off with out a hitch and I can't wait until this is done, but....I was thinking...

Has anyone tried grilling/smoking some fresh pumpkin and giving it a little smoke. I'm not a big fan of smoked beers, but just a taste might be nice in a beer like this.

Any experience or thoughts?

Reno_eNVy said:

Yeah either way is fine. But I don't think I changed it... I could be crazy, though.

I just like 156 because it helps keep the FG in the high 'teens.

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You are right, 156. Though, later on in the thread some one questioned the mash step temp and says 154.

Kegged and chilled my batch. It won't be carbonated for 2-3 more days but the aroma and flavor are wonderful. The spices were my wife's mix and smell great and blend really well, not overpowering at all. If I don't finish it before, I'll be pouring this to the parents of trick-or-treaters on Halloween night.

troyh said:

Kegged and chilled my batch. It won't be carbonated for 2-3 more days but the aroma and flavor are wonderful. The spices were my wife's mix and smell great and blend really well, not overpowering at all. If I don't finish it before, I'll be pouring this to the parents of trick-or-treaters on Halloween night.

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"Trick-or-Treat" ummm where do you live again? LOL

deepcdan99 said:

"Trick-or-Treat" ummm where do you live again? LOL

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I live in the house built by the original brewer of Rainier Beer, pre-Prohibition.