How to brew with Fresh pumpkin?

Hey guys,

I want to brew a Pumpkin Ale on Halloween this year.

I'm going to make a few Jack-o-lanterns, Do I use the scrappings of the inside?

How do I actually use the pumpkin?

Thanks

There are a lot of good threads on pumpkin ales. Check out the search bar. From what I've read you do not want to use carving pumpkins. Most recommend libbys pure pumpkin cans. You can also use real pumpkins grown for baking pies. They are smaller and say for pies on the label. You can also use sweet potatoes. Bake them at 350 for 1 hour then add to your mash or your boil. It all depends on what you brew with ag or extract. Search it and you will find a ton of good info.

First, figure out what (pumpkin) taste you your looking for. Pumpkin itself is not great tasting. My neighbor made his first batch of pumpkin last year, he said it tasted a little squashy-like. We added a 32 oz can of Pumpkin Pie mix and 1 T. of pumpkin pie spice to the mash for our 5 gal. batch. It has the added spices some people think "pumpkin" tastes like, plus some sugars to boost your ABV a bit. It turned out great, a little big at 7.9 ABV, all-grain, of course. Always fun to experiment a bit.

Brewed a pumpkin ale about 5 weeks ago. Look for pumpkins called "pie pumpkins" or "baking pumpkins". Scoop out the pulp and seeds. Cut into large pieces and sprinkle with cinnamon and allspice ( optional). Place on cookie sheet in 350* oven 1-11/2 hours or until pumpkin is soft and slightly caramelized. Let cool. Separate soft pumpkin from the rind. I put it into large zip locks and squished it to make pumpkin puree. The amount to use is up to you. I am still experimenting, this time I wound up using about 8.5 lbs. For 10 gallons. I am carbonating now so I don't have full taste impressions yet but you definitely can taste the pumpkin without being overpowerd. Also the amount of spices any grain bill will also effect the taste greatly. Good luck.

I went to local farmer and got two pie pumpkins, about 2 lbs each. Cut them in half, cleaned them out then smoked them over an open fire for about 3 hours until they got nice and soft. Cooled, then peeled and cut into pieces. Put them in the mash. Used a Robust Porter recipe with 1lb of smoked malt added in, wanted to make a Smokey Pumpkin Porter (just sounded cool). I used a double decoction mash and made sure a lot of the pumpkin pieces got into the decoction extractions. This beer is still in primary (brewed on Sept 18th) it came out with an OG of 1.080. It smelled and tasted like pumpkin pie at the end of the boil. Here is a pic of the pumpkins being smoked. Going to bottle this next week.

We just went over this in our brew club meeting last week. Our 2 most award winning brewers basically said using canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filler) was the way to go. Consistent taste and way less work. The real trick is getting the spices right.

Check out the Samhain pumpkin ale recipe. The OP there, (KingBrian I think) recommends roasting the pumpkin. Every pumpkin beer I've had was drowned out by spices.

I'll also strongly encourage you not to use crappy grocery store cinammon if this is the direction you are heading.. If you can get the good stuff (even Saigon cinammon from costco is good) the difference in the resulting beer is noticeable. Grocery store cinnamon sucks...

cool thanks for the help everyone

The Libby's pumpkin pie filling is actually squash, but as we all know its what we use for pumpkin pies and it works well. Cooking pumpkins cut and roasted in the oven at 350 for an hour or the canned "pumpkin" baked also works fine. Ive used both and had excellent results. Also use pumpkin spices to your flavor liking. It makes a great mess when its in the mash and sparging takes forever.

Oh yeah, a pound of rice hulls if you have 'em

shroomzofdoom said:

Oh yeah, a pound of rice hulls if you have 'em

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