Beginner question...pumpkin ale

Well yam actually. For my 4th batch I'd like to make a fall spiced beer for the season. I really like the Autumn Maple from The Bruery. I'm thinking of a beer based on what I like about that beer. Belgian yeast, yams, maple syrup.
I'm getting my recipe together and wanted to run it by you guys first. So I figured I'd cube and roast the yams (3 lbs) and add them with the grains to steep and strain them out before the boil, add the spices to the primary after it cools, and add the maple syrup to the secondary. Then add more spices to taste just before bottleing. Sound alright? Should I boil the spices in a bit of water before adding them to sanitize them?
Also I only am using a 4 gallon pot and adding water after to get to the right volume. I've been boiling and cooling a few gallons of water for this. Any reason I can't just buy a few gallons of filtered purified water for this purpose?
Sorry if these are obvious question, but I'm still learning as I go.

You can buy water if you want to spend the money - or you can boil your own for free. Up to you.

With respect to the spices - some spices are better served with a little heat to extract. Depends on what you are putting in. Personally, when I made my pumpkin I put the spices in the boil with 10 min to go and boiled them. I also put my pumpkin into the boil at 45 minutes and boiled that as well. I steeped my grains as per usually before any of this. I used twice as much pumpkin as you are using yams in a 5 gallon batch.

Make sure you mash up the yams really good before adding them. I like the idea of adding them to the mash, rather than the boil, personally. I agree that you may get better flavor extraction with a short boil for the spices.

Check out this video, just substitute yams for the pumpkin:

Also, I top off with water straight from the tap, no boil. Never had any problems. Just a thought.

Thanks for the advise! I think I will bump up the yams to around 5 lbs. However, if I add them to the mash how would I remove them before the boil? I suppose I could put them in grain bags, but it may not extract the flavor as well. If I add it to the boil then I'll have an additional 5 lbs of yams in my smallish (4gallon) pot and therefore only maybe 3 gallons of liquid to boil. Would this be a problem?
I think I will go with gallons of purified water. I have enough trouble getting my wort cooled down without a proper wort chiller, cooling an extra few gallons of water is a pain.

How are you removing the grains from the mash? If you have a grain bag, just throw the yams in there along with the grains.

Caleb1980 said:

Thanks for the advise! I think I will bump up the yams to around 5 lbs. However, if I add them to the mash how would I remove them before the boil? I suppose I could put them in grain bags, but it may not extract the flavor as well. If I add it to the boil then I'll have an additional 5 lbs of yams in my smallish (4gallon) pot and therefore only maybe 3 gallons of liquid to boil. Would this be a problem?
I think I will go with gallons of purified water. I have enough trouble getting my wort cooled down without a proper wort chiller, cooling an extra few gallons of water is a pain.

Click to expand...

I took my 6lbs of pumpkin, skinned, cubed, and roasted it on a cookie sheet with a little water. I then adding the mushy pumpkin to two steeping bags and added it to the boil - easy removal and I got plenty of flavor.

I love my 5 gallon kettle for extract, but 4 will do. Just reduce the boil volume. You may find 2.5G more manageable in that size pot with respect to boil overs and such. I have boiled 2.5g boils in my 5 gal and the beer was great.

Thanks guys, the recipe is coming together. I'll look at a few recipes and come up with grains and hops needed in the next few days (any suggestions?) and brew saterday. I'm getting excited already.

For extract, I'd guess something like 7lbs pale malt LME and 2.5lbs of Amber LME to start. With a little molasses and a little Maple syrup (post boil) I think you'd be around 1.075. The hops are probably going to be preference for you since The brewer doesn't seem to mention what they use. Caramunich malt too, maybe 10oz or so.

For hops, maybe something with spice - cascade? 2.5oz would get you close to 18IBU, or maybe Chinook - but much less. Someone else should chime in here. I"m still new to recipe concoction too.

Thanks for the help. I came across this recipe and have taken a good bit from it I plan to use.
http://www.blackalleybrewing.com/2011/01/imperialized-autumn-maple.html

According to The Bruery website their autumn maple is 25ibu's. I think i'm shooting for an og of 1.080.
I plan to use 7lbs pale malt LME and 2.5lbs of Amber LME (thanks J187). 2 oz of liberty hops, and wyeast 1762 (belgian abbey II). Other than that i will basically follow the above recipe. Does all this sound alright?

Looks like a very cool recipe...one I may try !!

One last bump before I hit the homebrew shop this afternoon for supplies.

I wish someone with more experience would chime in on this - the choice of liberty in that recipe seems peculiar to me. I could be way off here, but liberty is more of a lager aroma hop - using it to bitter a spicy yam or pumpkin seems weird to me. I'd love to hear others' take on this.

Well the shop was out of liberty, so they suggested golding. I got 2 oz of those ill use unless that's a terrible idea. Tommorow I'll brew, I'll be sure to update with results.

update: Everything went pretty well on brew day. I added 3.5 lbs of roasted yams with the mash in grain bags. I added the spiced and vanilla bean with 2 minutes left in the boil. And 2 oz of golding at 30 minutes.
I came up with an oddly low og reading, twice. I blame it on topping off with water and not getting it mixed up well enough. I got two different, low reading before i said to hell with it, it is what it is and threw on the airlock. I need to figure that one out. It's currently bubbling away. I'll put it into secondary next weekend with a cup of maple syrup. Hopefully all is well.
I assume with a big beer like this it will take a little longer to condition in the bottle and carbonate properly? I was hoping to have a few for thanksgiving, but they may be better saved for christmas perhaps? Thanks for all the advice, i'll keep you updated on how it comes out.

another update: Bottled over the weekend. It sat for 5 weeks in primary, and had a final gravity of 1.020 By my math this will put it at 8.7%. It tasted really good from the sample i tried and cleared up really well, i was expecting a more cloudy beer but was pleasantly surprised. I did add just a little more spices at bottling. Hopefully it will be drinkable by Christmas. We'll see. Thanks again for the help, i couldn't have pulled this recipe off without the help I got on this forum