Holiday & Pumpkin Spice Question...need advice

Hey Guys,

I will brewing up two Fall brews and need some advice. I ordered the "Our Special Holiday Ale" and the Pumpkin Ale from Austin, I also ordered an extra spice pack for each. After looking through all the posts I could find I think I've come to the conclusion that the canned pumpkin doesn't add much taste. So should I stick with the single spice packs as instructed or add a little extra to make sure the flavors don't mellow too much after bottling, or will it be too much spice and overpower the brew. Hoping to brew this week, any and all help would be greatly appreciated and thanks in advance.

voodoo

Dude, add pumpkin. It will enhance the color and it truly gives you a nicer, more "pumpkiny" beer than simple spices alone. This is the recipe I used last week: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f76/samhain-pumpkin-ale-140674/
The additions of both Spice and pumpkin in this came out amazing. Just my $.02

munklunk,
That sounds great, I'm doing an extract (kinda newb) so could you tell me how you would do it exactly? Bake then, put it right in with the spices, I assume? Is this correct? I also assume I can use basic pumpkin in a can, correct? Sorry, for the questions just trying to learn. Thanks.

voodoo

Use 100% pumpkin in a can, not pumpkin pie mix. Spread it out on a cookie sheet and bake for an hour at 350 and get the top nice and caramelized. Then add it to your boil. I just bottled a pumpkin ale (based on Thunderstruck pumpkin ale which you can find on here) and the pumpkin flavor was great. I used 60 oz. of pumpkin in a 5 gallon batch.

thanks barley, will do..