Dogfish Punkin Ale Clone

[NevadaHomeBrewer]

I attempted to brew a clone of this beer from a recipe I found on the web.

10# 2-row
1# Crystal 60L
1# Special Roast
4 pounds pumpkin, baked at 300 degrees for and hour and then put in mash
1 pound dark brown sugar
Hallertauer 60 minutes
Hallertauer 5 minutes
1 Tablespoon of pumpkin pie all spice
American Ale II yeast

I got an OG of 1.064 when I pitched the yeast 3 weeks ago and today it was 1.012. It is still bubbling a little bit, so I will probably wait another week or so before bottling.

My main question though is why doesn't it taste like pumpkin? It has a very citrus taste to it. I have noticed the citrus taste has gone down slightly over the past week, so maybe I just need to wait longer? The beer does taste good so far though, I just don't know why it doesn't taste like pumkin at all. Was I supposed to add something else?

Any thoughts?

 

[william_shakes_beer]

I have done several pumpkin beers in previous years without success. The squash you add has little to do with the flavor, which comes mostly from the spices. After palying around a bit, my current batch (which I bottled last weekend) has a much better pumpkin spice flavor and aroma. I doubled the spice from the recipie, and did rounded rather than level spoonfulls,. I believe I did 2 TSP each of ginger, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and allspice. At 10 minutes. If you aren't satisfied currently, and you haven't bottled yet, try repeating your spice bill in the bottling solution and boil a bit longer than necesary to sterilize ( say 10 minutes?

 

[KeninMN]

In addition to adding spice to the boil you can also make a spice extract using your favorite spice blend steeped in vodka for a week or two, and then adjust the spice level at bottling.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

Your spice bill; did you use pumpkin pie spice or allspice? 2 different things.

 

[Roadie]

Pumpkin is a very mild taste that can easily be overpowered by spices.

I brewed my first pumpkin ale this year and added some spice in the last few minutes of the boil and planned on spicing further after kegging. The base beer (a sweet amber) came out awesome and I could definitely pick the pumpkin out. Instead of adding the additional spices directly to the keg I used a french press to add a cooled tea to the keg pressing the actual spices out. I did this 3x over a few weeks trying to adjust the spice levels/tastes in the final beer. In the end I ended up using too much cinnamon and not enough nutmeg and don't have room to add additional spice or it will be overspiced. Oh well, you have to start somewhere; next time I will use the same base beer but change the spices up.

 

[mdbrewer1]

Pumpkin is a very mild taste that can easily be overpowered by spices.

I brewed my first pumpkin ale this year and added some spice in the last few minutes of the boil and planned on spicing further after kegging. The base beer (a sweet amber) came out awesome and I could definitely pick the pumpkin out. Instead of adding the additional spices directly to the keg I used a french press to add a cooled tea to the keg pressing the actual spices out. I did this 3x over a few weeks trying to adjust the spice levels/tastes in the final beer. In the end I ended up using too much cinnamon and not enough nutmeg and don't have room to add additional spice or it will be overspiced. Oh well, you have to start somewhere; next time I will use the same base beer but change the spices up.

My pumpkin ale ended up the same way, and I didn't want to start tinkering with it since I figured I'd only make it worse. I like it well enough, I just know it could be better. I've made the appropriate notes in my brew log so I know what to do next year!

 

[j1n]

Next year i plan on using butternut squash and pumpkin in the mash and prob doubling the amounts of pumpkin. I kegged my Pumpkin ale over the weekend and the hydro sample was good but not much pumpkin flavor came through.

 

[NevadaHomeBrewer]

Your spice bill; did you use pumpkin pie spice or allspice? 2 different things.

I used a pumpkin pie spice, the McCormick brand. I will try to add some spice when I bottle it. I was going to check the gravity again today to see if fermentation has stopped and go from there.

The beer turned out around 8% abv, which is way higher than I was anticipating. Only bad part is that is tastes so dang citrusy.

 

[lotusworker]

How much hops did you add? You recipe doesn't specify. The citrus flavor could be from that. Some recipes will add pumpkin to the secondary. Maybe try that too

 

[NevadaHomeBrewer]

It was 1 ounce for 60 min and then another 1 ounce for 5 minutes.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

How much hops did you add? You recipe doesn't specify. The citrus flavor could be from that. Some recipes will add pumpkin to the secondary. Maybe try that too

The Woodske book describes hallertau as an aroma hop with an earthy aroma with a hint of spice. No citrus is described. Not sure the citrus notes are coming from there.