Failed Pumpkin Wheat - .26%?

[beck]

I wanted to try making a pumpkin wheat and my local brew shop has partial mash recipes for both a pumpkin ale and a wheat beer. I've made both individually and they were fantastic, so I figured hey, why not smush them together and see what happens?

Original Recipe for Wheat:
4 lbs Bavarian Wheat DME
1 lb Pilsen DME
1 oz Willamette
1 oz Cascade
Safale US05

Original Recipe for Pumpkin:
6 lbs Pilsen Light DME
8 oz Victory Malt
1 lb 8 oz Carared
2 x 29oz Pumpkin (1 for 60 minute boil, 1 for secondary)
Pumpkin Pie Spice (Flameout)
4 ozs Molasses (secondary)
4 ozs Maple syrup (secondary)
1 oz Fuggle
Lallemand Nottingham

Now when it came brew day, I couldn't find the recipe sheet for that pumpkin ale, and just winged it based on what I thought I remembered. I've just found it and as I was typing the above I realize my first mistake - I didn't boil the pumpkin...

My smooshed together abomination:
4 lbs Bavarian Wheat DME
1 lb Pilsen DME
1 oz Willamette (60 mins)
Lallemand Nottingham
Baked pumpkin, tossed into primary, left for two weeks, didn't do a secondary.

What I'm trying to figure out is (aside from ya know, boiling the damn pumpkin) what else I could have done to make this better. The OG came out as 1.010 and the FG came out to 1.008 for an ABV grand total of .26%! My goal was like a Blue Moon Pumpkin Harvest Wheat clone. The beer doesn't taste bad, per se. It's just obviously extremely light but it does taste okay!

Given the above information - do those numbers seem about right? What in particular made the ABV so low? The funny part is I had been researching how to make non-alcoholic beers so I sort of fell ass backwards into what I also kind of wanted.

 

[mullet6577]

You have some bad measurements somewhere in the process. There is no chance your OG of 1.010 ended at 1.080, it's not physically possible. 1.008 maybe?
How did you take your gravity measurements? Hydrometer, refractometer, recipe guess?
Was your wort properly mixed before taking a sample?

Plugging just the 5 lbs of DME used into Brewers Friend gives an estimated OG of 1.041 for a 5 gallon batch.

 

[beck]

I used a hydrometer - perhaps I'm reading the thing wrong. I somehow scribbled down .110 for my OG but I assume I meant to write 1.010 instead.

OH - just realized I wrote 1.080 by mistake - FG was 1.008. I will edit main post.

 

[JimRausch]

Looks like there is something wrong with your readings. OG should be higher than FG. If your OG was 1.080 and FG was 1.010, then you have an about 7% ABV. Disregarding the pumpkin, 5 lb. of DME in a 5gallon batch should give you an OG of somewhere around 1.040.
So, the standard questions- what was your volume? How were you measuring- hydrometer or refractometer?
edit: oops, I see I was slow to type.

 

[beck]

Looks like there is something wrong with your readings. OG should be higher than FG. If your OG was 1.080 and FG was 1.010, then you have an about 7% ABV. Disregarding the pumpkin, 5 lb. of DME in a 5gallon batch should give you an OG of somewhere around 1.040.
So, the standard questions- what was your volume? How were you measuring- hydrometer or refractometer?

I just realized my mistake in a prior comment - I wrote 1.080 for FG when I meant 1.008 instead. 5 gal of beer, measured with a hydrometer. I have .110 written down for my OG so I don't entirely know if I meant to write 1.10 or 1.010 - 1.10 would have a large part of the hydrometer sticking out when measuring and I really don't remember that happening.

 

[mullet6577]

What was your brew process? Full volume boil with all DME added early? Water added after boil to get proper volume in the fermenter?

If you topped off to volume post boil, it's very possible you pulled mostly water for your OG measurement. It would be real tough to only get 1.010 from 5lbs of DME

 

[JimRausch]

I believe your OG reading was artificially low. Should have been closer to 1.040. It's a frequent complaint with extract batches and due to stratification of layers. You can relax and be assured that if you added all 5 lb of DME and have a volume of 5 gallon, then there is no way you could have gotten a low OG of 1.010.
Now, about the pumpkin- baking it would have converted some of the starches to fermentable sugars, but it shouldn't add very much to your OG. It added more mouthfeel and a little flavor. So, you didn't really goof there either. You should wind up with a 4-5%ABV beer.
edit- and once again Mullet6577 beat me to it. But it looks like we agree!

 

[beck]

What was your brew process? Full volume boil with all DME added early? Water added after boil to get proper volume in the fermenter?

If you topped off to volume post boil, it's very possible you pulled mostly water for your OG measurement. It would be real tough to only get 1.010 from 5lbs of DME

I added all of the DME at the very beginning, let it dissolve while coming up to a boil, and then topped up to 5 gal with water in the fermenter. I pulled the OG after I aerated the beer but before pitching. Should I be taking OG readings from the wort prior to adding water when topping up?

 

[JimRausch]

No. You are correct in that you want to take the OG reading when you have all your ingredients in(except the yeast), and the full volume you are going to ferment.
The problem was that adding cold water to warmish wort set up a stratification- the lighter water was more on the top, the denser wort more on the bottom. You can get around the problem by VIGOROUSLY mixing/shaking/pouring back and forth to mix the layers fully. It's a very common problem for newish extract brewers. No biggie, just messes up your expected reading.

 

[myndflyte]

As others have said, it's literally impossible for your OG to be 1.010 when using that much DME unless you topped up to like 20 gallons. Clearly there was some stratification, which can happen with DME and topping off with cold water. I'd just assume your OG was what the recipe builder says it should be and calculate ABV using that OG and your measured FG.

 

[JimRausch]

By the way Beck, I was remiss in not welcoming you to the forum. You'll find it to be a very valuable resource. And the people on it aren't half bad!

 

[beck]

Thanks everyone for your replies! I will definitely make sure to aerate better on my next batch and pay more attention to what I'm getting.

 

[MrFancyPlants]

I think maybe none of the pumpkin was converted. I would think some 2-row would have helped it along in a mash step. If the pumpkin is to add body, then maybe the simple sugars in the original recipe could have added some booze to go with the body.

 

[nebulabrewing]

I’m reading that you added water to top off to your five gallon mark, correct? If so, it’s very possible that the wort and water weren’t mixed thoroughly. If this is an extract kit, and you followed the instructions, it should turn out to be very close to the expected ABV.

Did you take a picture of the hydrometer sample?