I've had the materials from two Brooklyn Brew kits that I brewed over 2 years ago. I decided it was time to try my hand at brewing again, this time following a Pumpkin Ale recipe that my friend had. I was a little intimidated since I didn't have very specific instructions in front of me this time. I was admittedly a little hazy on all of the details and jargon of the brewing process, but a quick browse through homebrewtalk and the homebrewing subreddit and I felt like I was caught up to speed. My girlfriend and I got to work yesterday.
Album with notes here.
The recipe was for 5.5 gallons. I scaled this down to produce enough wort for two, one gallon carboys. I followed a ratio of about 1.85 qt/L for my strike and sparge water. I ended up using about 8 qts. for my strike water and I only ended up with about a gallon of wort. This was partly due to my very inefficient method of separating the wort from the grain which we can all laugh about later. I used about 16 qts. of water for my sparge, which was about 3 qts. more than I calculated, just to be safe.
I made some substitutions based on the availability of ingredients from my local home brew shop.
fermentables
yeast
additions
I created my own blend of pumpkin pie spices (allspice, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg), I don't have the exact measurements in front of me at the time of this post. I'll come back and edit later.
I heated my strike water up to about 160f and added all the fermetables directly to the pot. I kept the temperature between 148f and 154f for an hour, stirring every 5-10 minutes.
Since I don't have a mash tun I resorted to what I did with the Brooklyn Brew kits, which was to strain the wort through a colander lined with cheese cloth. This sucks, and I'll never do it this way again. I definitely lost a bit of liquid because of this. My girlfriend and I took turns holding strainer and cheese cloth and working it around to unclog it so some liquid could pass through. By the time we got to lautering we said to hell with the cheese cloth.
I added the mostly strained grain back to the pot and ran 170f sparge water over the grain bed and let it sit for 10 minutes. After another round of unclogging the colander, we were left with what looked to be about 4 gallons of wort.
Added the combined wort to my boiling kettle and followed the additions schedule for 1 hour. We transfered the wort to a smaller pot to help with aeration as well as the space constraints of my ice bath. After chilling to about 78f I pitched the rehydrated yeast and poured the wort into the two carboys (also helped a little with aeration).
I got an OG reading of 1.050 which my friend said was spot on. He said it should finish out around 1.011.
All in all the process took about 7 hours from start to finish with cleaning.
I learned a lot from this batch. I will definitely be upgrading to a 5 gallon kit and I will be building a mash/lauter tun for the next recipe. There was an excessive amount of particulate in the wort but I'm hoping it will clear up as it ferments and I cold crash it. My buddy said this is an especially cloudy beer because of the pumpkin and the grain intensive recipe. I'm new at this so I didn't expect anything to go exactly right, but I did expect to learn from my mistakes and missteps so that the next beer is even better.
Album with notes here.
The recipe was for 5.5 gallons. I scaled this down to produce enough wort for two, one gallon carboys. I followed a ratio of about 1.85 qt/L for my strike and sparge water. I ended up using about 8 qts. for my strike water and I only ended up with about a gallon of wort. This was partly due to my very inefficient method of separating the wort from the grain which we can all laugh about later. I used about 16 qts. of water for my sparge, which was about 3 qts. more than I calculated, just to be safe.
I made some substitutions based on the availability of ingredients from my local home brew shop.
fermentables
- 3.6lb Marris Otter
- 0.6lb Crystal 15L
- 0.5lb Rice Hulls
- 0.5lb Flaked Barley
- ~30oz. of canned pumpkin w/ 1/8 cup of dark brown sugar baked at 350 for 1 hr. Cooled in sealed container in the freezer for 20 minutes.
yeast
- Dry Bry 97 West Coast Ale Yeast
additions
- 0.5 oz. of Challenger Hops. @ 60min.
- 1.6 oz. Molasses @ 10 min.
- Spices @ 5 min.
I created my own blend of pumpkin pie spices (allspice, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg), I don't have the exact measurements in front of me at the time of this post. I'll come back and edit later.
I heated my strike water up to about 160f and added all the fermetables directly to the pot. I kept the temperature between 148f and 154f for an hour, stirring every 5-10 minutes.
Since I don't have a mash tun I resorted to what I did with the Brooklyn Brew kits, which was to strain the wort through a colander lined with cheese cloth. This sucks, and I'll never do it this way again. I definitely lost a bit of liquid because of this. My girlfriend and I took turns holding strainer and cheese cloth and working it around to unclog it so some liquid could pass through. By the time we got to lautering we said to hell with the cheese cloth.
I added the mostly strained grain back to the pot and ran 170f sparge water over the grain bed and let it sit for 10 minutes. After another round of unclogging the colander, we were left with what looked to be about 4 gallons of wort.
Added the combined wort to my boiling kettle and followed the additions schedule for 1 hour. We transfered the wort to a smaller pot to help with aeration as well as the space constraints of my ice bath. After chilling to about 78f I pitched the rehydrated yeast and poured the wort into the two carboys (also helped a little with aeration).
I got an OG reading of 1.050 which my friend said was spot on. He said it should finish out around 1.011.
All in all the process took about 7 hours from start to finish with cleaning.
I learned a lot from this batch. I will definitely be upgrading to a 5 gallon kit and I will be building a mash/lauter tun for the next recipe. There was an excessive amount of particulate in the wort but I'm hoping it will clear up as it ferments and I cold crash it. My buddy said this is an especially cloudy beer because of the pumpkin and the grain intensive recipe. I'm new at this so I didn't expect anything to go exactly right, but I did expect to learn from my mistakes and missteps so that the next beer is even better.
