Pumkpin ale is in bottles

[DaveGerard]

This was my 2nd brew, bottled it last night so that a few bottles will be ready in time for Thanksgiving. Got the recipe from BYO, reduced some of the extras like cinammon and honey so hopefully the beer part will be upfront with the spice and whatnot subtly in the background. SG was 1060, got down to around 1010-1012 after 2 weeks in the secondary. Due to siphoning issues (I am drilling a hole and attaching a spigot to my secondary soon, the siphoning was nonsense), I ended up stirring up all the crap from the bottom into my last 1/2 gallon, so I chucked it and ended up with 4.5 gallons, which translated into 45 bottles of brew, including a 22 ozer and a few 16s. Tasted the hydro sample and it seems like it will be nice. If I do it again next year, I think I will leave out the spice though. The mix of pumpkin and honey would have been enough to make a great holiday ale by themselves.

 

[malkore]

I wouldn't mess with the spigot. get yourself an auto-siphon. racking will be a snap.

spigots tend to drain yeast and trub into the next vessel, and you have to think about sanitizing it in advance and then covering it on the outside and then re-sanitizing it from the outside as much as possible to almost eliminate possibility for contamination when you drain it.

some people do it without issue, but it seems like more work than an auto-siphon for $10.

 

[DaveGerard]

I will try the auto siphon, but this was more an issue of getting the buckets at appropriate heights, which could also be solved with a longer piece of tubing, but at some point the level in my bottling bucket was higher than my secondary, the siphon stopped, and when I went to rearrange things I kicked up a bunch of sludge. When I did the spigot the liquid just drained, no biggie. For $10, though I will give siphoning another try, if you say it's that much better.

 

[Grimsawyer]

I LOVE the auto-siphon... but.... I'd love to not have to siphon ever again. If you install a spigot go a 1/4 inch higher than you think you'd have to to allow for trube/yeast cake. Happy brewing!

 

[DaveGerard]

The buckets that I have with the spigots are about 2 inches above the bottom, it seemed to work pretty good but I could see how siphoning might allow you to pull clearer wort. Right now I am waiting for a stout to cool, that one is getting transferred by spigot, but I have to put in another order soon anyway, so I may as well give the auto siphon, and siphoning in general, a fair shot.

 

[Liquidsandwich]

My pumpkin ale tastes great, but I don't think I'll ever do it again. At least not with canned pumpkin. Your lucky I only got 34 bottles out of mine! The auto siphen doesn't help much! Enjoy your brew!