Pumpkin ale

[brewmaster101]

It's getting close to the time of year when I start thinking seasonally. I would like to do an extract pumpkin ale. Northern brewer has a kit, but it looks like a regular pale ale with pumpkin spice added. My wife DOES not like over powering flavors in her beer, but rather hints.
Anyone have any good extract recipes?

 

[Guidry]

Extreme Brewing (book) has a recipe for a Pumpkin Porter which is pretty good. Thread about it here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/anyone-brewed-punkin-porter-recipe-extreme-brewing-183676/

 

[ISUBrew79]

I have an all grain recipe that turned out an excellent pumpkin ale. However, it is an all grain recipe, and the beer is 9% alcohol with a 1.090+ original gravity. That being said, I could adapt the recipe for extract and scale it down to a less aggressive beer.

If you want to add actual pumpkin to the brew, there are a couple schools of thought on this. You can add pumpkin puree to the boil. This will extract some pumpkin flavor and some fermentable sugars to the wort. Alternatively, you could do a mini mash with the pumpkin, some base grain, and your specialty grains. The mini mash will convert some of the starches from the pumpkin into fermentable sugars, where adding pumpkin directly to the boil will not.

I also recommend making a spice extract by steeping your favorite holiday spices in your liquor of choice- I used cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger in Jamaican dark rum- and adding it to taste at bottling or kegging time. In addition to the spices you add in the boil, this lets you adjust the spice character to the level you want.

Let me know what you're shooting for in terms of gravity, flavor, etc. I'd be happy to give more advice.

 

[brewmaster101]

Sounds good. Definately doing an extract brew. Would like to add some pumpkin puree in with the Steeping speciality grains. Not looking for a high gravity beer, 1.065 or under.

 

[Lumpy16]

I would be interested in that all grain pumpkin recipe. My thoughts are that seasonal beer should be high in alcohol, I really don't have a good reason why I think that though. I feel like opening a nice big strong beer in colder weather would be really nice. Anyways if you are interested in hooking me up with that recipe that would be great. Cheers
Alex

 

[cossacks19]

I have an all grain recipe that turned out an excellent pumpkin ale. However, it is an all grain recipe, and the beer is 9% alcohol with a 1.090+ original gravity. That being said, I could adapt the recipe for extract and scale it down to a less aggressive beer.

If you want to add actual pumpkin to the brew, there are a couple schools of thought on this. You can add pumpkin puree to the boil. This will extract some pumpkin flavor and some fermentable sugars to the wort. Alternatively, you could do a mini mash with the pumpkin, some base grain, and your specialty grains. The mini mash will convert some of the starches from the pumpkin into fermentable sugars, where adding pumpkin directly to the boil will not.

I also recommend making a spice extract by steeping your favorite holiday spices in your liquor of choice- I used cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger in Jamaican dark rum- and adding it to taste at bottling or kegging time. In addition to the spices you add in the boil, this lets you adjust the spice character to the level you want.

Let me know what you're shooting for in terms of gravity, flavor, etc. I'd be happy to give more advice.

I would love the recipe if you wouldn't mind sending it. I love pumpkin ales.

 

[TopherM]

Grab the Austin Homebrew pumpkin ale kit. If you JUST use the spice pack they supply, the pumpkin spice flavor in the beer is not overpowering at all. I have done the AG version of this kit and the extract version of this kit, and I added extra spices to enhance their presence becuase I was going for that pumpkin pie taste. The spice pack is somewhat subtle. You may want to add half or 3/4 of it.

Just FYI, though, if you GF wants the flavoring to be subtle, a pumpkin ale might not be a good style for you. The pronounced pumpkin spice in a pumpkin ale is really the only thing that makes it a pumpkin ale. Otherwise, like you said, it's just a base recipe, typically an Amber, with a slight spice.

Good luck!

 

[DonMagee]

I have an all grain recipe that turned out an excellent pumpkin ale. However, it is an all grain recipe, and the beer is 9% alcohol with a 1.090+ original gravity. That being said, I could adapt the recipe for extract and scale it down to a less aggressive beer.

If you want to add actual pumpkin to the brew, there are a couple schools of thought on this. You can add pumpkin puree to the boil. This will extract some pumpkin flavor and some fermentable sugars to the wort. Alternatively, you could do a mini mash with the pumpkin, some base grain, and your specialty grains. The mini mash will convert some of the starches from the pumpkin into fermentable sugars, where adding pumpkin directly to the boil will not.

I also recommend making a spice extract by steeping your favorite holiday spices in your liquor of choice- I used cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger in Jamaican dark rum- and adding it to taste at bottling or kegging time. In addition to the spices you add in the boil, this lets you adjust the spice character to the level you want.

Let me know what you're shooting for in terms of gravity, flavor, etc. I'd be happy to give more advice.

I'd love a link to that AG version. I too want to do a pumpkin ale for the winter.

 

[MDB]

Try this link, with all grain and partial mash -- I just brewed the partial mash lookin good so far. This recipe has great reviews. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f76/punkin-ale-145060/

 

[skagit991]

I made the Northern Brewer's "Smashing Pumpkin" all grain kit last fall and it was excellent! I believe the base is an amber ale with pumpkin pie spice and optional fresh pumpkin. I will be making this one again once the local pumpkins are available.

 

[brewmaster101]

Would there be anything wrong with throwing my spices, raw or steeped in rum, just before bottling so the flavor is sharper. Also it would keep the spices from settling out in fermentation, right?

 

[ISUBrew79]

CCBC Pumpkin Spice Ale 2011
21-B Seasonal/Winter Specialty Spiced Beer
Author: ISUBrew79
Date: 10/23/11

Size: 6.0 gal
Efficiency: 77.0%
Attenuation: 76.0%
Calories: 296.34 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.091 (1.026 - 1.120)
Terminal Gravity: 1.024 (0.995 - 1.035)
Color: 18.21 (1.0 - 50.0)
Alcohol: 8.9% (2.5% - 14.5%)
Bitterness: 41.2 (0.0 - 100.0)

Ingredients:
14.0 lb Cargill Two-Row Pale
2.0 lb Munich TYPE I
0.5 lb Victory® Malt
1.0 lb Red Wheat Malt
1.0 lb Caramel Malt 40L
0.5 lb Caramel Malt 80L
4.0 oz Pale Chocolate Malt
2 ea Pumpkin (fresh) - added during mash
26 g Columbus (14.4%) - added during boil, boiled 60.0 min
2.2 g Wyeast Nutrient - added during boil, boiled 15.0 min
12 oz Light Brown Sugar - added during boil, boiled 10.0 min
1 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 5.0 min
0.5 tsp Cassia Cinnamon (ground) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
0.5 tsp Ceylon Cinnamon (ground) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
0.5 tsp Nutmeg (ground) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
1 oz Fresh Grated Ginger root - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
1 ea White Labs WLP007 Dry English Ale - yeast only from 4 L starter
1 ea Dark Rum Spice Extract - Added to keg

Mash at 152.0 °F for 90 minutes
Fly sparged to collect ~8 gallons of wort pre-boil

Pumpkin - I used two whole pie pumpkins - the small kind, not the Jack o' Lantern variety. I removed the tops, scooped out the seeds, and baked the pumpkins at 350 degrees F for about 45 minutes until the flesh was very soft. I scooped out the cooked pumpkin flesh, broke it down with a potato masher, and added it to the mash with the grain bill. This yielded about 3 pounds of cooked pumpkin flesh.

Dark Rum Spice Extract - Added to keg to taste

6 oz Myers Jamaican Dark Rum
1 tsp fresh ground Ceylon (true) Cinnamon
1/4 tsp fresh ground Cassia (common) Cinnamon
1/2 tsp fresh ground nutmeg
1 Vanilla Bean - split, chopped, and scraped
3 tsp chopped fresh ginger root

I combined all ingredients in a clean Mason Jar. I prepared my spice extract a couple weeks in advance of brew day and let it steep for a good month or so until the beer was kegged. I filtered the rum mixture through a coffee filter to remove the spices and leave only the flavored liquid. I poured several measured samples of the beer and dosed them with various amounts of the spiced rum (measured 1/4 tsp at a time) until I got the right level of spicing. I then scaled the ideal dosage rate up to the full 5 gallon volume and added the rum to the keg. I added about 3 oz (90 mL) of the spiced rum to the keg.

Note - the spiced rum is VERY strongly flavored and way too spicy to drink by itself. I would cut it with regular rum if you want to make it drinkable on its own.

I bottled most of the beer from the keg using the BierMuncher bottle filler and have been aging the bottles at room temperature since December. The brew continues to improve. The aroma of this beer is wonderful - just like pumpkin pie.

 

[ISUBrew79]

Would there be anything wrong with throwing my spices, raw or steeped in rum, just before bottling so the flavor is sharper. Also it would keep the spices from settling out in fermentation, right?

Adding spices just before bottling would be okay if they can be evenly distributed. The problem with adding dry spices to the bottling bucket, though, is that ground spices tend to clump together and don't disperse evenly. The advantage to the spice extract is that the aroma compounds from the spices become dissolved in the liquor- rendering them easy to incorporate into the beer.

Another alternative would be to add spices to the secondary so that the beer can extract the flavor compounds from the spices prior to bottling.

 

[brewmaster101]

Ok. Thank you for the help.

 

[ISUBrew79]

A photo of the finished beer

 

[badlee]

I reckon you just amber extract, steep some oats with a little munich malt and 1lb of roast and smashed up fresh pumpkin.
Add a few cinnamon sticks and a half tsp of all spice at 15 mins.
Bitter with EKG and use Fuggle for flavour and aroma.

 

[badlee]

I reckon you just amber extract, steep some oats with a little munich malt and 1lb of roast and smashed up fresh pumpkin.
Add a few cinnamon sticks and a half tsp of all spice at 15 mins.
Bitter with EKG and use Fuggle for flavour and aroma.

 

[ddrrseio]

Would there be anything wrong with throwing my spices, raw or steeped in rum, just before bottling so the flavor is sharper. Also it would keep the spices from settling out in fermentation, right?

the physical spices will be spent and the flavor will be left behind. i've only made pumpkin ale with flameout spice additions and they've been very well received.

i have the same spice tolerance that you're going for. i find nearly all commercial pumpkin ales cloying, palate-wrecking clove bombs. i use less than a teaspoon of equal parts cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, allspice and ginger.

good luck

 

[amandabab]

It's getting close to the time of year when I start thinking seasonally. I would like to do an extract pumpkin ale. Northern brewer has a kit, but it looks like a regular pale ale with pumpkin spice added. My wife DOES not like over powering flavors in her beer, but rather hints.
Anyone have any good extract recipes?

before you order a kit think about this recipe

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f76/thunderstruck-pumpkin-ale-ag-extract-versions-26699/

 

[brewmaster101]

Now that's a recipe.

 

[ApatheticNow]

CCBC Pumpkin Spice Ale 2011
21-B Seasonal/Winter Specialty Spiced Beer
Author: ISUBrew79
Date: 10/23/11

Size: 6.0 gal
Efficiency: 77.0%
Attenuation: 76.0%
Calories: 296.34 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.091 (1.026 - 1.120)
Terminal Gravity: 1.024 (0.995 - 1.035)
Color: 18.21 (1.0 - 50.0)
Alcohol: 8.9% (2.5% - 14.5%)
Bitterness: 41.2 (0.0 - 100.0)

Ingredients:
14.0 lb Cargill Two-Row Pale
2.0 lb Munich TYPE I
0.5 lb Victory® Malt
1.0 lb Red Wheat Malt
1.0 lb Caramel Malt 40L
0.5 lb Caramel Malt 80L
4.0 oz Pale Chocolate Malt
2 ea Pumpkin (fresh) - added during mash
26 g Columbus (14.4%) - added during boil, boiled 60.0 min
2.2 g Wyeast Nutrient - added during boil, boiled 15.0 min
12 oz Light Brown Sugar - added during boil, boiled 10.0 min
1 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 5.0 min
0.5 tsp Cassia Cinnamon (ground) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
0.5 tsp Ceylon Cinnamon (ground) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
0.5 tsp Nutmeg (ground) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
1 oz Fresh Grated Ginger root - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
1 ea White Labs WLP007 Dry English Ale - yeast only from 4 L starter
1 ea Dark Rum Spice Extract - Added to keg

Mash at 152.0 °F for 90 minutes
Fly sparged to collect ~8 gallons of wort pre-boil

Pumpkin - I used two whole pie pumpkins - the small kind, not the Jack o' Lantern variety. I removed the tops, scooped out the seeds, and baked the pumpkins at 350 degrees F for about 45 minutes until the flesh was very soft. I scooped out the cooked pumpkin flesh, broke it down with a potato masher, and added it to the mash with the grain bill. This yielded about 3 pounds of cooked pumpkin flesh.

Dark Rum Spice Extract - Added to keg to taste

6 oz Myers Jamaican Dark Rum
1 tsp fresh ground Ceylon (true) Cinnamon
1/4 tsp fresh ground Cassia (common) Cinnamon
1/2 tsp fresh ground nutmeg
1 Vanilla Bean - split, chopped, and scraped
3 tsp chopped fresh ginger root

I combined all ingredients in a clean Mason Jar. I prepared my spice extract a couple weeks in advance of brew day and let it steep for a good month or so until the beer was kegged. I filtered the rum mixture through a coffee filter to remove the spices and leave only the flavored liquid. I poured several measured samples of the beer and dosed them with various amounts of the spiced rum (measured 1/4 tsp at a time) until I got the right level of spicing. I then scaled the ideal dosage rate up to the full 5 gallon volume and added the rum to the keg. I added about 3 oz (90 mL) of the spiced rum to the keg.

Note - the spiced rum is VERY strongly flavored and way too spicy to drink by itself. I would cut it with regular rum if you want to make it drinkable on its own.

I bottled most of the beer from the keg using the BierMuncher bottle filler and have been aging the bottles at room temperature since December. The brew continues to improve. The aroma of this beer is wonderful - just like pumpkin pie.

Any chance someone out this into beersmith already and can share to cloud?

 

[TopherM]

Holy zombie thread! All the peeps that participated in this thread are long dead by now

I bet you could load that recipe into BeerSmith.

 

[ApatheticNow]

It's in the cloud:

http://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/877040?&doid=55de6530f0c2a