Pumpkin Ale

[aarondzak]

Hi all,
This is my first time posting on this site, but I was hoping to get some advice on a up coming brew. I plain on making a Pumpkin ale brew. This is a first time for me and a coworker on I came up with this recipe. The first question I had was about the pumpkin. I was planing on using a cooking pumpkin from the grocery store and doing a chop and roast on it before hand. I am planing on steeping the roasted pumpkin with my specialty grains for and hour. I was not sure what the starch conversion would be for the pumpkin so I am at a loss of how much roasted pumpkin I should us. I would like to get a final alcohol content of 5.5 - 6.0. Hold on let me post my recipe.


Pumpkin Ale

Fermentables:

• 6 – 10 Pounds of roasted pumpkin
• 6.6 pounds Briess Sparkling Amber malt extract
• 2 pounds Briess Golden Light DME
• ½ pound Crystal malt, 40L
• ½ pound Biscuit malt, 22L
• 1 cup brown sugar

Hops and Spices:

• 1 ounce Mt. Hood hops (Bittering)
• ½ ounce Hallertauer hops (Flavoring)
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract (Aroma)
• 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (Aroma)

Yeast:

• White Labs 001 California Ale


Instructions:

1. Chop and roast the pumpkin.

2. Partial Mash the roasted pumpkin, crystal malt and biscuit malt for 1 hour with 150 degree water.

3. Add the malt extracts and brown sugar and bring to a boil.

4. Add the Bittering hops and boil for 45 minutes.

5. Add the Flavoring hops and boil for 15 minutes.

6. Add the vanilla and pumpkin spice and immediately take off the heat and cool.

7. Primary fermented for 5-7 days

8. Secondary fermented 2 weeks


So with all of the grains that I am using I am not sure about how much roasted pumpkin to use. Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

 

[kellzey]

I think it looks OK, but I'd cut down the pumpkin. I've printed out a bunch of recipes and 5 lbs is about average for a 5-6 gallon batch.

Also... I have seen the spice and vanilla added at the secondary for many. Some of added the spice at the end of the boil. But definitely put the vanilla in later (versus after the boil).

I am making something similar on Sunday...

 

[joyceman]

Yeah I agree, most recipes i see only go with 2 29oz cans of pumpkin. Most of your flavor will come from the spice. Might want to up that a little, maybe 2 tsps at 15 mins.

 

[aarondzak]

So after talking with some people I made a few revisions to my original recipe. First off I will no longer be using fresh pumpkin. Rather I’m going to use 3 large cans of Libby’s 100% canned pumpkin. This will equal about 5.44 pounds. Also I am going to cut my DME down to just 1 pound now.

Let me know what you think. I am going to brew this tomorrow and I am shooting for a 5-5.5 ABV

 

[aarondzak]

here is my final recipe

Pumpkin Ale

Fermentables:

• 2 29oz. cans of Libby’s pumpkin
• 6.6 pounds Briess Sparkling Amber malt extract
• 1 pounds Briess Golden Light DME
• ½ pound Crystal malt, 40L
• ½ pound Biscuit malt, 22L
• 1 cup brown sugar

Hops and Spices:

• 1 ounce Mt. Hood hops (Bittering)
• ½ ounce Hallertauer hops (Flavoring)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (Aroma)
• 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (Aroma)

Yeast:

• White Labs 001 California Ale


Instructions:

1. Steep the pumpkin, crystal malt and biscuit malt for 1 hour with 150 degree water.

2. Rinse with ½ gallon of 150 degree water

3. Add the malt extracts and brown sugar and bring to a boil.

4. Add the Bittering hops and boil for 45 minutes.

5. Add the Flavoring hops and boil for 15 minutes.

6. Add the vanilla and pumpkin spice and immediately take off the heat and cool.

7. Primary fermented for 5-7 days

8. Secondary fermented 2 weeks

 

[Deam]

Would love to hear how this turned out in a few weeks after you've had a sample. Brewing a batch this coming weekend (6 days from now), and am using a recipe that is almost identical to yours. Going to make use of fresh pumpkin however, since I already bought them, and I wan't to roast some pumpkin seeds as well =)

 

[aarondzak]

Here's an up date. I ended up brewing this recipe on the 11. In my original recipe I going to use fresh roasted pumpkin. How ever I was unable to find any. So I used 100% canned pumpkin. I steeped it in a nylon bag with my specialty grains for one hour. Even though I had it in the bag a good bit leaked out. When I was transferring the chilled wort to my primary fermenter it ended up clogging up the screen in the funnel. So I just dumped everything in to the fermenter.

It fermented extremely quick and after one week it already reached its final gravity. I transferred it to secondary and ended up losing about 1 gallon do to the dead yeast in the bottom and the pumpkin slug. Next time I brew it, I am going to brew 6 gallons.

I ended up tasting it. The pumpkin flavor was extremely subtle. I put an extra teaspoon of vanilla extract and pumpkin spice. Next Tuesday I plan on bottling. I'm going to taste it again and add more spices accordingly. I will post a new update in a few weeks.