Pumpkin Ale

[Brewham]

Racking the Pumpkin Ale. Pumpkin Ale is a tough because, in addition to all the normal goop at the bottom from spent yeast, coagulated proteins and hops I have 3 pounds of pumpkin paste to clog the valve and tube. Every time I brew this, I say, "Never again." but my fans insist.

Anyone have ideas on how to manage the transfer? I am thinking I should let it sit in the primary longer, raise the drain valve and just accept the fact I am going to lose a lot of beer. I know someone is going to say, "Skip the secondary." but even if I do, I still have to deal with all the goop when I bottle.

If you say I should keg, do kegs like all that paste in the bottom?

 

[Jman_01]

Just use an auto-siphon to stay above your goop. Pulling off the bottom is just taking what you have in primary to secondary in my book.

 

[jhall4]

Have you already brewed it?

Because when I brew mine I put the pumpkin in a grain bag during the boil to get as much flavor out as possible, then pull out (the majority of) the mush so it doesn't cause too much of a problem in the fermenter.

If it's already brewed and is in the fermenter like that, I would probably cold crash to get as tight a cake at the bottom as possible and then siphon off the top...

 

[Firebat138]

Yeah, sounds like you boiled the pumpkin? I also do the mash... much easier...

 

[Brewham]

This year, I used canned instead of my own baked pumpkin. I put it in a bag but it just oozed out and kind of suspended in the solution. Next year it is back to chunks of baked pumpkin in a grain bag. That was a bit messy but nothing like this.

 

[SpeedYellow]

Two easy solutions that worked great for me... Mash the pumpkin instead of boil, and use a glass fermenter so you can easily rack only what you want. Maybe not what you want to hear,but hey it works.

 

[Pride_of_Sedgwick_County]

Using auto-siphon is your best option to get out of primary.

We've had issues getting the canned pumpkin out of the boil kettle so addition during the Mash or using the hop bag/grain bag seem like best bet for the "never again" batch next year.

 

[el_horno]

Yea, I baked my pumpkin (Well butter nut squash) then I steeped it at about 160 for 30-45 mins, filtered out the pumpkin, and then used the pumpkin water as the base for my brew.

 

[DPBISME]

Racking the Pumpkin Ale. Pumpkin Ale is a tough because, in addition to all the normal goop at the bottom from spent yeast, coagulated proteins and hops I have 3 pounds of pumpkin paste to clog the valve and tube. Every time I brew this, I say, "Never again." but my fans insist.

Anyone have ideas on how to manage the transfer? I am thinking I should let it sit in the primary longer, raise the drain valve and just accept the fact I am going to lose a lot of beer. I know someone is going to say, "Skip the secondary." but even if I do, I still have to deal with all the goop when I bottle.

If you say I should keg, do kegs like all that paste in the bottom?

I like the "move the drain idea" if you are going to continue to brew this but I have also "cheated" by tipping the bucket during fermentation away from the faucet.

Ya... you need to make this secure but then all the yeast and trub fall in what is now a corner far way from the faucet.

Thne when time for transfer you just "watch it"; near the end (as the level of the beer gets close to the yeast) you very slowly tip it the other way to get the last of the beer.

An easy way to hold it in place is to put it in a box at an angle... You probably do this now if you wash your bucket in the sink that I see there...

DPB

 

[dankbeer]

Two easy solutions that worked great for me... Mash the pumpkin instead of boil, and use a glass fermenter so you can easily rack only what you want. Maybe not what you want to hear,but hey it works.

I recently brewed a pumpkin ale and experienced the same problem of excessive cloudiness and trub in the primary. The two solutions above are great ways to prevent excessive trub from making it into your secondary. In addition to these solutions you can try adding gelatin to your fermentor. I tried the gelatin approach this year and my pumpkin beer was crystal clear in about three days. The trub layer was nice and compact. Search for gelatin finings.

Cheers

 

[william_shakes_beer]

A thought I just had: turn the dip tube upside down before you rack into the bottling bucket. That will give you some space at the bottom. When you get there you can decide ifg you want to turn it back down or take the loss. I'm fixin' to bottle my pumpkin ale this weekend so a well placed thread this is.

 

[HDbrewer]

I have also thought about putting a spigot higher up on the primary than they come as a "bottling bucket". I think it would be easier to transfer into a secondary or a keg using this method. Has anyone done this or have any input on this idea? Especially how far off of the bottom of the primary to mount the spigot to prevent picking up any of the non wanted wort?

 

[jaynik]

Use a racking came instead of draining from a bottling bucket. Keep the cane above the cake and you should get minimal Trub in the secondary or bottle.