Pumpkin Blend Clone

[RosssBrew]

Hello,
This would be my first Cider, but I want to keep my wife happy and she asked that I make something like Downeast's Pumpkin Blend for her. I am normally an all grain brewer. I'm shooting for 5 gal. I am looking for recipe ideas or improvements to this base recipe that I threw together. Would appreciate any tips from the group here. Thanks!

Ingredients:
o Apples - 100 lbs whole apples (should make 5 gal)
o Crookneck Pumpkin - 5 lbs of cubes (no peal or seeds)
o Chai Spice - 1 tsp
o Light DME - ?? lbs (Whatever is needed 1.050)
o Water - 0 gal (should be 100% cider)
o Yeast - WLP775 English Cider or Wyeast 4766 Cider???

Process:
o Cut pumpkin into cubes
o Grind up pumpkin and apples together
o Press apples and pumpkin (shooting for 5 gal)
o Bring up to 185 degrees
o 45 min at 185 degrees
o @45 min add Light DME (if needed)
o @5 min add chai spice
o Cool and transfer to carboy
o Add yeast

Appendix - Chai Ratio / Ingredients:
o 1 tsp ground cardamom
o 1 tsp ground allspice
o 1 tsp ground nutmeg
o 2 tsp ground cinnamon
o 1 tsp ground cloves
o 3 tsp ground ginger

 

[madscientist451]

Hello,
This would be my first Cider, but I want to keep my wife happy and she asked that I make something like Downeast's Pumpkin Blend for her.

I've never had their cider, but the label on the can say's its pressed with pumpkin puree.
If you are trying to make a clone of what they are selling, don't do any "brewing" at all. Cider makers don't use heat in their process.
Getting pumpkin flavor is tricky and I doubt a commercial cidery with regional distribution is spending their time chopping and peeling actual pumpkins.
Its likely they are using pumpkin puree that is commercially prepared, probably something like this:
https://amoretti.com/products/pumpkin-pie-craft-puree Decent cider starts with using the right apples, check around with local orchards and see if they sell a cider maker's blend, sometime commercial cider makers will sell buckets of juice when the apples are in season.
Process:
Ferment out the cider, I like cider house select yeast, but WL 002 beer yeast is OK.
Add the Amoretti pumpkin puree, above, to taste. (I see absolutely no value in adding this pre-fermentation, adding it after fermentation will allow you to dial in the flavor.)
Make several tinctures using vodka and the chai spices and typical pumpkin pie spices.
Unless you have inside information about them using cardamom, I'd skip that too and a small amount of ginger goes a long way.
I'd make a separate tincture of the ginger if you insist on using that.
Perform a series of bench blending trials with measured amounts of the cider and measured amounts of your tinctures (use a ML pipette), then add the proper amounts to your whole batch.
You could wing it and toss the spices in without making tinctures and doing blending trials, but there's a good chance some flavor components will be more than you wan't and then you won't be able to fix it.
I learned the hard way and have added too much ginger and cinnamon to ciders.