So in line with the season I took to making a pumpkin ale - not a pumpkin spiced ale but a meaty pumpkin ale. It was a bit of an experiment as my sixth brew...
Just bottled today in time for Halloween but I have an issue with low ABV that I figure someone might know how to solve.
It was adapted from this other pumpkin beer (I originally set out to make a pumpkin-sweet potato but didn't get around to the 'tatos).
Here's what I used in my 5 gallon batch:
11 pounds of roasted pumpkin
8 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt 40L
8 oz Crisp Light Crystal Malt
5 pounds DME Extra Light (I want most of the color to come from the pumpkin)
1 oz Liberty hops (45 min) 5.4% AA (Hops were much higher AA than I expected. Ended up adding them later into the bottle to get the flavor but less bitterness.)
1 oz Mt Hood hops (15 min) 5.3% AA
Whirlfloc (15 min)
1 cup dark brown sugar 7 oz (0 min) (What I had on hand, added a little color but not too much)
¼ tsp pumpkin spice (0 min) (Enough to add intrigue? Store bought, spent too long worrying over ratios)
American Ale II Yeast (liquid yeast has been working well for me)
Chilled with 25' immersion cooler on an ice water recirculation pump. Pitched at around 70F and kept in the basement for four weeks in a glass carboy. Primed with corn sugar.
I'm calling it the Pumpkin Loyalists' Ale. :rockin:
ALL GLORY TO THE PUMPKIN!
And this is my kettle (62qt Bayou Classic):
I use it as my main weapon in extract/BIAB brewing but it might make a good hot liquor tank. It's so tall and thin that the evaporation is much lower than I expected on my first BIAB - turning it into a boilfest for a few extra hours.
It was in primary for four weeks and then bottled today. The first four gallons of the brew were pretty clear when bottling but the last gallon was inaccessible due to muck. A lot of the pumpkin pulp got through, but I didn't use a screen or anything (been trying to just let it ride and see how that comes out in the last few brews). 42 and a half beers is acceptable. I'm going to do secondaries from now on and I just bought a bazooka screen for the kettle. I'll see what I can do about whipping up some kind of strainer that could handle a gallon of 'pumpkin pudding' next time around.
The problem with this brew is that the Beer Calculus website says I should get the following stats: 1.052 OG, 1.013 FG, 21 SRM, 29.3 IBU, 5.2% ABV. This is for the pumpkin ale after I didn't use the sweet potatoes, which would have boosted the sugar content by a bit and thrown off my original numbers for when they were included in it.
I just finished bottling a couple hours ago and the FG was 1.041? Doesn't look good at all, that's something like 3% when I expected 5%. I did break the hydrometer a week ago on a honey porter, so maybe it was packed under vacuum or something affected the reading? Lost the OG but I think it was around 1.050.
You guys think the large amount of trub deactivated the yeast? The yeast should be doing its work up top though. The brew tastes pretty good but malty from the little bit I had. Maybe I misread the hydrometer or the amount of trub kept the hydrometer from floating down as much as it should have?
I'm going to crack open that half beer I bottled and re-read the FG, correcting for the sugars I put in for bottling. I ended up adding more corn sugar than usual because the last brew didn't carb up well - then that sugar excess got even more concentrated since I ended up bottling only 88% of the bottles I planned for.
Now that I think about it, the trub was so high up that maybe the darn hydrometer couldn't sink after all. :cross:
---
I can also say that a vinator and bottle tree is sooooo helpful! I was able to crank out a bottling session and do clean up in 1.5 hours, compared to 2.5. But I was in a bit of a rush since it was between classes as it was.
Just bottled today in time for Halloween but I have an issue with low ABV that I figure someone might know how to solve.
It was adapted from this other pumpkin beer (I originally set out to make a pumpkin-sweet potato but didn't get around to the 'tatos).
Here's what I used in my 5 gallon batch:
11 pounds of roasted pumpkin
- Five pie pumpkins cut in half and roasted at 350F for 1 hour.
- Diced into large chunks and roasted again at 400F for 30 minutes. By this time they had also self-caramelized without extra sugar. Could have coated them in brown sugar.
- Saved the guts and seeds, steeped those in a separate bag with the pumpkin pulp.
- The skins were separated and quite tasty on their own. Didn't put them in the brew. I saved them for later they were so good.
- Steeped the pumpkin guts, seeds, and malts at 155F for 1 hour. No flavor left in the pump after steeping. Wrung out the pulp bag very well - needed as much pumpkin as I could harvest. Pumpkin does have its own flavor and that was the prime objective.
8 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt 40L
8 oz Crisp Light Crystal Malt
5 pounds DME Extra Light (I want most of the color to come from the pumpkin)
1 oz Liberty hops (45 min) 5.4% AA (Hops were much higher AA than I expected. Ended up adding them later into the bottle to get the flavor but less bitterness.)
1 oz Mt Hood hops (15 min) 5.3% AA
Whirlfloc (15 min)
1 cup dark brown sugar 7 oz (0 min) (What I had on hand, added a little color but not too much)
¼ tsp pumpkin spice (0 min) (Enough to add intrigue? Store bought, spent too long worrying over ratios)
American Ale II Yeast (liquid yeast has been working well for me)
Chilled with 25' immersion cooler on an ice water recirculation pump. Pitched at around 70F and kept in the basement for four weeks in a glass carboy. Primed with corn sugar.
I'm calling it the Pumpkin Loyalists' Ale. :rockin:
ALL GLORY TO THE PUMPKIN!
And this is my kettle (62qt Bayou Classic):
I use it as my main weapon in extract/BIAB brewing but it might make a good hot liquor tank. It's so tall and thin that the evaporation is much lower than I expected on my first BIAB - turning it into a boilfest for a few extra hours.
It was in primary for four weeks and then bottled today. The first four gallons of the brew were pretty clear when bottling but the last gallon was inaccessible due to muck. A lot of the pumpkin pulp got through, but I didn't use a screen or anything (been trying to just let it ride and see how that comes out in the last few brews). 42 and a half beers is acceptable. I'm going to do secondaries from now on and I just bought a bazooka screen for the kettle. I'll see what I can do about whipping up some kind of strainer that could handle a gallon of 'pumpkin pudding' next time around.
The problem with this brew is that the Beer Calculus website says I should get the following stats: 1.052 OG, 1.013 FG, 21 SRM, 29.3 IBU, 5.2% ABV. This is for the pumpkin ale after I didn't use the sweet potatoes, which would have boosted the sugar content by a bit and thrown off my original numbers for when they were included in it.
I just finished bottling a couple hours ago and the FG was 1.041? Doesn't look good at all, that's something like 3% when I expected 5%. I did break the hydrometer a week ago on a honey porter, so maybe it was packed under vacuum or something affected the reading? Lost the OG but I think it was around 1.050.
You guys think the large amount of trub deactivated the yeast? The yeast should be doing its work up top though. The brew tastes pretty good but malty from the little bit I had. Maybe I misread the hydrometer or the amount of trub kept the hydrometer from floating down as much as it should have?
I'm going to crack open that half beer I bottled and re-read the FG, correcting for the sugars I put in for bottling. I ended up adding more corn sugar than usual because the last brew didn't carb up well - then that sugar excess got even more concentrated since I ended up bottling only 88% of the bottles I planned for.
Now that I think about it, the trub was so high up that maybe the darn hydrometer couldn't sink after all. :cross:
---
I can also say that a vinator and bottle tree is sooooo helpful! I was able to crank out a bottling session and do clean up in 1.5 hours, compared to 2.5. But I was in a bit of a rush since it was between classes as it was.
