It's a Great Pumpkin [Beer] Charlie Brown!

So here's my first try at a pumpkin beer. I heard of a weird technique where you ferment your beer in a pumpkin. Will it work? Maybe not. But why am I doing it? Because I "pump-can"!
So I started out by taking the guts out of a pumpkin and then filled it with water and let it sit for about a half hour. Then I dumped out this water into a pot heated it up to about 155 F and steeped a 15 oz can of pumpkin puree with 1 lb of 2 row pale ale malt for about half an hour.

Next, I poured myself a beer. Then I added a pinch of Fuggles and Hersbruckers, and brought the wort to a boil. Once at a boil I added 1.25 lbs of hopped amber malt extract and 1.25 lbs unhopped amber malt extract along with another pinch of each type of hops and a pinch of brown sugar, and boiled for about 15 minutes.

I stuck my pumpkin in my biggest pot. With a minute to go in the boil, I added more of the same hops and 1/2 a coarsely chopped nutmeg, 1/2 cinnamon stick, and some crushed allspice.

With the wort off the burner but still very hot, I carefully added about 1.5 gallons into the pumpkin. The remainder (less than 0.5 gallon) I stuck in a 1 gallon jug. I stuck both in the basement to cool down, with the lid on top of the pumpkin. My hopes is that the very hot wort will kill any bad bacteria in the pumpkin while at the same time drawing out more pumpkiney goodness out of the pumpkin.

When the wort in the pumpkin gets to yeast pitching temp, I will add some yeast and seal the pumpkin lid and around the airlock with wax. I'll probably ferment for two weeks (assuming nothing goes wrong) and then bottle. Hopefully there won't be any pumpkin explosions!

And for some reason smilies count as images and I'm only allowed 4 per post, so here's my dancing banana:

Wow. I had heard of fermenting in a pumpkin but didn't think anyone would actually try it Very interesting.

this is a great idea, i'm interested to see how it turns out! i might try this myself!

i'm drinkin my pumpkin spiced ale right now!

I'm not so sure I would have cooked the pumpkin. Hopefully it won't disintegrate and leak.

Props for this man, hope it turns out well! I'm super happy with my pumpkin Ale and can't wait to make another for either later this year or next year! Make sure to keep us updated

jager said:

I'm not so sure I would have cooked the pumpkin. Hopefully it won't disintegrate and leak.

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Yeah this is one of my main concerns, its sitting pretty warm but not leaking as of yet...we'll see how it does over the long haul. If it does fall apart, I may try it without adding the really hot wort to the pumpkin.

Wouldn't a pumpkin filled with liquid rot over the course of 2 weeks?

We shall see....yes, Mr. Smithers...we shall see.....

Update: It's been about 4 days, and the pumpkin beer is fermenting away.
The beer in the gallon jug:

I waited to seal the pumpkin in case the krausen decided to blow out of the pumpkin. I took a look today, and it looks like it won't be blowing over:

So I sealed the pumpkin with some wax:

The pumpkin looks pretty good inside, but on the outside the handle is getting moldy! No good! I think I shall secondary this beer after 7 days:

Update: It's been about 4 days, and the pumpkin beer is fermenting away.
The beer in the gallon jug:

I waited to seal the pumpkin in case the krausen decided to blow out of the pumpkin. I took a look today, and it looks like it won't be blowing over:

So I sealed the pumpkin with some wax:

The pumpkin looks pretty good inside, but on the outside the handle is getting moldy! No good! I think I shall secondary this beer after 7 days:

So we'll continue to see what happens. It still smells pretty good right now, I'll see how it tastes when I transfer to secondary, hopefully it won't be bad!

One of the best things about homebrewing is crazy s**t like this, whether it works or not.

Hmmmm. Rather than as a fermenter, how about rigging up a pumpkin as a cask for a party? The gears are turning.

Dude, rack it today, you'd have gotten whatever could out of the pumpkin by now, no reason to risk infection! This could be a tasty beverage

I would think if you were going to do something like this in the future, you would want to add a capdem tablet, or two, to the water and let it sit for 24 hours prior to introducing the wort and yeast. That would help mitigate the risk of infection.

Any updates?

ArroganceFan said:

Any updates?

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so... how did this turn out?
I kinda want to try it

TappedOut said:

One of the best things about homebrewing is crazy s**t like this, whether it works or not.

Hmmmm. Rather than as a fermenter, how about rigging up a pumpkin as a cask for a party? The gears are turning.

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+1 for this idea.

Halloween is just two days away. A good amber ale and modify the spigot from a bottling bucket. The gears are turning.

MTpilot said:

+1 for this idea.

Halloween is just two days away. A good amber ale and modify the spigot from a bottling bucket. The gears are turning.

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I've heard from a number of people that just run beer line through the back and have a tap coming out of the side of the pumpkin.

not sure how great the raw pumpkin taste would be. but what the hey, try the spigot idea anyway! that's the joy of this hobby!

Whoops. Forgot about this. A few days following my last post, I racked the beer to a secondary, and there was mold growing on the top of the inside of the pumpkin. No fun! The beer is still sitting in secondary somewhere, I have not checked on it in awhile.

I had neglected to put wax around the airlock, so it looks like mold got in through there. I also had the pumpkin sitting in the dark basement, and it provided a warm and dark environment for mold to grow (a day or two after I made it the temps went into the 90's--October in Virginia?!?!). Also, I did not seal the pumpkin with wax until a few days after adding yeast in fear of a pumpkin explosion. Although the top of it got moldy, there was never any type of leakage problems. I need to give the beer in secondary a taste.

I've also been reading that these type of pumpkins aren't even the type of pumpkins used to make pumpkin pie, so in doing this, do not expect to get any pumpkiny flavors from this method.

So here is what I learned from this, and what I would do next time (I have some extra pumpkins left over from pumpkin carving...hmm):
1) CUT OFF/POP OFF THE STEM and cover this area with wax. Maybe rub down this area (where the stem was) with some alcohol to try to sanitize before adding wax. This is where my mold started and it went through the airlock hole area into the pumpkin.
2) After cleaning out the pumpkin (use sanitized utensils), fill it with water to the top and add campden tablets. SEAL WITH WAX. Let sit for 24 hrs, open it up, then dump out water.
3) Add cooled wort to pumpkin fermentor, add yeast, oxygenate, etc. SEAL WITH WAX IMMEDIATELY.
4) STORE IN A DRY, WELL LIT AREA. Monitor carefully, rack to secondary when fermentation is complete. My racking cane kept on getting clogged. Perhaps you can cut a hole in the side and stick tubing in to rack to the secondary. This may be tricky, however.

OTHER SILLY IDEAS:

Use the fermentor to make a pumpkin pie when done fermenting. It's not the right type of pumpkin, but hey, it's soaked in beer!

Cut a small hole at the top of pumpkin only big enough to fit an airlock. Using a funnel, fill pumpkin with apple juice (with the appropriate amount of campden added). Seal hole with wax. Let sit 24 hrs, then add Montrachet yeast. Add airlock and seal with wax. Let ferment out. Then remove airlock, add priming sugar, and seal hole. Will it carbonate in the pumpkin? Will you have a pumpkin explosion? Will you be able to stick a tap in the pumpkin and carbonated apfelwein goodness will flow out? Who knows?!?!

Bumping an old thread just because Im curious how this turned out.

Another meaningless bump?(sigh)

Whoops, I'm terrible with replying to posts.

The beer got infected and tasted like...infected beer. I shall try again in the fall when pumpkins are in season. I think I'll fill the pumpkin with water and campden tablets for a few days and then dump out the water when its time to add the wort. We'll see how it goes.

FYI... I once had this idea as well... From these guys:

http://www.stewartsbrewingcompany.com/Photos/pumpkinconditioning_2006/pumpkin_set/index.htm

Form the brewers regarding the project...

Ric's away all week at the GABF, so I thought I'd respond on his behalf.

I believe he'd tell you we don't plan to condition our beer in a pumpkin ever again. We may cask-condition some pumkin ale and put it into a pumpkin to serve, but not to condition.

His advice to you would likely be, "Yeah- don't do it."

Hope this helps.

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When pressed for details...

It was just murky & swampy. It sold because of the novelty of it, but it was not a product we'd choose to sell again. It developed a cidery taste and really wasn't pleasant. Since you are talking about a far shorter time in the pumpkin, it might work okay for you, but all in all, I'd not risk ruining a good pumpkin beer. (Or pumpkin, for that matter. Steam the flesh & make a nice pie.) Anyway, I know this only helps as a cautionary tale, but I hope it does, in fact, help.

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So I ultimately decided to do it the old-fashioned way, by roasting the cubed flesh for about an hour at 350* and then mashing it.