Beer Meister Pumpkin Extract kit - questions about my brew

[rkhanso]

I made a Beer Meister Pumpkin Ale extract kit.

I put the recipe into Brew Target. I hit the recipe's Original Gravity at 1.056. There were a lot of pumpkin solids in the sample. Does that give incorrect readings for the OG?

Here's the main issue I ran into:
I bottled today and the final gravity was only 1.005. Brew Target and the recipe said I should have been at 1.010-1.016. Did I do something wrong in the recipe? Something wrong in measuring gravity? I made sure to use cooled wort for the OG.

I couldn't upload the Brew Target .xml file in this thread, so it's posted here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ovofm2g64uvz9sf/Beer Meister Pumpkin Ale.xml?dl=0

I'm not sure if my notes come across in the exported .xml. If I need to provide more info, let me know and I'll see if I can get it.

Oh, I only ended up bottling 3.5 gallons out of the 5 in the fermenting bucket. I could have found somme more out of the sludge and there was a little left in the bottling bucket - but I think I could have only gotten another 20 ounces or so.

 

[rkhanso]

After looking at other threads about low FG, I guess it may not be a problem.
Some people asked about mash temps on other threads, but I just followed the directions and kept it at 155F for 30 minutes.
So - I won't worry about it and hope the beer turns out OK.

 

[rkhanso]

I do have one other question about this brew. Since I expected a lot of pumpkin sludge in the fermenting bucket (I let it sit 3 weeks in the primary bucket -- did not rack to a carboy/secondary) - I used a grain/filter bag around the auto-siphon when putting the beer in the bottling bucket. It's a regular nylon bag I bought at Midwest Supplies.
The question: Did I filter out any live yeast and my carbonation will not be any good since there won't be any yeast left in the beer?

 

[RM-MN]

Since your beer contained only extract and specialty malts you would get no conversion of the starches so holding the temperature at 155 wasn't really needed but it is good practice for when you decide to use a partial mash or all grain batch. The floating pumpkin solids would be the same density as your wort (or else they wouldn't be floating) so they don't affect the gravity reading.

If you really had 5 gallons in the fermenter you should have been able to get 4 1/2 gallons of beer unless you had a huge amount of hop or pumpkin debris.

When you think you are making beer, you are wrong. You are making wort, then the yeasts turn that wort into beer and once added to the wort they do what they want and sometimes they get a bit carried away and ferment the beer a bit more than expected, especially if you let them have a warm environment. The also produce some off flavors if it is too warm so you should be looking at a way to keep the fermenting beer cool. Most ale yeasts do well at the lower to mid 60's F.

Your yeast cells are microscopic and the filter bag won't keep any of them out so your beer should carbonate just fine. Leave the beer in the bottles for 3 weeks minimum (except for that one you open at one week because you can't wait to taste your beer) to get proper carbonation and allow the heading compounds to link.

 

[rkhanso]

The instructions that came with the extract kit said to ferment at 68-75 degrees. I kept the temps on the low side of that however, at around 67-70F.

I did add 2 small pie pumpkins to the brew. I added half in the bag when steeping the grains and the other half at the last 5 minutes of the boil (after reading different methods other people have used to make pumpkin beer). It was somewhere around 3-4 lb of pumpkin total.

RM-MN - I see you're also in Minnesota. We went up to your neck of the woods this past summer to Itasca and the Mississippi headwaters.

 

[RM-MN]

The instructions that came with the extract kit said to ferment at 68-75 degrees. I kept the temps on the low side of that however, at around 67-70F.

I did add 2 small pie pumpkins to the brew. I added half in the bag when steeping the grains and the other half at the last 5 minutes of the boil (after reading different methods other people have used to make pumpkin beer). It was somewhere around 3-4 lb of pumpkin total.

RM-MN - I see you're also in Minnesota. We went up to your neck of the woods this past summer to Itasca and the Mississippi headwaters.

That much pumpkin would add a lot of debris to the fermenter and cause you to get less beer as you tried to keep that depris out of the bottling bucket. The kit lets you specify which of 3 possible yeasts you would want. I'm surprised that the instructions would call for that temperature range as I usually try to keep my beers fermenting cooler than the lowest listed in the instructions. I've used Muntons ale yeast and US-o5 and both are aggressive fermenters, quite capable of bringing the FG below what the recipe suggests, even if I keep the fermenter below 65F. It isn't a problem but it gets you a slightly drier beer with a bit more alcohol.

When you were in Itasca, you were probably less than 15 miles from my place as a crow flies. When people talk about whether one lives east of the Mississippi or west, I confuse them by saying I live north of the Mississippi.