Big Ol' Pumpkin Head

[cincydave]

A friend and I brewed a 5 gallon extract porter kit and on bottling, we decided to make half a pumpkin porter. Bottled half and then boiled 2 teaspoons of dry pumpkin spice in about a cup of water, added that to the remaining 2.5 gallons, mixed gently and bottled. Pumpkin flavor is there but not overpowering. Beer was in primary about 3 weeks and bottled for a month before trying.

My question concerns the head difference between the pumpkin and non pumpkin bottles. The pumpkin porter gets a huge head and the beer without the pumpkin almost no head. Same glasses, not washed in detergent, and both in fridge for same amount of time. Tried several bottles of each to make sure it wasn't a fluke, and same results each time. Any Ideas why the beer with the pumpkin spice would have so much more head? That is the only variable.

 

[organ]

What was in your dry pumpkin spice? Anything the yeasts could've used to produce more carbonation?

 

[cincydave]

Just stuff I got at the store. Ingredients listed as cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves. Nothing that would appear to add fermetables. Plus, I only used 2 teaspoons.

 

[Schemy]

Explain how you get pumpkin flavor with zero pumpkin. While your spice is used in a pumpkin pie, it is not pumpkin.

 

[cincydave]

Ever eat a piece of plain pumkin? Doesn't taste like much. Pretty much all the pumkin pie flavor comes from the spices. My OP was questioning why there would be a big difference between the head on a batch split in half with half containing spice and half not. Not here to debate using real pumkin or not. I'm sure lots of people do it both ways with good results. To me it's not worth the mess or expense adding pumpkin, but to each his/her own.

 

[DregAddict]

How did you split up the priming sugar? Did you weigh it, or go by volume? Maybe one of the half batches got a little more?

 

[cincydave]

It's been a while since we brewed it, but I believe what we did was add the priming sugar solution to the entire 5 gallons, bottled half, then added the pumpkin spice solution and bottled the other half. I could be wrong though and if the sugar was unequal, it could certainly explain it. I think we're doing an Alaskan Amber clone kit next and will do half with pumpkin spice. Will see if the same thing happens. Thanks for the thoughts.

 

[Schemy]

Ever eat a piece of plain pumkin? Doesn't taste like much. Pretty much all the pumkin pie flavor comes from the spices. My OP was questioning why there would be a big difference between the head on a batch split in half with half containing spice and half not. Not here to debate using real pumkin or not. I'm sure lots of people do it both ways with good results. To me it's not worth the mess or expense adding pumpkin, but to each his/her own.

Sorry, didn't mean to be a dick. Just that was the first question that came to mind when I read the post. I understand what you are saying with the pumpkin, however pumpkin with pie spice tastes different than just the pie spice. I don't mean to take it off topic from your original question, just had a question of my own.

 

[cincydave]

Schemy,

No worries man. I think a lot of people would agree with you that a pumpkin beer should have some pumpkin in it. I geuss mine would be properly labeled as a "pumpkin spice" beer. We were jsut trying to do something quick and easy with some pumpkin spice flavor for fall.

There was a thread with a link to a podcast on this very subject.
http://media.libsyn.com/media/basicbrewing/bbr11-26-09pumpkinexp.mp3