Halloween Brew Recipe Extravaganza!

[boilmeimirish]

EDIT: This brew does not have to be, and likely will not be ready by Oct. 31st. That's OK! A good pumpkin beer in December is still a good pumpkin beer


The time is upon us! October is just around the corner, and like many of you, I'm planning a Halloween brew.

This year I'd like to make a sweet, high ABV 'sipper' that uses pumpkin in some manner or another.

I was thinking of doing a Pumpkin Milk Stout, but I'm open to other suggestions.

Goals:

~10% ABV
High Gravity
Sweet
Thick
Dark


Ive decided to open the brew to the forum, and brew the most liked recipe that gets suggested. So with that, who'd like to take a crack at it?

I'll even ship a bottle of the finished product to the recipe originator.

Beer will be brewed one week from today, Thursday, September 8th, 2011.

Show me what you got!

 

[boilmeimirish]

(Re-posted from the Extract forum)

The time is upon us! October is just around the corner, and like many of you, I'm planning my Halloween brew.

This year I'd like to make a sweet, high ABV 'sipper' that uses pumpkin in some manner or another.

I was thinking of doing a Pumpkin Milk Stout, but I'm open to other suggestions.

Goals:

~10% ABV
High Gravity
Sweet
Thick
Dark


Ive decided to open the brew to the forum, and brew the most liked recipe that gets suggested. So with that, who'd like to take a crack at it?

I'll even ship a bottle of the finished product to the recipe originator.

Beer will be brewed one week from today, Thursday, September 8th, 2011.

Show me what you got!

 

[Beehemel]

How about a big pumpkin scotch ale? Boil down a portion of the wort to get some caramel sweetness, lightly spice it with your favorite pumpkin pie spices, and throw some roasted pumpkin in the mash!

 

[BrewThruYou]

Pumpkin Milk Stout? Feel like the spices would clash with the roastiness of a stout.

 

[mjtski]

I think that sounds amazing. If you find the recipe and it works out, please share.

 

[Wolfhound180]

Subscribed.

 

[lumpher]

for a very high abv dark beer? you only have 2 months for brewing, aging, and carbing. i brewed my lower abv, lighter halloween beer last weekend

 

[Fid]

for a very high abv dark beer? you only have 2 months for brewing, aging, and carbing.

Agreed. Not saying you can't do it and don't want to stifle your plans but a beer around 10% is definitely not going to be in its prime after only 2 months... I'd consider shooting for something a bit smaller, just my 2 cents though.

 

[joeybeer]

Go with Samain pumpkin... That's what I did two weeks ago and it smells great !!

 

[boilmeimirish]

Put it this way, I don't care how long it takes, just so long as I can call it a 'Halloween' brew. If that means drinking it at Christmas, then so be it!

NOW, who has a recipe?

 

[boilmeimirish]

How about a big pumpkin scotch ale? Boil down a portion of the wort to get some caramel sweetness, lightly spice it with your favorite pumpkin pie spices, and throw some roasted pumpkin in the mash!

I like the sounds of it, but I had hoped we'd get some actual RECIPE replies!

The Extract guys have similarly come up with nothing as-of-yet. We'll see where this goes... :rockin:

 

[Yooper]

I like the sounds of it, but I had hoped we'd get some actual RECIPE replies!

The Extract guys have similarly come up with nothing as-of-yet. We'll see where this goes... :rockin:

Please don't post the same thing in multiple forums. We all see it.

An appropriate place for asking for recipes is in the "recipes" forum, which is where your threads have been moved to.

 

[BenS]

I'm interested in this. I'll work on a recipe later for this. I'm thinking my RIS base recipe would work well for this. 1.095 OG. ~60 IBUs. And I can usually get it in the keg within a couple months.

 

[boilmeimirish]

Please don't post the same thing in multiple forums. We all see it.

An appropriate place for asking for recipes is in the "recipes" forum, which is where your threads have been moved to.

Thanks for the move Yooper, sorry for the noob posts. I'm still new here

 

[BenS]

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 6.92 gal
Estimated OG: 1.092 SG
Estimated Color: 38.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 71.9 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
15.50 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 81.58 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 30L (30.0 SRM) Grain 5.26 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 5.26 %
0.50 lb Black Barley (Stout) (500.0 SRM) Grain 2.63 %
0.50 lb Brown Malt (65.0 SRM) Grain 2.63 %
0.50 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 2.63 %
72.00 gm Amarillo Gold [10.70 %] (65 min) Hops 59.7 IBU
28.30 gm Amarillo Gold [10.70 %] (15 min) Hops 11.4 IBU
28.30 gm Sonnet Golding [4.10 %] (2 min) Hops 0.7 IBU
1 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) Yeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out
Total Grain Weight: 19.00 lb
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
50 min Mash In Add 23.75 qt of water at 163.7 F 152.0 F

 

[BenS]

The above post is my go-to RIS recipe that I would add pumpkin spices to. I have made 1 "real" pumpkin beer so I am by no means an expert, but I would skip messing with actual pumpkin at all. I mashed about 4 lbs of home roasted pumpkin chunks and that turned to the mash from hell. The pumpkin chunks turned into big gooey masses that clogged up my mash turn worse than I thought possible. I vowed never again to use actual pumpkin. Since then I've just used .5 oz of pumpkin pie spice that I found at the grocery store 5 min before the end of the boil. Tastes like pumpkin pie when I use only the spices so that is the way I would go with this recipe. I would add more spice to the end of the boil just because this is such a massive beer.

 

[BenS]

I have also heard of brewers adding the toasted pumpkin directly to the boil. This may be a good option but I have no experience with doing it this way.

 

[boilmeimirish]

Pumpkin RIS...I like it. From what I've been gathering on the forum and in my brew books, it seems that adding pumpkin to the mash has a great cost/benefit to the beer than adding it to the boil. I think I'd just try to grain-bag it, maybe just gain some more body from it that way.

 

[casinoreverend]

I was tryin to come up with the same ideas for extract brews to be ready by Halloween..I brewing up the Pumpkin Spice Ale kit from AHS tomorrow, I would like one more to offer to my buddies at the annual Halloween festivities.

 

[hopthepot]

Roast the pumpkin, put through a food processor, then add to mash with 1 lb rice hulls to every 4 lb pumpkin. This should prevent a stuck mash. I would not recommend adding the pumpkin to the boil. I have tried both methods and when boiling it I ended up with too much starch in the beer. I am going to brew up a ~6% pumpkin stout next week for halloween will post a recipe if it comes out tasty.