Making a pumpkin ale, partial mash

[eaglehoo]

This is my first attempt at a mash of any kind. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Peter's Pumpkinhead:

6 lbs extra light LME
1 lb dark brown sugar
1 lb 6 row malt
1 lb crystal 80 malt
8 oz wheat malt
8 oz special roast malt
2 oz chocolate malt
1 lb rice hulls

60 oz canned plain pumpkin (two 30-oz cans) mashed with grains--no whole pumpkins available right now

1 oz fuggles 60`
1 oz hallertau 30`
1 oz fuggles 5`

1.5 tsp cinnamon
1.5 tsp allspice
1.5 tsp nutmeg
0.5 tsp ground cloves
1 Tbsp vanilla extract

Nottingham ale dry yeast

OG 1.068 (not counting for pumpkin sugars)
FG: ~ 1.016
IBU: ~21
ABV ~6.9%

Mash grains and pumpkin in 3.5 qt water at 155F for 60 min. Strain, sparge with 1/2 gal water at 170F. Add water up to 3 gal, boil. Add extract and sugar at 60 min. Add spices at 5 min. 5 gal total. Aerate & pitch at 68F. 1 week is primary and secondary, prime with turbinado sugar and bottle.

This is a slight variation on my extract-and-steeping-grain recipe from 2 years ago which was a big, heavily-spiced hit. That one had 30 oz canned pumpkin but had a huge trub from the pumpkin sludge. It also had at least double the above spices, and used American ale yeast. I'm mashing the pumpkin and using rice hulls to try to prevent the pumpkin sludge from sticking up the straining. Any suggestions on improvements? Would 2 lbs pumpkin be better than 4? Thx.

Peter
:rockin:

 

[89OctaneStang]

Just curious, how's this going?? Have you done a taste test on it? How'd it turn out?

Sorry, but I'm new and only have two partial mash's under my belt. Could you elaberate a little more on what all you had to do with the pumpkin? Rice hulls?

Thanks!

 

[mr_clean]

Its gonna be too dark

 

[tdavisii]

Its gonna be too dark

What does too dark mean???? Brewing is like art...........and we are the artist there is no set rules. If you want a dark pumpkin beer then let him brew a dark pumkin beer. I would be more then happy to drink mr_cleans share

 

[eaglehoo]

I wound up nixing the chocolate malt and changing the crystal 80 to 60. The mash was so thick, I wound up adding my heated sparge water to the mash to make sure everything was actually mashing.

I bottled this last night. FG was 1.012, lower than I had planned, so final ABV is gonna wind up around 7.5%. It smelled good, but not quite as pumpkin-and-spicy than I expected. I didn't taste--I'm not in the habit of tasting warm flat beer. I'll let you know how it tastes after a month or so of conditioning.

 

[eaglehoo]

89OctaneStang, you wanted to know how this brew is going? It's 3 weeks in bottles, and is already damn good. Cracked a few this evening while showing my sister how to brew (I think she cared far mopre for the outcome than the process). Probably needs another few weeks to age for best taste, but it's looking good so far.

 

[89OctaneStang]

89OctaneStang, you wanted to know how this brew is going? It's 3 weeks in bottles, and is already damn good. Cracked a few this evening while showing my sister how to brew (I think she cared far mopre for the outcome than the process). Probably needs another few weeks to age for best taste, but it's looking good so far.

SWEET! I'm brewing this tomorrow! Was actually just looking around for some other recipe ideas and BAM! You replied. Perfect timing...



I'll be using your recipe as a guide. I'll post exactly what it was I did and the outcome so you can see maybe another variation of yours.

 

[89OctaneStang]

How much whole pumkin do you suggest I use for this?