Pumpkin ale fail

[nittanybevo]

Last night I brewed up some pumpkin ale. 7lbs of DME eventually overwhelmed my pot and went all over my stove. Besides the obvious sticky mess will this cause any other problems? I noticed my OG was a little lower than I expected (1.040 rather than 1.069). But, it tasted great, and had a beautiful color. I pitched my yeast and hoped for the best.

How can I control foaming during the boil? I hope to go to all grain soon and this seems to be a DME problem.

How will a boil over affect my end product?

I've read the primary vs secondary arguments before. Since this had a lot of sediment from the pumpkin (I used canned and the wort was thicker than normal), would sitting in a secondary be helpful to help clear it? I don't plan on dry hopping or adding any additional flavors.

 

[mjperry24]

Last night I brewed up some pumpkin ale. 7lbs of DME eventually overwhelmed my pot and went all over my stove. Besides the obvious sticky mess will this cause any other problems? I noticed my OG was a little lower than I expected (1.040 rather than 1.069). But, it tasted great, and had a beautiful color. I pitched my yeast and hoped for the best.

How can I control foaming during the boil? I hope to go to all grain soon and this seems to be a DME problem.

How will a boil over affect my end product?

I've read the primary vs secondary arguments before. Since this had a lot of sediment from the pumpkin (I used canned and the wort was thicker than normal), would sitting in a secondary be helpful to help clear it? I don't plan on dry hopping or adding any additional flavors.

Someone else on the forum gave me this tip -- use a spray bottle (water) to push back the foam/boil over.

Not sure how a boil over will affect your product, depends how much was lost, I guess. I'm too new to answer that, but i'm sure someone can chime in.

I'm going to put my pumpkin ale in secondary tomorrow just to be safe. I had very little sediment/trub left over when I racked to Primary, but it won't hurt the clarity factor... Plus it opens up my primary for my next brew!

Good luck... In spite of your being a Nitter..

 

[kingmatt]

Fermcap is your friend.

Did you add extra water to compensate for the wort lost from the boilover? If so, that is likely the reason your gravity reading came in lower than what you were expecting. Your beer will likely beer thinner than you were anticipating but it will still be good.

Boil-overs happen to extract and all-grain brewers alike. Your options are to get a bigger pot, carefully monitor and adjust heat/spray with water as needed, and/or use Fermcap (my choice by far).

As far as transferring to a secondary, I only do this when I am adding something to the beer post fermentation (dry hopping, adding fruit etc). If you aren't adding anything then just let it sit in primary for an extra week or two and you will get similar clarifying results as you would from transferring to secondary and you run less of a risk in contamination.

I brewed up an imperial pumpkin spiced ale a few weeks back and will be transferring it to my secondary this weekend on top of a whole vanilla bean that I have been soaking in vodka.

 

[nittanybevo]

@mjperry - I work at Pitt. Oakland is just too much of a mess - State College is out in the country.

I am looking at getting a bigger pot - prob a 32 qt tamale pot. I definitely lost quite a bit. The boil over seemed to stick and carmalize on the burner of my stove. Hopefully it can be saved. I also used a vial of WLP001 (no starter) - hopefully if it blows, it will wait until I get home.

 

[stratslinger]

Fermcap is your friend.

Kingmatt is a wise man.

Seriously, using my 7 gallon pot and turkey fryer, I had minor boil overs on my first few attempts at a full, or nearly full, boil. I picked up some Fermcap-S, based on a suggestion here at HBT, and have not had a repeat performance since I started using it correctly. Just make sure that, if you're using steeping grains, you add the Fermcap AFTER removing the steeping grains (first Fermcap attempt fail for me!).

Using Fermcap, I'm regularly able to boil 6+ gallons in my 7 gallon pot without boil overs. You still need to watch your heat levels and try not to overdo it once you start boiling, but it definitely requires a lot less babysitting.

 

[nittanybevo]

When I started, I was in a 3 gal pot and only boiled 1.5 gal of water for my steeping grains. I never thought adding 7lbs of DME would foam so much. Once I dumped it from the little pot to the turkey fryer, the foaming quit all together. I transferred back to the 3 gal pot to chill and then it was thick and syrupy. I did add water to the bucket, but I always do that to top off and try to hit the mark. I guess I just added too much. I'll just have a lower ABV and less body, right?

 

[govain]

Someone else on the forum gave me this tip -- use a spray bottle (water) to push back the foam/boil over.

Awesome. Didn't even think of that. At any rate, your beer is just likely to be thinner and less potent than originally intended. I'd be more worried about that carmelized mess you've gotta clean up.

In the great Secondary vs. Extended Primary debate... after a couple bad experiences with extended primaries (mostly with wheat beers) I tend to lean more toward the Secondary. With good sanitation (StarSan is my friend) I have never had a problem with contamination. And with a busy schedule, once it's in the secondary I don't worry if it has to sit for an extra bit before kegging or bottling as it's not sitting on the yeast cake.

Edit: The secondary is really only if I don't have a clean keg or time to bottle, or if it's not quite ready yet but it's done fermenting.

 

[ChandlerBang]

Adding water to the bucket seems to be a common way to get a false OG reading, wort being heavier than water and all that. Maybe you lost a little in the boil over and where off a little on the hydrometer reading too. Sounds like you still made beer!

 

[nittanybevo]

Update - the stove cleaned up perfectly. My kitchen is no longer carmalized malt!

But reading more threads - I guess I shoudl have cooked the pumpkin??! I hope this dosn't cause a problem...I just dumped it in right from the can.

 

[Tizzomes]

You could also try adding some DME at knockout.Say the recipe calls for 7lbs, add 4lbs in the beginning and the 3lbs at flame out.With a smaller pot this really helps control any potential boil overs.May take a little longer getting that candy like substance broken down but RDWHAHB!

 

[Germelli1]

ALWAYS remove the pot from the stove when adding extract. It keeps the DME from foaming immediately, plus it keeps it from scorching!