Pumpkin ale recipe

[MensBrewha]

I am looking for a good pumpkin ale recipe as I have never made one. Preferably one with a little spice and pumpkin but not overwhelming.
Thank you in advance

 

[Dgallo]

Are you looking to do a pale, amber, brown or porter? And do you want it to actually contain pumpkin or do you want it to be pumpkin spiced.

I personally prefer amber or porters as the base beer but it really depends on what you’re looking for

 

[MensBrewha]

Amber

 

[MensBrewha]

Are you looking to do a pale, amber, brown or porter? And do you want it to actually contain pumpkin or do you want it to be pumpkin spiced.

I personally prefer amber or porters as the base beer but it really depends on what you’re looking for

Amber, and I am not sure about the pumpkin vs spice. I am going to have to experiment with this

 

[Dgallo]

Here a good malty amber base beer with bready and caramel notes

9lb - Maris otter
3lb - Munich 20L
1lb - Carahell 10L
.75lb - Special Roast Malt 50L
.5lb - Special B malt 115L

Mash 152

bitter to 35-40 ibus of your not going for a sweet beer. 25-30 if you are. Use a spicy or floral German or English variety

yeast, I really like Denny’s Favorite

3 Lbs pie pumpkins roasted until soft, then peeled and diced to be roasted again with one table spoon of pumpkin pie spice evenly mixed on the pumpkin as it roasts. You will add this to your fermenter on day 3 of fermentation.

For the true “pumpkin” flavor, you will get that from more spices being added. I make a tincture

- 3 oz of captain Morgan or other spices rum you prefer
- 1 high quality vanilla bean scraped and diced
- 1 high quality cinnamon stick
- 1/4 table spoon of nutmeg
Place all in a jar making sure the rum covers all and let this sit for 2 weeks. Strain and add to the keg or bottling bucket at time of packing

 

[myndflyte]

Here's something amber-ish from BYO if you were looking for something higher in ABV.

Weyerbacher Brewing Co. Imperial Pumpkin Ale clone
(5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.080 FG = 1.019
IBU = 21 SRM = 13 ABV = 8%

Ingredients

7.6 lbs. (3.5 kg) Muntons pale ale malt (2.5 °L)
5.25 lbs. (2.4 kg) Weyermann Vienna malt (3.5 °L)
1.8 lbs. (0.8 kg) Weyermann Munich I malt (6 °L)
1.8 lbs. (0.8 kg) Weyermann CaraMunich® II (45 °L)
0.9 lbs. (0.4 kg) Weyermann CaraFoam® (2 °L)
6.3 AAU Apollo hop pellets (60 min.)
(0.35 oz./10 g at 18% alpha acids)
1.6 lbs. (0.7 kg) pumpkin puree (10 min.)
0.38 oz. (10.6 g) Vietnamese ground cinnamon (2 min.)
0.2 oz. (5.7 g) ground nutmeg (2 min.)
1 pinch ground cardamom (2 min.)
1 pinch ground clove (2 min.)
Wyeast 1272 (American Ale II) or White Labs WLP051 (California Ale V) or Lallemand Nottingham ale yeast
Priming sugar (if bottling)

Step by Step

Heat 5.5 gallons (20.5 L) of strike water to achieve a stable mash temperature of 144 °F (62 °C). Hold at this temperature until starch conversion is complete, which is at least 60 minutes. Check for complete conversion using an iodine test before beginning the sparge phase.

Collect 6 gallons (23 L) of wort in the kettle and boil for 60 minutes adding hops at the beginning of the boil. Weyerbacher uses a high alpha acid hop variety to keep vegetal matter to a minimum considering the amount of pumpkin to follow. They do not use any aroma additions and therefore just let the spices define the aroma. Add the spices with 2 minutes left in the boil. The pumpkin puree is added directly into the kettle to avoid the stuck mash issue. This means that the yield will be affected downstream as more beer will be lost at each transfer point. Weyerbacher reports that they lose a significant amount of wort in the fermenter. Be careful not to add too much of either the cardamom or the clove as they can easily overwhelm the beer.

After the boil, give the wort a stir for at least a minute and let the hot wort settle for 15 minutes total. Chill the wort to 68 °F (20 °C) and maintain this temperature during active fermentation. If you can, ramp the temperature up to 72 °F (22 °C) at the end of active fermentation to assure completion. Rack the beer to a keg and force carbonate, or rack to a bottling bucket, add priming sugar, and bottle.

 

[Bent-Brewer]

Check out the recipe section (specialty beers) - the thunderstruck and rumpkin recipes are pretty popular.
Having made the thunderstruck before, I wholeheartedly feel that adding actual pumpkin doesn't do much if anything for the flavor. It stuck the mash, caused a ton of trub, and huge losses post-ferment. It may have added a little mouthfeel, or maybe I'm trying to convince myself there was a positive side to adding it. Made it again last year with just the spices and it came out tasting completely fine.

 

[Pappers_]

Check out the recipe section (specialty beers) - the thunderstruck and rumpkin recipes are pretty popular.
Having made the thunderstruck before, I wholeheartedly feel that adding actual pumpkin doesn't do much if anything for the flavor. It stuck the mash, caused a ton of trub, and huge losses post-ferment. It may have added a little mouthfeel, or maybe I'm trying to convince myself there was a positive side to adding it. Made it again last year with just the spices and it came out tasting completely fine.

What @Bent-Brewer said. We've got a pretty good recipe database here at HBT. Its broken into Lager, Ale and Specialty, and then within each you can filter the results for specific styles, using the BJCP categories, so this would be an Autumnal Seasonal beer. Specialty, Fruit, Historical, Other Homebrew Recip

 

[BrewMan13]

Just throwing my recipe into the mix; I get requests/compliments every year (literally the only reason I still do it).
Color: 10.9 SRM
Bitterness: 21.6 IBUs
Est OG: 1.056
ABV: 5.3%
7 lbs Pale Malt, 2-Row
1 lbs Crystal Light - 45L
1 lbs Munich II
1 lbs Victory Malt
1.50 oz Willamette [3.7%] - Boil 60 min
0.50 tsp Cinnamon Powder (Boil 5 min)
0.50 tsp Nutmeg (Boil 5 min)
0.50 tsp allspice (Boil 5 min)
1.0 pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056)
With pumpkins and seeds treated as such:
Pumpkin chunks - 3 pie pumpkins worth - roasted 350F 45min - mash; Pumpkin seeds - roasted 300F 45min - 20min boil

 

[Jag75]

just be aware of how much flavor spices give you . I used toasted pumpkin puree in the mash......no rice hulls ........fumble!!
Then I used 1# of brown sugar in the last 5 min of the boil . .....fumble !!

This thing was dryer then an afghans thong man . I still have about 20 beers left ( made it last sept) since I've only found a few who like it.

MO and Munich definitely work well in the grain bill.

 

[IslandLizard]

My Imperial Pumpkin Ale took a year of conditioning in a keg at low room temps, to shed the abundance of spice, to where I really enjoyed it.
And I had restrained the spice already.

5x 15oz cans of toasted pumpkin puree in the mash, just getting brown peaks. My notes say to double that next time. And hold back on the little spice used.

 

[Dgallo]

My Imperial Pumpkin Ale took a year of conditioning in a keg at low room temps, to shed the abundance of spice, to where I really enjoyed it.
And I had restrained the spice already.

5x 15oz cans of toasted pumpkin puree in the mash, just getting brown peaks. My notes say to double that next time. And hold back on the little spice used.

Agreed. In my opinion, tinctures are the way to go with spices. Far more control. You can literally pour a few beers and with a measured dropper find the perfect balance and then scale it to the keg and add it then.

 

[IslandLizard]

Agreed. In my opinion, tinctures are the way to go with spices. Far more control. You can literally pour a few beers and with a measured dropper find the perfect balance and then scale it to the keg and add it then.

Absolutely!

Due to palate fatigue, I usually settle on using only half of what I deem perfect after tasting/grading. Or a tad less or more, when I come back to it later, or get a 2nd opinion.

Now most spices change character in the (late) boil, losing their top notes quickly. And somewhat less during an after boil hot or warm steep. This compared to (unheated) alcoholic tinctures, which seem to emphasize the higher, lighter notes. So there's that aspect too.

 

[MensBrewha]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I just have to work through what was offered and take a shot at it. Really appreciated

 

[myndflyte]

If you're looking for something different, I saw some post this pumpkin sour recipe. It's just a kettle sour so you don't even need separate sour only equipment.

Mash:
500g Munich II
3000g 2-row
2000g wheat malt
1 Hokkaido squash, seeds removed, roasted in the oven until soft and dark brown
Mash at 68°C

Sour with LAB culture of choice

Boil:
30 Min boil
Bramling cross 35IBU @ 30 min
Clove 14pcs
Allspice 18pcs
Cinnamon 3pcs

Ferment with us-05 @ 20°C