Pumpkin beer burning - how to mash and not burn?

[solidhadriel]

Hey all. I've ran into an issue that I've not yet encountered in my electric brewing history.

Background info:

I've been brewing electric for about a year now. I have a 5500W ULWD element in my 15 gal kettle. I've only scorched 2 batches and those were by negligence (not cleaning the element after brewing, and wort buildup burning.)

Here's my problem:

I tried to brew pumpkin beer on saturday, and it seems the pumpkin (after mashing) gelatinizes around the element, and burns during the boil. Has anyone encountered this? Or have any other electric brewers successfully brewed a pumpkin ale without scorching (and any tips?) I really want to brew one, and this is driving me nuts.

 

[dmcman73]

Are you adding the pumpkin to the mash or boil kettle? What I've done is place all of the pumpkin into a bunch of muslin bags and hung them in the kettle and I've never had a scorching issue. Every now and then I would press a metal mixing spook against the muslin bag during the boil to get the juices flowing, I've always had good results with a nice pumpkin flavor.

This year I am going to add pumpkin to my mash instead and see how that goes.

 

[solidhadriel]

Are you adding the pumpkin to the mash or boil kettle? What I've done is place all of the pumpkin into a bunch of muslin bags and hung them in the kettle and I've never had a scorching issue. Every now and then I would press a metal mixing spook against the muslin bag during the boil to get the juices flowing, I've always had good results with a nice pumpkin flavor.

This year I am going to add pumpkin to my mash instead and see how that goes.

It was during the mash. I'm afraid to try again with the same results. Its not a cheap recipe I'm brewing lol

And to clarify, the scorching happens during boil, not during the mash.

But I may go with attempt #2, and just baby the boil (turn down the power to my element), keep my chugger on, and stir like crazy...

 

[solidhadriel]

It turned into a 4.5 hour brew day after work yesterday trying to avoid scorching. I mashed 2lbs of pumpkin with 12lbs of grains. Set my temp to 212*F, and reduced power to my element. Took about 30 minutes or so to get to a boil while stirring like a mad man and having my chugger pump running until boil. Once I hit boil, I reduced power further to maintain a soft rolling boil and boiled for a little over an hour until I hit my target boil size. After pumping into primary, I inspected the element and no scorched pumpkin! So happy!