Pumpkin Beer

[sictransit701]

I have read about many people adding real pumpkins to their beers and have seen a few videos on youtube. I would like to do a pumpkin beer this coming fall and want to be prepared. I know it's way early, but I like to plan ahead. I will be doing an extract brew with specialty grains. I haven't really settled on a recipe yet.

My main question is how do you filter out the pumpkin sediment after steeping with your specialty grains?

I bought butternut squash (because pumpkins are out of season) and decided to do an experiment. I wanted to make a tea and see if the butternut squash could be filtered through my strainer. Well, just as I suspected, the squash did not filter out and my tea had a lot of sediment. I would like to fix this problem before I do a beer. The tea tastes good though. I prepared it like I have read many people do with their pumpkin beers.

 

[YoKramer]

The extract kit I did had you boil 2 cans of pumpkin and then strain that. What I did with it was pour the pumpkin water through a strainer until it was caked with pumpkin and then rinsed the strainer and repeated until it was all in my boil kettle, added water and my steeped specialty grains to the 2.5ish gal mark and finished my brewday as normal.

 

[Indian_villager]

You could keep the chunks in a grainbag in the boil.

 

[vtpack]

I do a Pumpkin Pale Ale where I use real Pumpkin. Be it with fresh pumpkin or canned pumpkin I simply put it in a steeping bag with some specialty grains and then pull it out when done. I also run the beer through a filter once done to get any extra bits out. I have made it this was a couple of times and it has always turned out great.

 

[theck]

I just brewed one for a Fri 13th party... Did it in the mash so different than extract but I read that if you roast it in the oven the flavor comes out better, more pumpkin taste than squash. Not sure if its the same with extract or not. Mine is still in the bucket and won't keg till next month so don't know the results.

 

[sictransit701]

I have seen a video on youtube where a guy steeped his pumpkin in a grain bag and almost all the pumpkin leaked out from the grain bag.

 

[Nightshade]

I use canned unseasoned pumpkin (which is mostly butternut squash btw) directly in the mash and never had an issue with the actual pumpkin getting through to the final product except in flavor.

 

[GrogNerd]

i did an AG pumpkin barleywine (was supposed to be imperial, but it over-attenuated to 14.6% abv) where I roasted canned pumpkin (not the pumpkin mix) in the oven, put it in a nylon bag and heated it in my strike/sparge water.

no leaking pumpkin, got some fermentables and flavor out of it and a whole lot of orange color

been in bottles for 6 months now. now I'm thinking I should crack one open, see how it's doing

 

[theck]

I use canned unseasoned pumpkin (which is mostly butternut squash btw) directly in the mash and never had an issue with the actual pumpkin getting through to the final product except in flavor.

Man it's a sticky mess though and I had a bit of water in there in the end... had enough for a boil and expected it when I sparged too. Used 1# rice hulls, mixed with the pumpkin then mixed all that in a bucket with the grain.

 

[Nightshade]

Man it's a sticky mess though and I had a bit of water in there in the end... had enough for a boil and expected it when I sparged too. Used 1# rice hulls, mixed with the pumpkin then mixed all that in a bucket with the grain.

I used 16 of the 29oz cans (29lbs total) with a total of 200lbs of grain (3bbl commercial) and haven't had a stuck sparge in the 3 years I have made it and no hulls although when I drew it up I considered it.

I think maybe some of this may depend on size of transfer lines as well because if it gums up in the line during xfer it could be a pain but once it is at that point it shouldn't be an issue really...shouldn't being the key word here.

 

[Flipadelphia]

I have found that pumpkin spice beer tastes better than beer mashed with pumpkin meat.

 

[theck]

I have found that pumpkin spice beer tastes better than beer mashed with pumpkin meat.

Pumpkin spiced?

 

[Flipadelphia]

Pumpkin spiced?

This is local to me, and is fantastic.

http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/p-penzeyspumpkinpie.html

When I think of pumpkin pie I think of the spices and aroma, not pumpkin meat.

 

[Tangelo]

I've made a couple pumpkin beers. Each time I roasted a couple cans of pumpkin in the boil and added spices at kegging. I never strained the pumpkin I just tossed it all in the fermenter and let it settle out over time. There are several recipes on this site with great threads.


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