Pumpkin Spice boil time?

[uberlad]

Hey all,

I finished brewing my annual pumpkin ale last week - definitely one of my favorites. I was just reviewing some of the other Pumpkin Ale recipes on here however, and noticed most people put their pumpkin spices in at 3-5 mins before the end of boil.

I put mine in at the very beginning of the 60 min boil. My question is what will be the difference in flavor between a 60 min addition of pumpkin pie spices and a 5 min addition?

I imagine one adds more aroma, while the other adds more flavor -- similar to hops -- but I don't know if that's the case with spices.

Any help would be appreciated! Maybe I'll do another batch with 5 min additions instead just to compare.

 

[zachattack]

If you boiled the spices for an hour, chances are you boiled away a lot of the flavor since most of the flavor/aroma compounds in spices are somewhat volatile. If you had a lot of clove in the spice mix, you can actually extract some unpleasant things: clove oil has a numbing effect, and in fact has been used as an anesthetic. I've added too many cloves to a pot of mulled cider and accidentally let it boil, it numbed my mouth and tasted somewhat medicinal. I think most people put them in at flameout or even later (bottling bucket). I'd say to give your beer a taste and then you'll know! You can always make up a "spice tea" with vodka and add it to the bottling bucket.

 

[TopherM]

I always put the spices in as a 5 minute addition.

 

[uberlad]

If you boiled the spices for an hour, chances are you boiled away a lot of the flavor since most of the flavor/aroma compounds in spices are somewhat volatile. If you had a lot of clove in the spice mix, you can actually extract some unpleasant things: clove oil has a numbing effect, and in fact has been used as an anesthetic. I've added too many cloves to a pot of mulled cider and accidentally let it boil, it numbed my mouth and tasted somewhat medicinal. I think most people put them in at flameout or even later (bottling bucket). I'd say to give your beer a taste and then you'll know! You can always make up a "spice tea" with vodka and add it to the bottling bucket.

Very interesting. I might do another batch and do the 5min additions of spices, then compare them. Science!