Autumn Seasonal Beer Punkin' Ale

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Would it make a difference to put the pumpkin on top? Maybe that would help it drain quicker?
 
I made the partial mash version of this recipe yesterday (my first partial mash!). It already tastes awesome. I can't wait for the yeasties to do their job so I get this bad boy on the keg. Thanks for the recipe and all the help, Reno.
 
Gonna do this for a Labor Day brew session.
Has anyone ever taken the canned pumpkin puree and tossed it in a blender to really thin it out? I was thinking about filling half the blender with pumpkin, half with water and cranking the blender until you got a thin "pumpkin water."
Doing that for all 60oz of pumpkin and then adding the resulting "pumpkin water" to the strike water for the mash.

Comments? Is this a dumb idea?

I know everyone is saying to cook the pumpkin but doesn't that happen during the puree and canning process?

Just thinking out loud here....would the pumpkin eventually just bind back up and get thick again?
 
Would it make a difference to put the pumpkin on top? Maybe that would help it drain quicker?
The heat of the oven and mash will gelatinize the pumpkin starch and so once you mix it in it will evenly disperse. :)

Gonna do this for a Labor Day brew session.
Has anyone ever taken the canned pumpkin puree and tossed it in a blender to really thin it out? I was thinking about filling half the blender with pumpkin, half with water and cranking the blender until you got a thin "pumpkin water."
Doing that for all 60oz of pumpkin and then adding the resulting "pumpkin water" to the strike water for the mash.

Comments? Is this a dumb idea?

I know everyone is saying to cook the pumpkin but doesn't that happen during the puree and canning process?

Just thinking out loud here....would the pumpkin eventually just bind back up and get thick again?
In response to the bolded statement: yes. When you drain the water some will be lost by the pumpkin by connective forces exhibited by water/water-like-solutions. Then it's all beta-glucans, proteins and general gunky crap.

Baking caramelizes and gelatinizes, thus thining it out. :mug:
 
Great post Reno, glad to see it alive for a couple years.

Looking to convert this over to a scottish-style version. A little higher gravity, special-b and a scot ale yeast. What do you think that would do to your recipe's flavor profile?
 
Great post Reno, glad to see it alive for a couple years.

Looking to convert this over to a scottish-style version. A little higher gravity, special-b and a scot ale yeast. What do you think that would do to your recipe's flavor profile?
Probably some currant/raisin notes from the Special B and more malt from the high gravity + yeast.

Made my starter for this tonight, getting excited for brew day.
Awesome! :mug: Are you just waiting for your order to come in?
 
Just bottled this tonight. I added the 1.5 tbsp of pumkin pie spice during the last 15 mins of the boil. The spice was hardly noticeable at bottling tonight so I added .5 tbsp to the bottling bucket. I hope it doesn't overpower this brew but so far so good. Looking forward to this one in a few weeks. :drunk:
 
Awesome! :mug: Are you just waiting for your order to come in?

Nah, the grains came in last week, but I haven't had any free time. I'm actually going to be brewing it on Monday, but since I'll be gone from tonight until Sunday night, figured now would be the better time to make the starter and just keep it a little cooler.
 
Getting ready to brew this on Monday. Last batch was good. Not as much pumpkin flavor as I thought it would have but a brew that "floated" in short order. Going to do 10gal this time to keep it around longer. It was one boozy beer if I remember correctly. I had some missteps along the way so hoping I can get this one closer to the design. Will def use -05 on this one. More to come. Will post mid brew pics if there is an interest. Cheers!
 
Oh that's because it was calculated using a certain starting temperature of my grain. I was able to set it then, but now for the live of me I can't figure out how to change it again. The strike temperature for less mash liquor is going to be higher anyway, considering you're using less of it to heat up the same amount of grain.

But personally, I'm going to step up to 24qts this time around away. I'm using a bigger cooler and need to fill more head-space.... that and the pumpkin absorbs a lot. BeerSmith shows me "24.00qt at 161.5*F (154*F step temp.) Mash thickness of 2.0 qt/lb... this of course is not including the pumpkin.

Reno,
Looks like a great recipe and very similar to another I found for a clone of the DFH Punkin Ale! Very excited to get this going and just ordered the bill! My only question is: have you figured out about how much extra water you would use for sparge with the extra absorption of pumpkin in the mash?
Thanks for the great recipe and will try to write back after all said and done!
 
Reno,
Looks like a great recipe and very similar to another I found for a clone of the DFH Punkin Ale! Very excited to get this going and just ordered the bill! My only question is: have you figured out about how much extra water you would use for sparge with the extra absorption of pumpkin in the mash?
Thanks for the great recipe and will try to write back after all said and done!

One more question for everyone: I do not have a fermentation chamber/cooler so it is hard for me to get the primary temp down to low 60's. I was going to try Wyeast American Ale, but then thought maybe White Labs California Ale may be better and more clean since I will be fermenting around 68-70 degrees. Any thoughts/input on this?
 
Getting ready to brew this on Monday. Last batch was good. Not as much pumpkin flavor as I thought it would have but a brew that "floated" in short order. Going to do 10gal this time to keep it around longer. It was one boozy beer if I remember correctly. I had some missteps along the way so hoping I can get this one closer to the design. Will def use -05 on this one. More to come. Will post mid brew pics if there is an interest. Cheers!
There is always an interest for brew photos :mug:

Reno,
Looks like a great recipe and very similar to another I found for a clone of the DFH Punkin Ale! Very excited to get this going and just ordered the bill! My only question is: have you figured out about how much extra water you would use for sparge with the extra absorption of pumpkin in the mash?
Thanks for the great recipe and will try to write back after all said and done!
Actually the 24 quarts of strike water is what I eventually figured out works on my system with the two big cans (totaling ~60oz) of pumpkin. YMMV

One more question for everyone: I do not have a fermentation chamber/cooler so it is hard for me to get the primary temp down to low 60's. I was going to try Wyeast American Ale, but then thought maybe White Labs California Ale may be better and more clean since I will be fermenting around 68-70 degrees. Any thoughts/input on this?
I'd say go for the California. It can handle higher temps without throwing off too many esters/phenols. Just do everything in your power to keep the temperature constant. That is the key to temperature control. Make a water-bath for it or search for "swamp cooler" on the HBT search bar.
 
The punkin is in the oven!

Just an idea? What would happen if I put some of the spices in the mash? I should be mashing in about an hour or so.

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Well you'd probably drive off a lot of the aroma and flavor from a full 60 minute boil as opposed to adding the spice at the end of the boil.

Pumpkin looks great though!
 
Brewed this today. Beer smith had the estimated O.G. at about 1.080... my actual hit 1.082. This stuff should be POWERFUL. Smelled great and had beautiful color. Pretty cloudy stuff. Hoping it will settle and clear some. This one may benefit from some gelatin. Thanks for the recipe!
 
Finally got around to brewing this today. OG of 1.070.

Very smooth brew day, and the sample tasted great. Best part was my garage smelling like a pumpkin pie.
 
Here are some pics.

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Mash

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Run off

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Adding the spice

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1.062 @ 84* so I figure OG 1.065

It's smells great!
 
absoluthamm said:
Mashing at the moment, for some reason I can't get my mash temp high enough. Keep on having to add hot water.

Odd. Had that been a problem before?

What temp was the pumpkin when you added it?
 
No, I think I narrowed it down to a bad thermometer though because adding hot water wasn't raising the temp. Although the domino effect happened and adding that water screwed me up later. After I drained the first wort and added the sparge, I started to drain the sparge into the same pot(usually I don't do this, but I was in the kitchen mashing today instead of outside where the propane is) but walked away and came back and it was filled to the brim, like 7.5 gallons(all because of the extra water added during mash and unaccounted for...), and I had nowhere near the amount of time needed to boil down to 5 gallons, so I went ahead as normal and my beer just won't have the nice alcohol content. My OG was ~1.047. Still smells amazing and the wort tastes good, it just won't have the alcohol =/

If it sucks because of the mistake, then I'll still have plenty of time to brew another batch before fall
 
Decent results but crazy day.

Did a 10gal batch so I could keep it around a day or two this time. ;)

I baked the punkin for an hour at 350 but did not get the carmelization I was hoping for. Wife needed the oven or I would have hit it with a broil for a bit.
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I made a change to the recipe but a minor one.

Instead of the 2lb of brown sugar (10gal) I used piloncillo for 3/4 of my total and then used another 8oz of light brown sugar to complete it...not sure how that will impact it. If you are not familiar with this is it a mexican sugar that is unprocessed and hard as a rock. It has a very "molasses" flavor...if you try and use this be careful tossing it in the pot. It takes a while to melt and I suspect easy to scorch.

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I used an lb of rice hulls and it was not near enough. I have never had a stuck sparge in all my years of brewing and have even done this beer 1once prior but man what a day. No matter what I tried I could not get more than a trickle...took like 3+ hours to do a batch sparge...good thing it was a beautiful day!

All in all I only managed to get .060 out of it but it is quite tasty...going to start fermentation at 63 for a couple days then bring it up a little...looking forward to the 05 vs the 04 yeast I did last time. I am disappointed with the 060 but honestly after this session I am just happy to have a beer going...I am expecting it to be a little tepid in taste but who knows.

...more to come.

In any case...9.5 gal are in the tank.
 
absoluthamm: Bummer. But I'm sure it'll taste fine. It's just a session version you made for the end of the summer while it's still warm. So now you can brew the stronger one for the chilly months ahead ;)

robrob: If the piloncillo has a strong molasses flavor it should work just fine.
 
I brewed this as my first "not straight out of a kit" effort, and I've got to thank you all for the good info and insights (I think it went pretty well). I'm still a few weeks away from bottling, but what do you guys recommend in terms of priming/bottling for this pumpkiny goodness? I've used maple syrup and honey in the past, but thought I'd ping the pros to see what works well and makes sense for this brew.
 
I made a 5 gallon batch of this last night. Considering last time I made a pumpkin beer it was awful I figured I'd follow someone else's recipe. Only changes I made where to compensate for what I had on hand. Ended up using Maris Otter instead of the pale, and used S-04 for the yeast.

Tis morning i had to replace the airlock with a blow off tube. I saw foam coming out of it so I went to grab and sanitize a blow of tube, I came back just in time to watch it erupt and the airlock get shot a couple feet away. The foam smelled like pie. Can't wait for this one to be ready!

Thanks for sharing the recipe!
 
Gduck said:
I came back just in time to watch it erupt and the airlock get shot a couple feet away. The foam smelled like pie. Can't wait for this one to be ready!

Thanks for sharing the recipe!

That's awesome!!!
 
I'm brewing the partial mash recipe on Saturday and had a question. This would be my first pumpkin ale attempt and thought to add the pumpkin to the mash rather then the boil any thoughts? ?? Would I still get the full effect? ?
 
I'm brewing the partial mash recipe on Saturday and had a question. This would be my first pumpkin ale attempt and thought to add the pumpkin to the mash rather then the boil any thoughts? ?? Would I still get the full effect? ?

I added mine to the mash. When I tried a different recipe in the past I added it in the boil and it was a big mess (put it in paint strainer bags but a lot of sediment still got out). So I decided that this time I'd put it in the mash. If you do use rice hulls. Seriously. Even with a pound of rice hulls the run off from my MLT was the slowest I ever had, though fortunately it never got stuck.

As for getting the full effect, pumpkin doesn't have a huge amount of flavor to begin with so I'm not sure flavor wise doing it either way would make much of a difference. A lot of the flavor should come from the spices. Color wise it made my wort a nice orange hazy color.

Sadly I have to wait a few weeks to see how it tastes.
 
Thanks for the recipe! I brewed this for the first time last week. As it sits in the primary, I'm curious about how long others have left theirs in the primary and whether or not they used a secondary. Did you follow the recipe or did you shorten/lengthen the # of days? Let me know what kind of results you had.
 
well, 2 weeks after brewing i had to move, old roomies said i could keep it there as long as i needed (mini fridge for a ferm fridge) and that was about a month or so ago.... and i prolly wont be able to get to it for another 2-3 weeks, so it'll be about 2 months in the primary haha
 
My plan is 4 weeks in primary and then 4 weeks in bottles. Though that means I have to scour the basement to find where I out all those swing top bottles from back before i got my kegging system.
 
Wow, I just checked my FG and I am at 1.004. Not sure what happened. Doesn't seem like infection, beer tastes great, is just dry. I have a feeling I might have underpitched. I also doubled checked both my hydrometers.

I just pulled another sample, to double check and it is at 1.004. I have never tasted an infection, but its hard to tell with all the spices -- it has a slight sourness, but I don't know if that is the spices. I have never had a pumpkin beer in the first place, I brewed this for the wife. I used 001, so I calculated out almost a 94% attenuation. I don't believe it. I am gonna keg it and chill it and see what happens.
 
For those that have done this recipe, what do you think about using WLP051 (Cali V) or WLP090 (San Diego Super Yeast)? I have these 2 on hand. Was planning a Citra Pale Ale with one, and I'm thinking about using the other on this beer. Possibly both beers in the same day for a monster brew day. Which might be suitable for this brew?

Or what about using a saison yeast (Wyeast 3725 - Biere de Garde yeast)? I have some washed yeast that I might not end up using, but could it be good here? I got some tartness from it for my saison and biere de garde, and it finished pretty dry. Would it throw this punkin ale off the mark?

Thanks for any input.
 
This is what happens when you pitch a 2L starter into 6 gal of wort in a 6.5 gal bucket and then forget where your blowoff hose is. It is the stickiest runoff I've ever witnessed

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SO MANY CONTRIBUTORS!! It makes me oh so happy to see this many people experiment with and enjoy my favorite recipe! ^_^

absoluthamm: Fantastic photos! Hope the clean-up isn't a pain. And yeah, I could have told you that was a bad idea ;)


imtrashed: Cali V sounds like it should work. Biere de Garde sounds interesting, I might try it on this recipe if the gravity was boosted and spiced more (i.e. more clove, some licorice root, juniper, etc)


trent: 1.004 is a bit low... did you hold your mash temperatures the entire time? And the spices don't make it sour... there might be a slight infection. But whatever, as long as it tastes good it doesn't matter :mug: The sourness will also likely clear up a bit as you let it sit in the keg. As always, the last pint is the best one!


Gduck: 4 week primary and 4 week bottle conditioning sounds perfect!


Rivenin: 2 month primary? Nice. Just be prepared for the clearest, cleanest brew you've ever had. What temperature is it at? Is the temperature constant?


federaleigh: I typically do a 4-6 week primary, no secondary. Then it's straight to the keg. The original numbers are my old techniques and I don't think I can change them. However, 21 days primary and then 3 days secondary will yield good results as well. Also, it should be noted that the 3 day secondary really means I kegged it and left the keg out at room temperature for 3 days before putting it in the kegerator and hitting it with CO2.
 
Rivenin: 2 month primary? Nice. Just be prepared for the clearest, cleanest brew you've ever had. What temperature is it at? Is the temperature constant?

Was between 65-70 on safale 05 for about a month, then about a week ago i dropped it off to 45 to let everything crash, i'm really wanting to sample this, but i haven't the time during a remodel as well :(
 
trent: 1.004 is a bit low... did you hold your mash temperatures the entire time? And the spices don't make it sour... there might be a slight infection. But whatever, as long as it tastes good it doesn't matter :mug: The sourness will also likely clear up a bit as you let it sit in the keg. As always, the last pint is the best one!

Since I am HERMS I hold my mash temp perfect -- 154 the entire time. I had about 85% efficency, I wonder if I was just too efficent? I am going to rebrew and try 04 this time, and probably mash higher. 158?

T
 
Wow it's foaming like a mofo! Its been a day since i looked at it. When I made it to the cellar all i see is foam coming up into the airlock. So I just had to make an impromptu blow off valve.

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