Autumn Seasonal Beer Punkin' Ale

[rloc]

Just started my mash on this now. Threw in 2 pounds of rice hulls just in case. Making 11 gallons. Recirculating the mash now and so far so good! I was worried about all of that pumpkin getting stuck in the mash...

 

[jacobmarley]

Awesome! My Punkin ale foamed like crazy as well

 

[FightingBob]

Something similar to this will be my next brew. I'm going add 4 oz of chocolate, use Wyeast 1272, and ferment on the cool side.

I love autumn and this will be ready just when the leaves are peaking.

 

[SkylerChaBro]

This thread has blown the eff up since I last visited. I ended up going with a recipe influenced by this and the Thunderstruck version. Played with Beersmith for a good while and brewed up a fresh batch that is now at the end of life within the better bottle.

I luckily had some McCormic's on hand so that is what I used, measured as per your recipe. The only problem we had was the OG falling short due to some sparging issues. We generally BIAB, but this time the LHBS lacked the bag! Next time I'll have to make sure I buy what I need well before the brew day.

Oh, and I let fermentation reach 72 for a solid 10+ hours. Slapped my own wrist for that one.

 

[Canadabrew]

Just brewed 10 gallons of this. Smells amazing.

Putting in fermenters now!!

 

[Canadabrew]

Ended up splitting my 10 gallons into 2 and pitched us-05 into one and us-04 into the other.

Will be interesting to see the difference.

 

[Blackhawkbrew]

Just mashed in! 20 quarts, mash now sitting a bit low at 152* but not worried. Had to stir a bit longer than thought because of the pumpkin clumps. Smells awesome! Second go around with this recipe. First one was fantastic. In fact, this was commissioned by my BiL. Ya have to like when people like your brew

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Just mashed in! 20 quarts, mash now sitting a bit low at 152* but not worried. Had to stir a bit longer than thought because of the pumpkin clumps. Smells awesome! Second go around with this recipe. First one was fantastic. In fact, this was commissioned by my BiL. Ya have to like when people like your brew

Music to my ears :rockin:

 

[icebrain]

Just crushed my grain for this one this afternoon, going to make it for the second time tomorrow morning. Hopefully I'll have better efficiency after crushing it myself this time. Will try to take pictures.

 

[Tizzomes]

I'll be doing the partial mash version and wanting to do a full boil for the first time. Should I mash in with the full amount if water?Also does 7 gallons seem like the right amout ( mash, boil, chill )

 

[Reno_eNVy]

I'll be doing the partial mash version and wanting to do a full boil for the first time. Should I mash in with the full amount if water?Also does 7 gallons seem like the right amout ( mash, boil, chill )

No you won't want to use all 24 qts of strike water. That amount is meant for 12# of grain and two cans of pumpkin. I've never done a partial mash before but what you're probably going to want to do is perform the partial mash with an appropriate volume of water, then top up to your boil volume in your kettle.

I can only really guess as to what your pre boil volume would be since I dont know your evaporation rate but usually between 6 and 7.5 gallons depending on your system and the relative humidity of where you live

 

[Tizzomes]

No you won't want to use all 24 qts of strike water. That amount is meant for 12# of grain and two cans of pumpkin. I've never done a partial mash before but what you're probably going to want to do is perform the partial mash with an appropriate volume of water, then to up to your boil volume in your kettle.

I can only really guess as to what your pre boil volume would be since I dont know your evaporation rate but usually between 6 and 7.5 gallons depending on your system and the relative humidity of where you live

That's kind of what I ment sorry, let me know if this sounds right.

2q of water per 1 pound of grain so total of about 2 1/2 gallons to mash with.Then I thought to get 4 gallons heating while the mash is taking place.Add the wort to the water along with my extract.

All this to achieve a full boil I'm hoping to end with 5 gallons.Does any of that make sense??
I'm not new to brewing but new to partial mash/ full boils/ all grain thanks for the advice.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

That sounds like a solid plan! 2.5 gallons mash then sparge with 1.0 - 1.5 gallons. That, plus the 4 gallons, will likely get you a proper pre-boil volume. You just need to make sure you account for absoption, both from the grain and pumpkin the mash.

 

[Tizzomes]

That sounds like a solid plan! 2.5 gallons mash then sparge with 1.0 - 1.5 gallons. That, plus the 4 gallons, will likely get you a proper pre-boil volume. You just need to make sure you account for absoption, both from the grain and pumpkin the mash.

Thanks buddy Cheers!!

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Any time. Good luck!

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Gravity reading and sample time! It's at 1.014 after 18 days so that's probably what I'm looking at for FG. Not bad.. not 1.018 like I wanted but can't complain. I'll probably start cold crashing once it's at the three week mark.

Pics to show off color, data and how well my new phone camera does macro

 

[ladybrewer]

Think we may be trying our hand at this recipe for our autumn brew! How goes it for everyone else?

 

[jacobmarley]

Clogged up my air lock so I switched to a blow off, took a few for the tube to clear but it finally did. Just racked it and added a few fresh cinnamon sticks.

 

[absoluthamm]

I wish I would have used my carboy so I could see the amazing color of this, I was just too lazy to sanitize it because I forgot to early on in the day =/. Next time with the real version of this for sure.

 

[FightingBob]

I have this fermenting in my plastic bucket now. Three hours after pitching, the airlock showed signs of fermentation. The airlock quit after 12 hours. I thought that I had a stuck fermentation, so I took a hydrometer reading and it dropped by 10. More importantly, it tasted great!

Curiosity got the best of me so I opened the lid and the krausen looked beautiful. It had just barely reached the very bottom of the airlock and clogged the tip. I happily closed it back up and now my basement smells wonderfully like pumpkin pie spices and fermenting beer.

Another RDWHAHB moment.

Man, I can't wait to drink this.

 

[dustinp]

Reno,
I use mash out; so right now Beersmith has me at 16.25 qts. of water for mash in and 9.10 qts. of water for mash out. Then 2 gallons of sparge. Would you suggest 24 qts of water at mash in and then keep the rest of the schedule? It seems like 2 extra gallons of water would be way too much for just the pumpkin absorption, but please let me know your thoughts! Thanks! Brew day will be Sunday for this wonderful brew!!

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Hmmmmm 6.33 gallons between strike and mash-out water will be fine, you'll probably end up getting around 1.5 - 2.0 gallons of absorption if you're using two big cans of pumpkin puree and rice hulls, so the 2 gallon sparge will result in you getting an appropriate pre-boil volume.

 

[FightingBob]

Wow! this brew created the most active fermentation out of any brew I've done so far. I just had to fashion an emergency blowoff tube.

 

[psusoccer21]

I read all 23 pages of this thread and did not see many reviews of the brew. Could a few people that brewed and drank this provide some feedback.

Thanks!

 

[Munchman]

Reno - just have to give you props for this recipe. It was my 4th all grain batch and I scaled it down to 3 gallons. Missed my OG by a few points, but not too bad. Into the secondary (needed my primary for the next brew) it didn't have any spice flavor (although it tasted very nice). So I dry spiced with just a touch more.

Bottled today and I gotta say it tastes wonderful! Nice hop up front and you get just enough spice on the back end. Very reminiscent of DFH Punkin which is my favorite of the style.

This is gonna be my best beer to date. Can't wait for it to carb. Thanks again for the recipe!

Munchman

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Thank you so much for the kind words. My favorite things about homebrewing are people drinking my beer and other brewers loving the recipe as much as I do!

A lot of people have mentioned a weak spice presence after fermentation. I am not experiencing this phenomenon, but that may have something to do with the fact that at my elevation water boils at 202.6°F

 

[overflow]

Reno,

Thanks for the great recipe! I brewed this today and can tell already by the hydrometer sample this is going to be a winner. I batch sparge, so if anyone is looking for numbers/procedure on that, this is how it worked out on my 5gal system (20gal cooler, 10gal Polarware kettle, Denny Conn style):

Soaked and rinsed 1.5lbs rice hulls
Baked 60oz organic pumpkin at 300F for 45minutes and let cool

I think putting together the grist the way I did was crucial to a smooth lauter. I mixed the drained rice hulls into the grist, then dumped that into the cooler. After the pumpkin cooled, I just scraped it off the pan so it sat on top of the grist. I think trying to stir at this point would create tough pumpkin dough balls - so I didn't stir it in until after adding the strike water.

Strike water - 5gals @ 171F for 60min
Sparge water - 4gals @ 185F for 10min

Collected 7gal wort for 60min boil

I followed your recipe for everything else, except I threw in a Whirlfloc tablet @15min and used Biscuit malt instead of Victory (same thing.) Final wort amount was 5.5 gallons.

OG was 1.060 (and sample was very clear - don't think I'll need a secondary)

Can't wait!!!

 

[psusoccer21]

So I added the recipe into beersmith from the first post and brewed it today. Unfortunately I forgot about the baking of pumpkin a few post below it. What should I expect from missing this step?

 

[Reno_eNVy]

So I added the recipe into beersmith from the first post and brewed it today. Unfortunately I forgot about the baking of pumpkin a few post below it. What should I expect from missing this step?

Not sure exactly, but I can speculate that probably will be missing some Maillard reaction flavors like caramelization and toastiness. Also I'm pretty sure that baking the pumpkin makes it so you can actual perceive it in the final product.

EDIT: Also, thank you for pointing out that the OP has no baking instructions. That has been fixed.

 

[dustinp]

Not sure exactly, but I can speculate that probably will be missing some Maillard reaction flavors like caramelization and toastiness. Also I'm pretty sure that baking the pumpkin makes it so you can actual perceive it in the final product.

EDIT: Also, thank you for pointing out that the OP has no baking instructions. That has been fixed.

My same exact question! Thanks for the answer in advance!! Our oven broke Friday (something electrical) and the warranty service guy will not be fixing it until Wednesday! This really put a question in my head to just throw the pumpkin in without baking it since my brew day is today! After thinking about it and also reading your answer I will have to break down and take a short trip to my Mother-in-laws for a pumpkin baking session!!

 

[RandalG]

I had the brew day from hell yesterday which was due to poor planning on my part I suppose. I attempted an 11 gallon batch in my 10 gallon igloo cooler for a Halloween party we have coming up. First off I missed my strike temp by 6 degrees and ended up mashing at 148 which will probably end up being much drier than I would have liked. There was no room left in the cooler to add hot water to bring the temp up. I suspect it may of had to do with the 4 cans of pumpkin I added being to cool and not knowing how to calculate that in my strike temp. I've never been that far off before using Beersmith strike water temps. If that wasn't bad enough I got a stuck sparge that ended up taking almost 6 hours to drain. I should have used more rice hulls than I did. And the mash temp being that low probably didn't help either. My next big purchase will be a heatable mash tun which would have helped a lot in this situation. Aside from that I hit my OG and the sample tasted good so I'm hoping it will turn out ok anyway although probably a bit thinner than I would have liked.I'm hoping the pumpkin and spices may help with that. Another lesson learned and I'll keep you guys posted how it turns out.

 

[FalkyBrew]

Love the pic!

 

[baron]

I had the brew day from hell yesterday which was due to poor planning on my part I suppose. I attempted an 11 gallon batch in my 10 gallon igloo cooler for a Halloween party we have coming up. First off I missed my strike temp by 6 degrees and ended up mashing at 148 which will probably end up being much drier than I would have liked. There was no room left in the cooler to add hot water to bring the temp up. I suspect it may of had to do with the 4 cans of pumpkin I added being to cool and no knowing how to calculate that in my strike temp. I've never been that far off before using Beersmith strike water temps. If that wasn't bad enough I got a stuck sparge that ended up taking almost 6 hours to drain. I should have used more rice hulls than I did I guess. My next big purchase will be a heatable mash tun which would have helped a lot in this situation. Aside from that I hit my OG and the sample tasted good so I'm hoping it will turn out ok anyway although probably a bit thinner than I would have liked. Another lesson learned and I'll keep you guys posted how it turns out.

I had the same kind if day yesterday.
I was also brewing a pumpkin ale-- my initial strike temp was 142. I was able to heat up and add additional water to get it up to 152. Took a little while though.

Also had a stuck sparge-- first time it has happened since brewing. That took awhile also.

Hoping it turns out good.
The fermentation is very vigorous -- that is a good sign.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Excellent pic. When I first saw it I definitely yelled, "GOO!"

Sorry to hear about your problems. Pumpkin is one of those things that you just have to figure out how it works on your specific system. I hope it turns out alright, albeit dry. If it seems to be thin and flat-tasting come bottling/kegging time you could always try to make a spice tincture and add that to give it some more flavor.

 

[RandalG]

^ Last year when I made it I didn't have a stuck sparge so I'm guessing it was probably the low mash temp that was the main culprit. The sample was really spicy so if that doesn't subside much I'm hoping I'll be ok. I keg so I can always lower the co2 level as well to see if that helps. After thinking about it I may have benefited by switching yeast strains to a less attenuating yeast too.

 

[Tizzomes]

Ok, so I brewed this today ( my first partial mash ) everything went well with the exception of crying babies, barking dogs and inlaws deciding to stop by.

My only issue is I used 1p of yeast instead of 2.Should I repitch tomorrow or leave it be?

 

[Leeds1]

Wonder what this beer would be like if you added a pound of Graham crackers or flaked oats to the mash......

 

[rloc]

After 6 days fermentation is still going crazy on mine. I can't wait to try this after I get back from vacation.

 

[Canadabrew]

Ok so just wondered if anyone had a similar experience to me.

I did a 10 gallon batch and split it in half, half with S-04 & the other with S-05.

My OG was 1.056 and my current SG is 1.014 & 1.019 respectively. Are these ranges ok or are they totally off?

The other thing and probably biggest noticeable thing is the aroma, both batches smell and taste of bananas and mango and both are pretty sweet.
I'm only a week into my primary so maybe it's a bit early but just wanted to see if anyone had any similar feedback.

Thanks

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Fruity esters? Hmm... what temperature did you keep them at? Also, I'm surprised the S-04 attenuated more than the US-05.