Autumn Seasonal Beer Punkin' Ale

[Faseel]

Ok, followed the recipe to the T, hit 1.67 and its bubbling away.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

reno.. i am prob going to brew this on Sat. I'm in So. Meadows...want to come by and have some brews? If not, no worries..

Oh thank you very much for the offer but I'll be in Disneyland at that time :rockin:

 

[Medevac_Chief]

It's just the yeasties having their way with the sugars. A krausen from one beer to the next can look completely different; even if it's the same recipe.

Thanks, I came home from work and took a look at it, and it has mellowed out, but the krausen is still larger than life. I cant wait to try this beer!

 

[nyer]

I did a week in primary, a week in secondary and it's been in the keg on gas now for only 4 days. I wanted to have it ready for a halloween party this saturday. I tried it today and figured it wouldn't be ready yet but man was I wrong. This is the best pumpkin beer I have ever had and I try every one I can find. I spent the day working around the house and I filled my glass every time I walked by the tap. I wish I made 10 gallons.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

I did a week in primary, a week in secondary and it's been in the keg on gas now for only 4 days. I wanted to have it ready for a halloween party this saturday. I tried it today and figured it wouldn't be ready yet but man was I wrong. This is the best pumpkin beer I have ever had and I try every one I can find. I spent the day working around the house and I filled my glass every time I walked by the tap. I wish I made 10 gallons.

This is such an amazing compliment. Thank you so much.

 

[nyer]

This is such an amazing compliment. Thank you so much.

I have to take it back a little, I loved southern teirs pumking 2 years ago. That one might have been a little better than this but not by much. I wonder if it will get better after it ages a little? I won't find out because it won't last past Saturday's party. Hell, it might not make it to Saturdays party. Great job on the recipe, I looked at all of the pumpkin recipe's on here and decided on your's and I'm glad I did. I will be making this again but next time it will be a double batch

 

[KCBigDog]

I'm in North Carolina on business and just picked some DFH Punkin so I'll have a frame of reference when I try my batch.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

I have to take it back a little, I loved southern teirs pumking 2 years ago. That one might have been a little better than this but not by much. I wonder if it will get better after it ages a little? I won't find out because it won't last past Saturday's party. Hell, it might not make it to Saturdays party. Great job on the recipe, I looked at all of the pumpkin recipe's on here and decided on your's and I'm glad I did. I will be making this again but next time it will be a double batch

Still an awesome thing to hear.

And it's great after it has enough time to carb.... but give it a month or two in the keg and it becomes stellar (IMHO)

 

[Reno_eNVy]

I'm in North Carolina on business and just picked some DFH Punkin so I'll have a frame of reference when I try my batch.

That's how I roll, too. Luckily Reno has a pretty decent craft beer scene so punkin is easy to find

 

[Tizzomes]

I opened my first bottle last night and was a bit confused.I brewed the partial mash virson, full boil, and also used a temperature control fir the first time.( set at 64 )

It's been in the bottle for 2 half weeks now. My wife and I noticed a cider flavor to it more then anything. You get the spice at the end but its seems to taste more like a cider spice ale.If that makes any sense.This was my first pumpkin ale attempt so is that normal? Would letting it age a bit more change the flavor profile? ?

 

[Brewskii]

If you can tell, see how old the extract you were using was. I have heard that old extract can contribute to "cidery" notes.
The spice blend as written should be very close to commercial versions like DFH Punkin. If it doesn't taste
Like that then I would start looking for what went wrong.

 

[Tizzomes]

If you can tell, see how old the extract you were using was. I have heard that old extract can contribute to "cidery" notes.
The spice blend as written should be very close to commercial versions like DFH Punkin. If it doesn't taste
Like that then I would start looking for what went wrong.[/Q


I got the extract from Northern Brewer.It was also there brand I'm kind of at a lose.Thinking back to brew day everything went smooth.At bottling I tried a sample and it tasted awesome. The bottles were ran through my dishwasher, no soap, sanitize cycle high heat.
Hoping for the best here time will tell.

 

[Clearwall]

Brewed this up last week. I made a few mistakes and as im still new to AG(this is attempt #2), i didnt quite reach the target OG. I hit 1.063 so i hope itll still drop down to 1.017 FG.

Also, i added 2 tbs of spice instead of 1.5 because it smelled delicious and i wanted more of that flavor to come out. I also didnt realize the pumpkin was supposed to be in the MASH and I added it to the boil. Any ideas how this might change things?

In any case, the color turned out gorgeous, it reminded me of UT's colors when i saw it in the carboy. It's been settling for almost a week now, so it's not so bright orange but still looks beautiful. Cant wait to taste. I plan on secondary this sunday and bottling a week after.



This pic was right after I added yeast.





Here it is 5 days later

 

[Barnzy02]

So I'm tasting a not fully carbed pint of this right now. It was on gas for close to a week before my tank finally ran out, just refilled today and had to pull a pint.

Freakin delicious. Pumpkin pie juice around 6-7%. only bad thing is I only have a half keg!

 

[Blackhawkbrew]

Opened a bottle after three weeks and still tasting "hot" and spicey. I'm hoping it calms down with age. I had my fermentation freezer set at 68* with the probe taped to the bucket. I'm wondering if the fermentation temp inside the bucket was too hot.

 

[Waterboy42]

Mine fermented 70ish, and after two weeks in the bottle its spot on. I added 2 tsp at the end of the boil, and an additional at bottling. I also added a cup of lactose and 1 oz. of vanilla at bottling too.

 

[Stevo2569]

Hey thanks Reno. Kegged about a wk and 1/2 ago. One of the best pumpkins I've ever had. I added a lb of oats and used a 1/2 lb CaraPils along with a few other minor changes. Talk about head retention. Delicious.

 

[Barnzy02]

So tasty! Kudos on recipe, made slight changes based on availability at the lhbs.
Enjoying this a lot.

 

[micdear]

I brewed this a few weeks ago and had a few questions, what went into the fermenter tasted just like a pumkin pie, but the first bottle I opened had little pumkin flavor not strong like on brew day and a hint of maple. Has anyone else noticed anything like that or could I have screwed something up? Its still very drinkable but not what I was expecting.

 

[Tarheel4985]

We brewed 20 gallons of this recipe today (better late than never, right?). Used 8 large cans of Libby's, which is 14.5 lbs. of pumpkin. Also, we used home toasted malt instead of Victory malt and used Cascade for the aroma hops instead of Hallertauer (only had 4 oz. left of Hallertauer and Cascade was the only low AA hop we had).

Even with the pumpkin in the mash, we opted to go without the rice hulls and our 120 qt Coleman Xtreme mash tun handled it like a champ. No stuck sparges at all and the color looked great. Held at 154F for the whole mash.

Our gravity was a little too high, around 1.074, probably because our high efficiency and the slight boost from the pumpkin (I'm guessing 2-4 points of gravity from the pumpkin when mashed).

We are fermenting these in 2 Sankes, so we decided to do a yeast experiment and do one fermenter with US-05 and the other with S-04. Pitched 4 packets in each but probably should have used 5 with the higher gravity. It started bubbling about 4 hours after pitching and 8 hours later, it's foaming over the airlock.

Thanks for sharing what will hopefully be a great beer Reno!

 

[Rivenin]

well i finally bottled this after i think 2-3 months in the primary... can't remember when i brewed this lol, forgot to take a hydro reading. but i think sitting on the pumpkin for so long messed with it. ah well, if all else fails i'll try it again!
t minus 2 weeks to testing!

 

[nyer]

We had our halloween party Saturday night and I had the pumpkin on tap as well as hard cider, pale ale and Rye IPA. The pumpkin keg was easily the most popular. Someone brought a mixed 12 pack of Saranac beer and it had their pumpkin in it. I normally love this pumpkin beer. We did a comparison tasting and everyone preferred the punkin ale. When I tried Saranacs after having this one I couldn't even tell it was a pumpkin beer, it had almost no flavor. My father is a coors drinker and I caught him drinking the pumpkin.

 

[kenlock]

Currently got this mashing. Used real pumpkins, as canned pumpkin is not readily available here in Oz. Will be using #1332 Northwest Ale. Brewing this as a surprise contribution to an American friends annual Thanksgiving Party.

Thanks Reno for recipe and great thread.

 

[Brewskii]

10 days in the bottle and cracked a couple testers to taste with my brewing buds. All like it better than commercial examples. Of corse it's not yet fully carbed- kinda like sparkling cider. Gonna give it 2 more weeks b4 I let anyone else drink it. It's a keeper!

 

[Reno_eNVy]

well i finally bottled this after i think 2-3 months in the primary... can't remember when i brewed this lol, forgot to take a hydro reading. but i think sitting on the pumpkin for so long messed with it. ah well, if all else fails i'll try it again!
t minus 2 weeks to testing!

I'm sure it'll turn out amazing. I feel like this is a brew that can benefit from a long primary.

We had our halloween party Saturday night and I had the pumpkin on tap as well as hard cider, pale ale and Rye IPA. The pumpkin keg was easily the most popular. Someone brought a mixed 12 pack of Saranac beer and it had their pumpkin in it. I normally love this pumpkin beer. We did a comparison tasting and everyone preferred the punkin ale. When I tried Saranacs after having this one I couldn't even tell it was a pumpkin beer, it had almost no flavor. My father is a coors drinker and I caught him drinking the pumpkin.

Dude this is amazing. So many huge compliments! Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Currently got this mashing. Used real pumpkins, as canned pumpkin is not readily available here in Oz. Will be using #1332 Northwest Ale. Brewing this as a surprise contribution to an American friends annual Thanksgiving Party.

Thanks Reno for recipe and great thread.

That's awesome :rockin: I'm sure your Yank friend will appreciate it

10 days in the bottle and cracked a couple testers to taste with my brewing buds. All like it better than commercial examples. Of corse it's not yet fully carbed- kinda like sparkling cider. Gonna give it 2 more weeks b4 I let anyone else drink it. It's a keeper!

Nice to hear it's so good after only 10 days in bottles. And yeah, give it time. It only gets better with age

 

[Rivenin]

well i was impatient....
i haven't had a home brew in close to 6 months so i cracked one open on haloween. of course it was flat... but that smell i was getting from primary during bottling time is completely gone now... i think it was the CO2 messing with my nose.

can't wait for another few weeks! i think i'll wait till thanksgiving and crack another to test.

 

[Faseel]

Ok, my turn,
I cut over to secondary last night and I hit fg of 1.016. I can't be happier. The trub/

 

[Faseel]

Ugh got a call, anyhow the cake/trub even smelled like liquid pumpkin pie, I'm really looking forward to thanksgiving man, this will be the beer of choice, thanks once again buddy!

 

[modernlifeisANDY]

Kegged my version of this today (I use a handful of different malts and proportions, but I use Reno's brown sugar additions and hop schedule). Smells great, as always!

 

[Leeds1]

Bottled my version of this after 4 weeks in the primary. I added a pound of oatmeal and a box of nabisco graham crackers to the posted recipe. The pumpkin hits you in the nose with a little alcohol and it tastes pretty good right now but I think it will benefit from a little more aging.