Autumn Seasonal Beer Punkin' Ale

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mrgstiffler said:
Wow, long thread that has gone on for quite a few years. Is the original recipe still considered the best?
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I don't know but after brewing the same recipe every year and with our brewing techniques improving I still wouldn't change the original recipe. But that's just my own humble opinion. I could be biased, though! ;)
 
I will be brewing the extract version up tonight. But I have some questions. I really don't care for liquid extract and would rather use a dry extract. It's my understanding that light dme is the same as pale lme. Is that true? If not could someone with more experience brewing recommend a dme for the extract version?

Here is what I've come up with after some adjustments. If it appears I'm off base with my ingredients Id appreciate some critiquing, thanks.

6lb 12oz light dme
.5lb pale malt 2 row
.5lb special roast
.5lb weyermann caramunich

5 gallon
1.065 og
1.017 fg
srm 11
75% efficiency
6.4% abv
24.3 ibu

1oz mt.hood or hallertau 60 min
.5oz mt.hood or hallertau 15 min
1.5 tbls mcCormicks pumpkin pie spice @ 5 min boil
5lb pumpkin 60 min boil
1lb brown sugar at beginning of boil.
 
since your final color is going to be orange-ish - hopefully, i don't think light or pale dme would make a difference. compare the color difference of rolling rock(pale) or bud light (light) as you see it through a pint glass for example. So the final product would be near the same, the question is how dark do you want your orange color? both dme's will brew the same beer, just the color would be diff. (and only slightly at that)

Also, when brewing with DME or LME you can add them later in the boil to get better hop utilization and lighter colors. The longer you cook extracts the darker they seem to get.
 
MZRIS said:
since your final color is going to be orange-ish - hopefully, i don't think light or pale dme would make a difference. compare the color difference of rolling rock(pale) or bud light (light) as you see it through a pint glass for example. So the final product would be near the same, the question is how dark do you want your orange color? both dme's will brew the same beer, just the color would be diff. (and only slightly at that)

Also, when brewing with DME or LME you can add them later in the boil to get better hop utilization and lighter colors. The longer you cook extracts the darker they seem to get.
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I would like to avoid brown or light brown. When I think of a pumpkin ale I think slightly cloudy almost like a bluemoon. And copper orange similar to the skin of a pumpkin. That would be aesthetically pleasing to me. The beer calculator is saying it will turn out copper to red/light brown. I guess I can live with that .
 
tipping said:
I would like to avoid brown or light brown. When I think of a pumpkin ale I think slightly cloudy almost like a bluemoon. And copper orange similar to the skin of a pumpkin. That would be aesthetically pleasing to me. The beer calculator is saying it will turn out copper to red/light brown. I guess I can live with that .
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The beer recipe programs aren't always accurate with color. Plus use of pumpkin adds a TON of orange color.

And it'll be cloudy but eventually clear up with long enough time in the cold (keg or bottle)
 
Well Ive got the pumpking cooling my equipment sanitizing. However all my beer guy had was briess pilsner light malt. i went ahead and bought it. When I recalculated everything with the briess Im now getting 8 srm instead of 12. I went back to the store but he already closed up. My question is should I hold off until tomorrow and see if he has anything else or should I go ahead as planned? Beercalculus says it will turn out gold to copper. It doesnt account for the pumpkin. Any predictions what the color might be with the pumpkin included?
 
tipping said:
Well Ive got the pumpking cooling my equipment sanitizing. However all my beer guy had was briess pilsner light malt. When I recalculated everything Im now getting 8 srm instead of 12. I went back to the store but he already closed up. My question is should I hold off until tomorrow and see if he has anything else or should I go ahead as planned? Beercalculus says it will turn out gold to copper. It doesnt account for the pumpkin. Any predictions what the color might be with the pumpkin included?
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What all did you get?
 
mrgstiffler said:
What all did you get?
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this is what I ended with. I changed the recipe because I dont care for lme and wanted a dme.

6.12lb briess pils light dme
.5lb special roast
.5lb caramunich
.5lb 2 row

60oz of libbies canned pumpkin
pumpkin spice
safrale us-o5 x2
1lb brown sugar
 
Well it's in the carboy and it was fun to brew. At 5 gallons my OG was 1.080 so I had to add another gallon and that put me at 1.062. This being my 5th brew and first pumpkin ale it should turn out interesting. It was incredibly thick and orangish brown.
 
I am having a rather big Oktoberfest bash at my house on Sept 22nd. I have several other brews for the party but I would love the add this to the menu. I am thinking of brewing the original recipe and using the SanDiego super strain to get a quick turn around. Will this turn out ok?
 
Got the ingredients today and am going to brew it up on Saturday. I made a couple changes to the recipe to bring it a little more in line with my other beers...

Substituted Special B for the C60 and backed off on it just a tad to make up for the color difference. I LOVE Special B and I think the heavy caramel flavor is going to work great for this.

Substituted Cascade for Hallertau. I've been doing this on all my recipes that call for Noble hops and have been extremely impressed with the results. Cascade doesn't change the overall flavor much but it gives it that little extra something that makes all the difference. I actually don't really like Cascade much in Pale Ales or IPAs, but as a replacement for Nobles like Hallertau it's perfect.
 
Reno - your my final hope with this site recipe's. I just cant seem to get a good recipe off this site that I like maybe i'm just a snob of only creating my recipe's. Anyways like a tard i am i didn't write down the yeast when I was shopping at my LHBS so I'm using White Labs British Ale. Will this yeast affect the OP recipe?
 
White Labs British Ale will work just fine. Just be sure to make a starter. 1.5L to 2L should do you just fine.

I hope this recipe can restore your faith in the recipe database.
 
Reno_eNVy said:
White Labs British Ale will work just fine. Just be sure to make a starter. 1.5L to 2L should do you just fine.

I hope this recipe can restore your faith in the recipe database.
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Awesome thanks for the tip I will be brewing this up on Wednesday. :mug:
 
Thanks for the recipe Reno. We've been brewing a Pumpkin Ale every year and this year I thought I'd give your recipe a try after all the rave reviews. So I brewed 20 gallons yesterday.

I substituted our own toasted 2-row for the Victory malt and added a bit of Munich. I didn't use any rice hulls and not surprisingly, I ended up with a stuck sparge (we use a 120 qt Coleman Xtreme with a stainless steel braid). Only did 1 batch sparge but after some difficulty, we finally got 22 gallons pre-boil at 1.060. After adding the brown sugar and our 2 gallon boil-off, we ended up with 20 gallons at 1.074 so we overshot by a little bit.

Smelled and tasted delicious going into the fermenters and airlock activity started 2 hours after pitching. The color was darker than I expected, but I'm pretty excited about this one. Thanks again for a great recipe.
 
I brewed this Friday. I got an OG of 1.064 which is 1.010 less than what beer smith said I should get. I wonder if I have an efficiency issue. I've never bothered learning how to calculate my efficiency as this is my 3rd all grain batch. I wonder if I am doing something wrong? This recipe called for 1.064 as the OG so I don't really care. If I had gotten 1.050 something I'd be worried.

Thanks for the recipe. I used the spice recipe given several pages back with fresh spices. Should be good. I'll post a pic when it comes out.
 
Thanks for posting your experiences. I love to hear people enjoying making and drinking this one. I'm finally back in town from a week long training class and I have an itch to brew. This one is definitely next!
 
Brewed the 2nd batch of this last night. Found out that my digital thermometer was reading way too high so I actually mashed very low (high 140's) on the first batch. Checked the gravity of that one yesterday and it looks like it's finished up at 1.010. I corrected that mistake on the second batch so it will be interesting to compare the two when they are ready.
 
Here we go...

bakedpumpkin.jpg
 
Liberty or Willamette for sure. Or use Cascade and only do a 60 minute addition.
 
Reno_eNVy said:
Liberty or Willamette for sure. Or use Cascade and only do a 60 minute addition.
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Thanks for the responses. I like the idea of doing some cascade hops. It looks like 0.5oz at the start of the boil will bring me around 23 IBU's.
 
Willamette, has a nice earthy flavor that I think would go well with this brew. I'm planning to use it when I brew this.
 
brewmaster12 said:
3 tsp Cinnamon
2 tsp Ginger
2 tsp Nutmeg
1.5 tsp Allspice
1.5 tsp Cloves
1 tsp Cardamom

The cardamom is my secret ingredient. Adds a nice little floral/citrus undertone. Everything should be freshly ground for the best flavor except the ginger because you'd have to use fresh ginger to go that route. You could use like a tbls of fresh ginger instead of you wanted.
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I used exactly this for my spice. I put a blowoff rig on it for the first 3 days or so, then switched to an airlock. After a day or 3 I came back to find the lid blown off. :mad: Hope it's not infected... Anyway... The spice...

I'm worried as the cinnamon smell was most pungent. I'm hoping it will mellow by the time I take a sample in a week or two. If it's WAY too much and not good I'll probably just make this whole thing up again then rack on top of the nice yeast cake this one has produced.
 
AR-Josh said:
I used exactly this for my spice. I put a blowoff rig on it for the first 3 days or so, then switched to an airlock. After a day or 3 I came back to find the lid blown off. :mad: Hope it's not infected... Anyway... The spice...

I'm worried as the cinnamon smell was most pungent. I'm hoping it will mellow by the time I take a sample in a week or two. If it's WAY too much and not good I'll probably just make this whole thing up again then rack on top of the nice yeast cake this one has produced.
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It'll mellow out. I don't start drinking this til around thanksgiving and the spice is perfect.
 
About to get the ingredients to brew this up....As far as the brown sugar goes, when I throw it into beersmith, 1#, it takes the SG ffrom 1.060 to 1.070
In your origional recipe, was the brown sugar accounted for in the O.G of 1.065

If I didnt want it to be this high, 1.070, would you recommend backing off on the brown sugar, or maybe the base malt a little.....

thx, can't wait to brew it....
 
If you want to tone it down I'd say cut the sugar back instead of grain. Cutting down on grain might affect body and bready flavors.

The 1.065 og is based on 5.5 gallons at 70% efficiency using BeerSmith. YMMV based on set-up and brew software.
 
i brewed this this past friday.. it was the 3rd in a 3 brew day, and i did the pumpkin baking in the AM so there was pleanty of time to cool.. everytime i walked back into my house it smelled great, and once the boil started and i got to the point of the spice additions i was very much looking forward to this one being done.. i'll be giving it a 3 week primary as most of my brews and then about a week to carb up in a keg.. should be great timing for a good pumpkin ale :) i just made a couple of the suggested changes here and there from many of the pages here.. if it turns out really good i'll post what changes i made.. thanks reno!
 
Just got the Libby's, just need some more spice. Probably brewing this one next weekend as long as I'm not out of town for work! :rockin:
 

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