Autumn Seasonal Beer Punkin' Ale

[PinzonCachondo]

The brew got delayed because LHBS forgot to mill grains and send the yeast with my order. I had to send everything back to Santiago for them to sort it out and send it back. Anyway, finally brewed this on Sunday (June-1) and the brew day went well.

I mashed 1 kg marris otter, 300g biscuit and 300g crystal 60 with 1.8 kg roasted fresh "pumpkin" with 450g of oats in 12 L of water for 80 minutes at 67 deg C. Only when I topped up to 19 liters for the boil, only did I realize that my pot is only 20 L and not 27 like the sales person and the label said.

That didn't leave much room for boil overs, but I was able to control it and keep it from boiling over. Added the rest as per the recipe, using cloveless chai spice rather than the pumpkin pie spice, adding the 3kg of light LME in the last 10 minutes. I cooled the wort, topped it up to 22 liters and pitched the two packets of hydrated S-04.

Unfortunately I broke my hydrometer the night before while bottling a different batch so I haven't been able to take a reading. I did store 250ml of wort (taken before pitching the yeast) in the fridge to test it when my new hydrometer arrives tomorrow.

Yesterday morning the brewroom smelled fantastic and the yeasties were churning away. Unfortunately when I got home from work, the room smelled like a distillery. The airlock was busily bubbling away and the T was off the scale (over 30deg C) and the bucket felt very warm (I'm guessing about 33-34 (about 90F). I cooled it in a trash can of water and left it in there with an aquarium heater set at 21deg C. This morning it was still at 21 and bubbling away.

Updates to come...

pre boil pic and pic right before spice and final hop addition (5 min left on boil):

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Oooh sorry to hear about that temperature spike. Hopefully it didn't go long at that temp before you caught it.

It's great to see updates on this thread this early in the year. Makes me want to brew it up, too.

 

[Genuine]

I can't wait to make this in a couple months!


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[gwapogorilla]

Reno, I've been looking/considering brewing this...so I have a few questions, if I may.

Have you tried adding the pumpkin to the fermenting chamber rather than the mash or boil? If so, what differences/problems did you notice?

Rather than the brown sugar, have you tried subbing 1 lb. of oatmeal and 5 tablespoons of molasses instead?

Anyone tried adding maple syrup/flavoring? Perhaps a little pecan extract?

Thanks Reno....great looking recipe!:rockin:

 

[rideincircles]

I have let my bottles sit around for a while and it seems like the spice flavor has infused in the beer over time even more and improved the flavor. At this point I may save the last bottles for the holidays, not sure if I will get around to brewing this again before then.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Reno, I've been looking/considering brewing this...so I have a few questions, if I may.

Have you tried adding the pumpkin to the fermenting chamber rather than the mash or boil? If so, what differences/problems did you notice?

Rather than the brown sugar, have you tried subbing 1 lb. of oatmeal and 5 tablespoons of molasses instead?

Anyone tried adding maple syrup/flavoring? Perhaps a little pecan extract?

Thanks Reno....great looking recipe!:rockin:

I've tried pumpkin in the fermenter. Ended up being perpetually hazy and I lost a lot of volume due to absorption. Plus racking was a pain. Do it in the mash.

Never tried any other flavoring or extracts, though.

 

[bruteforce]

Going to give this a run in a month, adding in a pound of acorn meal I made (so much tannin leaching) to the mash. Been looking for a good recipe to alter and this looks awesome!

 

[jaydog2314]

I'll be brewing this again this year brew day is mid July like last year to give it some time to age in the bottle. Love this recipe!

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Going to give this a run in a month, adding in a pound of acorn meal I made (so much tannin leaching) to the mash. Been looking for a good recipe to alter and this looks awesome!

Oooh that sounds great. Please be sure to post brew day existences and maybe some photos.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

I'll be brewing this again this year brew day is mid July like last year to give it some time to age in the bottle. Love this recipe!

Yup that's a good amount of time. Good luck!

 

[Montanista89]

HELLO RENO_ENVY

how long should this be in the primary and secondary?

 

[PinzonCachondo]

Update: After the temperature spike that I had the first day of fermentation, I let it sit in the fermenter for 5 weeks (kept solid 23 deg C). I hoped that the yeasties would clean up the beer, but, unfortunately it had really strong fusel smell and taste to it. I bottled it up anyway and put it away in the shed. We'll see after a month or two if it's cleared up at all.

BTW OG was 1.067 and FG 1.013.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

HELLO RENO_ENVY

how long should this be in the primary and secondary?

Aside from making sure you give it at the very least 3 weeks in primary and at least a month in bottles/keg (should really be a couple months to really make it shine), you really don't need to follow a specific primary/secondary schedule. Aside from dry hopping I almost never use a secondary.

Update: After the temperature spike that I had the first day of fermentation, I let it sit in the fermenter for 5 weeks (kept solid 23 deg C). I hoped that the yeasties would clean up the beer, but, unfortunately it had really strong fusel smell and taste to it. I bottled it up anyway and put it away in the shed. We'll see after a month or two if it's cleared up at all.

BTW OG was 1.067 and FG 1.013.

Bummer. Well, I guess forget about the bottles until Halloween or Thanksgiving. I'm sure they'll be good by then.

 

[DrunkleJon]

Made a batch last fall. It got infected. Sad Drunkle. Decide to say F it and left it alone until today aside from topping off the airlock. Opened the bucket up and saw the below picture. Yep. Still infected.
Instead of a nasty smell I smelled... pumpkin pie spice. Heavily.

Took a sample from below the pellicle and much to my surprise it does not suck. At all. It may be ugly, but it is really good and not really sour at all. Just ever so slightly funky. Now for pics.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Holy crap that sounds amazing! Keep it going and bottle it in Belgian bottles.

 

[kcmobrewer]

That's awesome. Does it accentuate or mute the pumpkin at all? How long has it sit?


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[DrunkleJon]

Holy crap that sounds amazing! Keep it going and bottle it in Belgian bottles.

I think I may need to.

That's awesome. Does it accentuate or mute the pumpkin at all? How long has it sit?

I brewed it up last fall. Somewhere around late August or even September so around 10 months. When I opened the lid I noticed what looked like 1/8-1/4 inch of clear water on top of the beer and an ever so slight skim of what you see above. I dipped an ilbeit unsanitized taster glass in and took a sample and it tasted fine. I put the lid back on and let it sit until spring when I did the same. Still tasted fine. Lidded it back up because I am lazy and opened it again yesterday and saw how much it had grown.

The smell is strong. It is quite dry, and I am not really tasting too much of the pumpkin spice flavor. The funk grew slightly as I got to the end of the glass.


I am still trying to figure out what I am going to do with it. Split it in half and bottle half, let it ride for a while longer, package all of it. I have not decided yet. I may have to keep some dregs though.

 

[ChrisL_]

I think I may need to.



I brewed it up last fall. Somewhere around late August or even September so around 10 months. When I opened the lid I noticed what looked like 1/8-1/4 inch of clear water on top of the beer and an ever so slight skim of what you see above. I dipped an ilbeit unsanitized taster glass in and took a sample and it tasted fine. I put the lid back on and let it sit until spring when I did the same. Still tasted fine. Lidded it back up because I am lazy and opened it again yesterday and saw how much it had grown.

The smell is strong. It is quite dry, and I am not really tasting too much of the pumpkin spice flavor. The funk grew slightly as I got to the end of the glass.


I am still trying to figure out what I am going to do with it. Split it in half and bottle half, let it ride for a while longer, package all of it. I have not decided yet. I may have to keep some dregs though.

If the beer is still good but the spice flavour is gone then I would make a up a spice tincture by adding spices to some vodka and let it soak for a week or so. Then slowly dose that back into your beer until you are happy with the level and then package it up.

 

[Demaskee]

Anyone make this with different yeasts? I've got a vial of London ale yeast that I need to either make a starter and wash to keep longer or use it in this beer.

 

[kcmobrewer]

Never know unless you try


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[FatsSchindee]

Anyone make this with different yeasts? I've got a vial of London ale yeast that I need to either make a starter and wash to keep longer or use it in this beer.

I made it with S-04 last year, but I also changed up some other ingredients to make it into a Pumpkin ESB - kept the C60, Victory, and brown sugar the same, but subbed Maris Otter (and MO LME, as it was a partial mash) for the 2-row, and used Challenger and EKG for the hops.
It was good, but not great. I'm guessing that if you only switched the yeast, you'd get closer results to what others have raved about in here. Part of it was prob my partial mash; I've since switched to all-grain, and think I'd get better results if I tried the same recipe this way next time. That being said, I will probably just a do the recipe as written next time I want to do a pumpkin beer... Reviews sound great!


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[Reno_eNVy]

Unless you got bad LME I really doubt it being good-not-great has anything to do with partial mash vs all grain.

Give the straight up recipe a shot, I doubt you'll be disappointed.

 

[FatsSchindee]

Yeah, probably true. I'm probably just making excuses for my attempt at the recipe mod...

My all-grain beers have been better than my partial mashes, but that probably has more to do with just my general experience levels, techniques, and recipe-composition skills all improving over time (this was the last partial mash beer I did, last fall, before making the switch; I haven't made any partial mashes since).

I will give it another try this fall, as written. Cheers!


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[Snowden]

Thinking about making this in the next few weeks to have it ready for when temps start falling in late September.

Quick question (and apologies if this has been addressed already): is there any scaling that needs to be done for the spices for a partial boil in an extract batch (similar to hops). Wouldn't think so, but wanted to verify.

Excited to try this recipe; I love pumpkin ales! Thanks!


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[Reno_eNVy]

No the spices should be the same amount for five gallons, regardless of technique.

 

[Phisherman]

Going to brew this next week sometime and was wondering if anyone had any yeast recommendations? I was going to use 1056 but thought I'd see if there something better?

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Going to brew this next week sometime and was wondering if anyone had any yeast recommendations? I was going to use 1056 but thought I'd see if there something better?

Sorry for the delay, I've been in the middle of nowhere with no wifi or data signal. 1056 is good for this brew. Nice, clean profile that lets everything special about this beer shine through.

 

[sfgoat]

I tried this last year and there was a flavor to it I didn't quite like. I think it might have been from the brown sugar but I'm not sure. Has anyone tried this without the brown sugar?

 

[Reno_eNVy]

I tried this last year and there was a flavor to it I didn't quite like. I think it might have been from the brown sugar but I'm not sure. Has anyone tried this without the brown sugar?

Interesting. I'd be curious to hear if anybody else has noticed this.

sfgoat, you've never tasted this characteristic in your other brews?



EDIT: As far as brewing with darker sugars, I've recently moved to unprocessed sugars. Using a dark raw sugar instead of regular brown sugar might really help. I'll try it that way this year to see if that makes a difference.

 

[Snowden]

Just brewed this and currently have it chilling. I don't think my kitchen has ever had a more heavenly scent!


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