Autumn Seasonal Beer Thunderstruck Pumpkin Ale (AG and Extract versions)

[Diesel48]

I will have to check the grocery stores for pumpkin.

 

[passedpawn]

When are people going to start brewing their pumpkin beers?

Done, bottled this past weekend. I did my own Pumking recipe (3rd try). I think this one is THE ONE! (hint, lay off the cinnamon, heavy on vanilla and ginger).

 

[lextasy23]

I will have to check the grocery stores for pumpkin.

Whatever you do, don't get Pumpkin Pie filling. Pure pumpkin puree.

 

[beerrepository]

I will give this a go again this year. Hopefully the pumpkin I got last year is still good, don't see why it wouldn't be. Because it was recommended to drink this fairly fresh, I probably won't brew this up until mid August/early September. Going to do the all-grain this time, should be interesting.

 

[Diesel48]

Does anyone have the updated recipe converted for a 5 gallon batch?

 

[AR-Josh]

I can't wait to brew the extract version of this.

Why do you not add the spices to the boil? Why wait until secondary to add them?

 

[rack04]

I'm going to mash the pumpkin like my friend at Alt Platz Brewery does. I may also use a dry yeast like S-04 instead of the WLP002. Here's the recipe:

21.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row)
5.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L
2.50 lb Biscuit Malt
1.00 lb Wheat, Flaked
180.00 oz Pumpkin, Canned (a dozen 15oz cans)

2.25 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (60 min)

0.75 oz Ginger Root (Boil 12.0 min)
3 Tablets Whirlfloc (Boil 10.0 min)
1.50 tsp Cloves, Crushed (Boil 5.0 min)
1.50 tsp Nutmeg (Boil 5.0 min)
3.00 tsp Allspice (Boil 5.0 min)
3.00 tsp Cinnamon (Ground) (Boil 5.0 min)

Yeast - English Ale (White Labs #WLP002)

Single infusion mash at 158° F for 45-60 mins
Mash out at 168°F
Sparge with 178°F water to collect 17.5g of wort
Boil 60 mins

Est OG: 1.057
Est FG: 1.018
Est ABV: 4.99 %
Bitterness: 13.0 IBU
Est Color: 14.2 SRM

Consider omitting the spices on brew day and adding them as a "tea" during clearing. See the extract version above for notes.

What is the batch size for this recipe? 15 gal?

 

[mhenry41h]

Im working on a Pumpkin Lager which I plan on brewing soon. Tentatively, Im looking at this:

6 Gallons
70% Efficiency
154 Mash Temp at 75 Minutes
75 Minute Boil

OG: 1.066
FG: 1.015
IBU: 33
BU/GU Ratio: .500
SRM: 21.1
7.2% ABV

53.9% Golden Promise (7 Lbs 12 Oz)
22.6% Munich Type II (3 Lbs 4 Oz)
10.0% Light Brown Sugar (1 Lb 7 Oz)
8.20% Caramel 40 (1 Lb 3 Oz)
2.60% Chocolate Malt (6 Oz)
2.60% Special Roast (6 Oz)

.50 Oz Magnum 60 Mins – 21.4 IBU Tinseth
.85 Oz Horizon 20 Mins – 11.6 IBU Tinseth

Cinnamon, Allspice, Clove, Nutmeg, and Ginger

Wyeast #2633 Octoberfest Lager

Looking to do some more research on the proper amounts of spice to use, but I will definitely be doing a spice tea to add in secondary. Im pretty stoked to finish working on this recipe as well as an Oktoberfest recipe Im working on. Look like mid August this will go to the brewhouse. I just have this uncontrollable urge to make a Pumpkin Lager...I cant quite explain it...

 

[Crimsonwine]

Serving suggestion:

prepare two dishes, one with honey, and one with cinnamon/sugar mix....

Take your pint glass and rim it in the honey (like you do with salting a Margarita glass), then rim it with the cinnamon/sugar and then pour your pumpkin ale in and serve....

Nice presentation and ohhhh so tasty!.... couple use pumpkin pie spice in place of cinnamon....

 

[mhenry41h]

Serving suggestion:

prepare two dishes, one with honey, and one with cinnamon/sugar mix....

Take your pint glass and rim it in the honey (like you do with salting a Margarita glass), then rim it with the cinnamon/sugar and then pour your pumpkin ale in and serve....

Nice presentation and ohhhh so tasty!.... couple use pumpkin pie spice in place of cinnamon....

I've had DFH Punkin' Ale served that way and it was fabulous!

 

[emjay]

Im working on a Pumpkin Lager which I plan on brewing soon. Tentatively, Im looking at this:

6 Gallons
70% Efficiency
154 Mash Temp at 75 Minutes
75 Minute Boil

OG: 1.066
FG: 1.015
IBU: 33
BU/GU Ratio: .500
SRM: 21.1
7.2% ABV

53.9% Golden Promise (7 Lbs 12 Oz)
22.6% Munich Type II (3 Lbs 4 Oz)
10.0% Light Brown Sugar (1 Lb 7 Oz)
8.20% Caramel 40 (1 Lb 3 Oz)
2.60% Chocolate Malt (6 Oz)
2.60% Special Roast (6 Oz)

.50 Oz Magnum 60 Mins – 21.4 IBU Tinseth
.85 Oz Horizon 20 Mins – 11.6 IBU Tinseth

Cinnamon, Allspice, Clove, Nutmeg, and Ginger

Wyeast #2633 Octoberfest Lager

Looking to do some more research on the proper amounts of spice to use, but I will definitely be doing a spice tea to add in secondary. Im pretty stoked to finish working on this recipe as well as an Oktoberfest recipe Im working on. Look like mid August this will go to the brewhouse. I just have this uncontrollable urge to make a Pumpkin Lager...I cant quite explain it...

That looks more like a *PUMPKIN PIE SPICE* lager than an actual pumpkin lager, unless I'm missing something.

To each his own, but personally, I'm not really a fan of the "pumpkin" beers that don't actually include pumpkin and just focus on emulating pumpkin pie. Not that I don't like the spices - I even make a french toast with those. To your credit though, you got all the right spices there - it's weird how pumpkin pie spice is actually pretty clearly defined, and yet the only two constituent spices I never see omitted are cinammon and nutmeg.

 

[mhenry41h]

That looks more like a *PUMPKIN PIE SPICE* lager than an actual pumpkin lager, unless I'm missing something.

To each his own, but personally, I'm not really a fan of the "pumpkin" beers that don't actually include pumpkin and just focus on emulating pumpkin pie. Not that I don't like the spices - I even make a french toast with those. To your credit though, you got all the right spices there - it's weird how pumpkin pie spice is actually pretty clearly defined, and yet the only two constituent spices I never see omitted are cinammon and nutmeg.

Emjay,

Based on a few experiments I've read about, pumpkin is too volatile and unnoticeable in beer. Everybody seems to do it though. Jamil Z doesn't think you need pumpkin and there was a BBR experiment where the same beer was brewed: one with pumpkin and spices and the other beer only spices. Blind testing resulted in nobody being able to tell which was which. With all the headache of sparging and cleaning that mess up, I'm going to hope those tests were accurate and save myself the hassle.

It would appear that people relate those spices with pumpkin pie and by default, pumpkin.

 

[emjay]

I'm aware of the last statement (people associating the spices with pumpkin), but I don't know if I'd agree entirely with everything else, even though I'm aware that the character imparted by pumpkin isn't all that strong, I'd call it subdued rather than say it's not there at all.

You mention Jamil Z, although the pumpkin recipe I have of his actually includes real pumpkin, and though he DOES admit that using pumpkin may not make a huge difference, he still makes the recommendation of skipping the canned stuff and instead using whole fresh pie pumpkin... he definitely doesn't seem to be entirely dismissive of using actual pumpkin.

Not to mention that all the best commercial pumpkin beers seem to use pumpkin as well, most of which have a discernible (even if not exactly up front and in-your-face) flavor contribution from the pumpkin.

 

[mhenry41h]

If it tastes better then I'm all for it. I was just going on a few experiments other people did. However, it's generally better to learn first hand. Perhaps I'll give it a whirl.

 

[Yuri_Rage]

I always use pumpkin. Someone sent me a bottle from a batch using my recipe without the pumpkin. It was good, but in a side by side comparison, I felt it was missing something. Of course it wasn't a completely objective experiment, but it was enough to convince me that adding pumpkin is the way to go.

 

[mhenry41h]

I always use pumpkin. Someone sent me a bottle from a batch using my recipe without the pumpkin. It was good, but in a side by side comparison, I felt it was missing something. Of course it wasn't a completely objective experiment, but it was enough to convince me that adding pumpkin is the way to go.

Then I'm going to try it! How much gravity potential is in the pumpkin?

 

[Yuri_Rage]

Not enough to worry about.

 

[fillyo]

Just finished brewing the extract 5g batch. Used 55 oz of pumpkin, plus added some spices and vanilla, can't wait to see how it tastes. While I am not ready for October, atleast there will be something to look forward to!

 

[joelrapp]

I am brewing a version of this based on what I have available hop wise and yeast I can farm. I am going to do 12g in 2 weeks. People who have brewed this, how long on average does it take to hit its stride?

 

[pickles]

Done, bottled this past weekend. I did my own Pumking recipe (3rd try). I think this one is THE ONE! (hint, lay off the cinnamon, heavy on vanilla and ginger).

Is this the recipe that won a gold medal? If not, do you mind sharing this recipe?

 

[Droyd2583]

Alright, I'm done searching for the answer to this. The extract version has the tea spice addition but the AG version does not. Do you still do the spice addition for the AG version even though your adding the spices to the boil anyways?

 

[AR-Josh]

Here is what I am going to do. There are spices in the boil. I am going to taste it after it hits FG, then decide whether to add a spice tea or not.

 

[jdraker62]

When you add the "tea" to the secondary do you filter out the spice or just add it straight in. I ran mine through my filter funnel and I can't taste much spice, Is this something you will be able to taste with some age on it?

 

[dignifiedb]

Would love to brew this sometime within the next week. Without reading through all 60+ pages of this thread, is there a final AG recipe with the tweaks and changes that have been made? Thanks so much!

 

[passedpawn]

Is this the recipe that won a gold medal? If not, do you mind sharing this recipe?

No, not that one (that one was GREAT, but when I posted the recipe I confused tsp and ounces... some brewed that and it wasn't good... I've fixed it since then)

I'm on my third attempt to clone. I don't want to post until Pumking comes out (next week, I think). I'll do a direct comparison and explain the differences.

 

[Yuri_Rage]

See the first two posts in the thread. I just updated them to reflect the way I usually brew this recipe.

I don't recommend adding the spices to the boil, but rather using the "tea" method during clearing. Don't strain the tea. The solids will settle in the trub.

 

[Hackinjeebs]

I am planning on brewing this in about 2 weeks. I have a question though. The extract version says it is a 5 gallon version, but then below that, it says this a 6 gallon extract + steeping grains recipe. If I decide to do a partial boil, do I top off to 5 or 6 gallons? Hope I am not asking a dumb question here.

 

[Yuri_Rage]

It's a 6 gallon recipe. The data above the big bold text is old and unfortunately cannot be edited due to limitations of the recipe database.

 

[Jwash1705]

I was wondering if it was possible to put the spice tea into the keg and then rack onto that vs in secondary. I typically don't use secondary, but cold crash instead@ 14 days. Also, I have read alot about vanilla in pumpkin beers have you ever added any. If so extract or bean?

 

[Yuri_Rage]

You could add it to the keg just as easily. I did that once, and it turned out well. I don't add vanilla to this one. Try it as is. You can always add a little extract if you like.