What can I make with this grain bill?

[jekeane]

I have a friend that wants to brew a pumpkin beer...

I am pretty picky with pumpkin beers and 10g of it sounds like an awful idea to me. Northern Brewer recently had a deal where if you bought a couple of pumpkin kits you got a free refractometer which I needed / wanted. So I went ahead and got them knowing my buddy wanted a pumpkin beer.

Here is the grain bill for the combined kits:

15 lbs. Rahr 2-row pale
5 lbs. German Munich Malt
1 lbs. Briess Caramel 80
.5 lbs. Briess Caramel 60

The instructions call for 2oz Cluster @ 60 and spices @ 0

What could I make as a second beer with this grain bill if I added spices/pumpkin to only one of the fermenters?

If I had a second burner I would consider splitting the boils.

 

[ong]

With more hops, you could make an American pale ale (with some nice malt backbone from the Munich and darker crystal).

EDIT: oh, I see, you mean doing the same boil for both. It seems like a kinda boring beer with no spice additions and just a single 60 minute hop addition. If you have a 1-2 gallon stockpot, you could drain some wort into it after the boil and do a hop steep for 45-60 minutes.

 

[jekeane]

A hop steep could be an option. As I do think there isn't much beyond the malt in NB kit. I may look at adding some grains and building one of the clone pumpkin beers from Septembers BYO magazine. Post Road or Wolaver's are two I like.

 

[ong]

Or, you could drain off your friend's half, then bring the other half back to the boil for another 30 minutes, add whatever hops you want, and just figure the first addition as 90 minutes instead of 30.

 

[BigPerm]

Or, you could drain off your friend's half, then bring the other half back to the boil for another 30 minutes, add whatever hops you want, and just figure the first addition as 90 minutes instead of 30.

I do this kinda stuff all the time. Recently did this by making an Oud Bruin and american brown ale from the same mash. Just brought the second half back to a boil and hopped it more.

That grain bill will be a little heavy for a pale ale/IPA in my opinion. If I were you, I might leave it all alone and just use a different yeast. Throw a saison yeast or something complex into your half. You could even drain yours first and then add the spices to the second half (since there doesn't appear to be any real pumpkin - pretty weak, NB).

 

[lumpher]

you can also consider making an oktoberfest with it