Wife wants a Pumpkin Beer

[NYShooterGuy]

so the wife told me today that she wants to beer a pumpkin beer (or rather wants ME to brew her a pumpkin beer) and she doesn't mind it being "out of season" for pumpkin beer.

I like the porter of stout pumpkin beers I've tried and she loves pumpkin ale (Southern Tier PumKing is her favorite)

I've read the forums about baking the pumpkin and the spices only really give you the pumpkin flavor.

I brewed a NB Smashing pumpkin ale with a friend 6 weeks ago and when we tapped the keg last night, it tasted like cherry ( cant explain where the cherry flavor came from, perhaps too high fermentation temps and off flavors from the yeast?) also had a CO2 "burn" to it even though he assured me that it was properly carbed. It had a metallic aftertaste.

well, I digress. I wanted to make two good kits that we could work on for the next year to show off and get accolades for. any suggestions for kits, recipes, or ideas I haven't mentioned in the previous paragraphs?

 

[CJ-3]

I was pretty happy with the Brewers Best Pumpkin Porter kit. It does take a little while to carb up. In addition to the kit I added one can of pumpkin pie filling. Next time I will add 2. It is smooth, easy to drink and is definitely a porter with hints of pumpkin coming through. Although next year I plan to not make a porter jyst so I can have something different. Thinking maybe a rye ale with pumpkin.

 

[seagondollar]

I brewed the pumpkin recipe out of zymergy from oct last year, and it is the best pumpkin beer ive tried. Pocahontas pumpkin ale is what its called. I think there is an extract version of the recipe as well.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/zymurgy-pocahontas-pumpkin-ale-2013-a-429819/index2.html

 

[bobeer]

mine is just 2 row, crystal 60, victory and brown sugar. I add the pumpkin in the mash or the boil it honestly doesn't really matter. I've done both and they taste the same pretty much. Bake the pumpkin for an hour at 350 and coat it some honey and some pumpkin pie spice if you want. Add the pumpkin pie spice in the boil and again at bottling time-- to taste.
I think I used 3/4 oz Magnum Hops @ 60 min and 1/4 oz Sterling @ 15 min. Then just used sa05. Good luck!

 

[solbes]

I baked my pumpkin (4lbs) at 350 for an hour, but felt like I could have gone a little longer. So I think basting with water a couple of times and baking for 75 minutes might be better. I cubed it and added to my mash. Ingredients were 2 row, some munich, some C80, a and a dash of carapils. Gravity was low in the 1.048 range.

For spices I added 1 tsp of cinnamon, 1/2 tsp of clove, 1/2 tsp of nutmeg, and 1/t tsp of ginger at 10 minutes from flameout. Still tasted the ginger too much, so next time I will cut that out completely or add just a dash. This is the hardest part to get right, as some people really like a lot of spice, some want to barely want to taste it. I'm somewhere in between, maybe leaning toward a lighter spiced flavor.

Besides the ginger and baking the pumpkin a little longer, I think I will brew something similar next year. I brewed a spiced winter warmer this year, so I hit my self imposed 1 spice beer per year limit