The Beer Circle » Brew It Yourself » Novice Homebrewer: Batch #6- Next of pumpKIN Pumpkin Ale
Novice Homebrewer: Batch #6- Next of pumpKIN Pumpkin Ale
Next of pumpKIN ingredients
In thinking ahead to the change of seasons and the arrival of one of my favorite styles, I decided to start putting together a pumpkin ale recipe. While the pumpkin beers arrived way too early for my taste this year, I knew that brewing at the end of August would allow me to have the beer ready for the start of fall. Obviously fresh pumpkins were not in season yet, but I elected to use canned organic pumpkin for my recipe.
After searching the internet and reading through about ten different recipes, I created my own recipe as follows:
6 pounds amber dry malt extract
5 cans of organic pumpkin
1 pound of Vienna malt, 4L
8 ounces crystal malt, 40L
8 ounces pound malted wheat
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup molasses
1 ounce Hallertauer hops (60 mins)
1/2 ounce Hallertauer hops (10 mins)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon each of the following spices: Nutmeg, Cinnamon, Allspice
Wyeast 1056, American Ale
Pumpkin baking in the oven
The first thing I did was bake the pumpkin in the over for an hour to help get the flavor kickstarted. This could be seen as additional time, but I started with the baking and then proceeded to set up my equipment, so not much time was lost. I proceeded to place the pumpkin into two muslin bags to help me be able to remove it from the beer following the boil.
I read several differing theories of when to add pumpkin, whether it be during the pre-boil, during the boil, or at flame-out. I chose to keep the pumpkin in for the duration of the boil to let it release its full flavor onto the beer. However, one thing I did not expect was that one of the muslin bags did not hold the pumpkin very well and came out of the pot almost empty at the end of boil. I’m not quite sure why one bag held and the other did not, but the added pumpkin effectively caused me to have more loss of product during primary to secondary transfer.
At this point, the beer has been bottled and is bottle conditioning. I ended up with 35 bottles, which I would consider to be on the low end of my expectations. However, the original gravity of this beer was 1.068 due to all of the added fermentable sugars. With fermentation complete, the final gravity checked in at 1.010, yielding an alcohol content of 7.7% ABV. From the initial tasting between transfers, I think I am going to be very happy with this beer, even though it was a bit of a pain to work with the pumpkin.
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Written by Jeff Kupko
Jeff is a traffic engineer that loves his beer, and especially loves trying new beer. As a student at the University of Pittsburgh, Yuengling was a staple and the beginnings of liking something better than fizzy yellow water. This has evolved into an entire hobby, with Jeff keeping a blog of all of the beers he tries. Vacations most certainly involve at least one brewery or bottle shop visit to gather a region’s coveted fruits. Now, Jeff has ventured into homebrewing, and there is probably no saving him from being engulfed entirely by beer. While Imperial Stouts and IPAs rank highest in Jeff’s eyes, sours are sneaking up on those styles, and Jeff loves to try all different styles. Find Jeff Kupko on Google Plus
Filed under: Brew It Yourself · Tags: Homebrewing, Lincoln Abbey, Next of pumpKIN, Pumpkin Ale
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