Thoughts on my Pumpkin Ale?, ...brewing this weekend! Options

[chadm75]

2.0 lbs. American Caramel 60°L info
3.0 lbs. Dry Light Extract info
6.6 lbs. Liquid Amber Extract info
.15 lbs. Corn Sugar info
1.5 oz. Cascade (Pellets, 5.50 %AA) boiled 60 min. info
0.50 oz. East Kent Goldings (Pellets, 5.00 %AA) boiled 15 min. info
1 tablespoons Cinnamon...1/2 in the boil, 1/2 in the secondary
1 tablespoons Nutmeg...1/2 in the boil, 1/2 in the secondary
1 tablespoons Cloves...1/2 in the boil, 1/2 in the secondary
2 pounds Pumpkin...cubed and baked at 350 degrees for 30 mins.
2 pounds Butternut Squash...cubed and baked at 350 degrees for 30 mins.
WYeast 1056 American Ale

Planning on doing this this weekend....thoughts?

[Randal]

Pumpkin needs to be mashed; convert those starches to sugars so you actually get something out of it.

For an extract recipe such as this, I would skip the pumpkin and just add the spices.

_Randal

[DaBearSox]

huh, a butternut squash addition, haven't seen that before....

Bottled one of my pumpkin batches a few weeks ago and still have one in the primary...only differences is that I used a whole Pie Pumpkin in one and Libby's in the other. Oh, and I baked the libbys before the mash and just threw in the raw pie pumpkin in the other. Gotta say that pumpkin beer is a damn hassle if you use the pumpkin...i brewed mine late in the season so hopefully my first batch is ready for thanksgiving.

[chadm75]

This will be my second batch of pumpkin this season. Didn't use pumpkin the the first time, just used the spices. Everything I'm reading on this board is steering me away from using real pumpkin or libby's. Is it just a giant mess? Do you really reep the benefits flavor wise?

[Jimmy James]

There are a lot of good pumpkin ale threads if you search, I have one fermenting right now and got a lot of tips from the board here by looking around. Some of the salient points:
- pumpkin puree if mashed will only contribute a small amount to gravity, something like 4 pppg (I think George Schmidt was one source for this). This seemed a little surprising to me, since I always thought of pumpkin as pretty starchy. Nonetheless, I roasted and pureed 12 lbs of pumpkin and mashed it with my ale and got very little in terms of gravity from it. From what I could tell it contributed color, flavor and some mouthfeel to the wort, how that will carry through to the final product I won't know until I bottle next week sometime.
- Mashing the pumpkin with your grains will help clear out a lot of the sediment you'd otherwise get adding it directly to the boil, which may lead to less pectin or haze in the final product. I used rice-hulls in my mash and the wort was looking clear as normal going into the fermenters. Since you're going with extract and steeping grains I would consider roasting the pumpkin, pureeing it with a hand-mixer and then adding to the secondary fermenter, but not to the boil.
- late hop additions are discouraged as they will mask the subtle pumpkin flavor. If you are going to bother using actual pumpkin as opposed to just spices, then just go with one 60-minute addition - I think Cascades are probably fine and I'd just stick with the 1.5 oz 60-min and drop the 15 minute addition of EKGs.

Looks good though. I used 60L in mine too. I think that's a good call, regarding the extract you probably could use just light extract and drop the amber. You'll get the color you need from the 60L and some from the pumpkin too - I think the amber extracts just will make the beer finish sweeter since they usually are less attenuative.

I went with WLP001, so the same yeast as 1056. I think that's a good call.

[chadm75]

Thank you very much for the advice and tips! I'll come back to this thread after I'm done brewing for an update. I do think I'll stick with just spices....sounds like a lot of work with the pumpkin meat.

[DaBearSox]

Thank you very much for the advice and tips! I'll come back to this thread after I'm done brewing for an update. I do think I'll stick with just spices....sounds like a lot of work with the pumpkin meat.

All the work is so you can say it is an actual pumpkin ale.

Was my first go at it so I figured I might as well go all out...

[BrewerGeorge]

All the work is so you can say it is an actual pumpkin ale.

Was my first go at it so I figured I might as well go all out...

Pretty much. The pumpkin will give some color - an orange that's sort of unique among malt-only beers - but only if the base beer is light enough. There's also an aroma and a bit of flavor, both very subtle.

Overall, though, I think using actual pumpkin is one of those things brewers tend to do only once for the experience. After that people tend to switch to spices only.