Anyone care to share their favorite pumpkin recipe/techniques? I've never brewed one and don't feel like thinking for myself, but I would like to give brewing one a shot in the coming weeks. TIA
In my experience you should use butternut squash if you want more of that squash flavor, or really go hard on the pumpkin (at least double what you were planning on using). If you just want the spice flavor you can skip pumpkin altogether really. The recipe I have used since my first year of brewing is: 78% 2 row 8% biscuit 4% Pale Wheat 4% caramel 60 4% aromatic 2% special B I have made this with puree and fresh pumpkin. I prefer fresh, but it is a lot more work. I would use around 5-6 pounds of butternut squash roasted in the over until soft and a little browned in areas. You'll end up with around 2-3 pounds after roasting and peeling. Add this to your mash, or if doing extract put it in a bag and add during your steep. 5 AAU cascade at 60 8 AAU Mt. Hood at 40 2 AAU Liberty at 20 1/4 tsp allspice 1/8 tsp ground ginger 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg 1 cinnamon stick 1 tbsp vanilla 1/4 cup bourbon I typically add ground spices to wort at flameout and the stick I typically soak in bourbon and vanilla extract for a couple of days and add the liquid right before bottling. Spices are tricky though, so err on the side of underspicing and taste throughout or else you could end up with an overspiced mess. I have used Wyeast 1099 Whitbread and S-04 in this before. I think both work fine. Like I said, I've been using this recipe for about 8 or 9 years and it has always yielded good results. I'm not saying it makes the most sense or is the best put together, but it typically comes out between 5-7% ABV (depending on so many things) a little on the lighter side at 11 SRM, and right around 15 IBU. I make it for Thanksgiving and the family loves it. Thats all that matters to me.
it is that time of year, and there will be many more threads still to come on pumpkin beer. I don't really like to stick to absolute recipes very often, but I will add that I have been making a pumpkin beer for years (for others!) and the recipe is always just about the same. make an Oktoberfest/marzen with slightly reduced IBUs. add your favorite pumpkin pie spice after fermentation is complete and before racking. the spice mix is by far the most important, and it is also very much a personal preference. I like Penzey's pie spice myself. I find that pumpkin beer gets tiring quickly, and there is more than enough going on with the spice mix that bourbon, vanilla, oak etc. just muddies things up. the selection of hops is not too important, noble variety is appropriate and west coast should be avoided. this is really just a malt beverage to showcase pie spice. one batch and most people are tired of it by Thanksgiving. add a little spice at a time, because you can't remove it once it's in. that's it. lazy pumpkin beer for consideration. Cheers.
I LOVE PUMPKIN BEERS!!!! Here's a partial I made that is freaking awesome, a bit of a mix of Shipyard Smashed Pumpkin and a Pumking recipe. 6lbs extra light DME 2lbs wheat DME 1lbs Belgian bicuit steeped 1lb crystal 60 steeped 1oz magnum @60 1oz Hallertau @10 2lbs brown sugar @15 2 29oz cans of pumkin pie mix that were previously roasted in the oven with brown sugar and then added to the boil @15 in a fine mesh bag 2 packs of US-05 added to the fermenting bucket spices are 1tbs pumkin pie spice, a whole vanilla bean added to primary after fermentation is done, 2 days before cold crashing for 3 days. priming was with brown sugar. Came out at 10% and is the best pumpkin I have ever made. Not too much spice, good pumpkin flavor, malts, and it goes down way too easy. I'll be making this every year.
I'm patiently waiting for the small NE brewers to make a gravy style pumpkin beer that will instantly be better than the rest of the pumpkin beers.
The 10-gallon batch we did this past Sunday was fairly similar to @TheGr8Sarcasmo 's recipe. One thing we do differently is bake pumpkin puree in the oven with brown sugar sprinkled over it @ 325 for 30 min, or until pumpkin carmelizes, and then add it to the mash. Just make sure to use rice hulls, since the pumpkin gets super sticky when lautering. 2 oz Cluster hops at 60, and 2 oz Saaz at FO. We added 2 lbs of brown sugar in the boil, along with the typical spices - we ended up doing around 3 tablespoons total (allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg) since it was a 10 gal batch. Also added candied ginger at 5 min. Ferment at 64 ºF with a starter of 1056. Another way of infusing vanilla is to soak some beans in rum, and blend it at bottling. Bottle prime with brown sugar.
haha, No it was on me. I once ruined a beer by throwing a stone in with the dry hops to weigh it down. It did what I intended to but it also did quite a bit of nasty damage haha
How did adding 3 tablespoons total (allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg) work out for you? I just brewed a big, OG 1.116, holiday beer for Xmas '16. Although I have a lot of time to work out dose, I'm beginning research regarding amount of cinnamon and nutmeg (I'm not adding allspice) to add. Thx!
When are you planning on adding the spices, during ferment? I added mine at the end of the boil, but it sounds like you've already brewed this. I personally thought it was a good balance of spice for 10 gallons, but I know everyone perceives spice differently. Given that your OG is enormous I wouldn't be worried that this amount will overpower any of the other flavors in such a big beer. What was your batch size? The spices in the pumpkin ale I brewed definitely shine through (the wort tasted like pumpkin pie), but I wouldn't say that it was overkill. I found it to be a good amount for a ~ 1.080 OG beer, and I'd add the same amount again if I brew another batch this year. Hope that helps
@Lukass plan is to spice in the keg in December and then bottle. Batch size is 5 gallons. I think I’ll go 1.5 tsp cinnamon, 0.75 tsp nutmeg and 2 vanilla beans; all of which will be soaked in brandy.
