Help With Maple Pumpkin Ale

I would add the syrup in the secondary, preserves more aromatics. If you're not concerned with the "authenticity" of a pumpkin ale with real pumpkin in it, I would go with pumpkin pie spice for ease.

 

I used 45oz of canned pumpking in the mash with 3# Rahr 6-Row. I then went on with my extract recipe from Northern Brewer. I added pumpkin pie spice at flamout but then needed add a bit more after fermentation since it seemed to be nonexistent in the aroma. Be careful with spices... you can add more but you can't take any out. Start with 1tsp at flamout and go from there in 1/2 tsp increments after fermentation. The 1tsp at flameout was not present IMO but that's all different for everyone so you could bump that to 1.5tsp at flameout.

 

I mixed in about a 1/4 cup maple syrup with 30 oz canned pumpkin puree then baked it at 350F for about an hour, mixing a few times to get some caramelization. Then I added this to my mash and mashed like normal. No maple in the finished product taste though, I just did it to get some sugars in there and help with the caramelization.

 

That is a common misconception as maple syrup has been boiled down to 1/40 of its original volume already so all the flavours are aromatics are stable through a boil and fermentation. I think this stems from our knowledge of honey and when it should be added...

That said no damage will be done by adding it to the secondary rather than the primary.