Pumpkin Ale

I'm doing a pumpkin porter in the next couple of weeks. Waiting on some fresh pumpkin though.

Hopefully someone chimes in on an extract version. I'm all grain, and I'm just going to add fresh roasted pumpkin flesh to the mash.

Use cinnamon, allspice, clove, nutmeg and vanilla in the boil or in secondary. I'm gonna age it on spiced rum oak cubes for a short aging.

Simply put, you might be able to opt out of using actual pumpkin. Not sure if you can steep it, as it'll make it really starchy maybe.. I have no idea though. I've seen people add pumpkin to the boil late, around 20 minutes though. Pumpkin beers honestly are just about spicing it correctly to your tastes. You'd use something clean, and earthy for a hop probably. Fuggles, Northern Brewer, Willamette, all come to mind.

As for priming with brown sugar.. I wouldn't waste your time. It's like priming with maple syrup. Shit's gone when the yeast eat it and leave nothing.

 

I also do a pumpkin porter every fall (also aged on oak chips with spiced rum). I started all-grain this year, so all my past pumpkin beers have been extract based. I had good results with canned pumpkin (pure pumpkin, not pie filling). I spread it out on a cookie sheet and baked it with 1/2 my spices for about an hour, then added it to the boil at 30 mins. I used a LOT of pumpkin, like two 29 oz cans of it. This will leave an assload of trub in the primary, even if you strain it first, but I think the flavor in the finished beer is worth it. Now that I'm doing all-grain, I'll try it in the mash this year. Who knows, there might be some starches in the pumpkin that could get converted with a good high enzyme base malt?

I think an amber would be an excellent base beer. You could probably put pumpkin in many base styles, as long as it's hopped appropriately. Agree with the above post that Willamette would be good. I wouldn't want any strong American "C" hop flavor coming through for a spiced pumpkin beer.

 

Good info on doing it extract.

Only thing I know is that pumpkin in the mash is a PITA and you need to lauter slowly, and use rice hulls. Stuck sparge is common.

 

I do basically a brown ale base for my pumpkin beer I make every fall. I would suggest not being too conservative with the crystal malt, and I like to use a fair amount of Aromatic (although, that should be mashed; you could technically do a mini mash by just matching however much aromatic you would use with a regular base malt in your steep and give it a quick rinse, then adjust how much extract you use from there).

I use no pumpkin in this beer. I tried using pumpkin a couple times a couple different ways and decided it was contributing nothing. I've read that using butternut squash will contribute more of a "pumpkin" taste, but it really comes down to the spices used. One thing I will say is a must is to use fresh, high quality spices and vanilla. I have definitely noticed a difference between using fresh spices and using whatever was on the spice rack (probably a couple years old). Spices go in when fermentation is finished; up to that point, it's just a regular (albeit, a bit sweeter than normal) brown ale that I ferment with English Ale yeast.

Good luck!

 

Cinnamon, brown sugar*, nutmeg, allspice, ginger...I crush it all up together, put some vanilla extract in it, give it a good shake and dump it all in.

*I use brown sugar because I keg and serve almost immediately. I would not do this if bottling, because then you would have to account for it when figuring out your priming sugar. It will ferment out and not contribute much of anything.

 

Nothing wrong with sticking with extract - you can make good beers with extract if your process/technique is sound. I do both extract and all grain these days depending on how much time I have on my planned brewday. I can't really tell the difference to tell you the truth. Only difference I really see is better costs and more flexibility and malt choices to fine tune recipes with all grain.

When designing an extract recipe I start off with pale or pils malt extract (I prefer dme), no matter the recipe, as base malt and steep some crystal, carapils, and/or roasted malts depending on the style. You have no idea what amber and dark extract is made of and each manufacter could do it differently. Starting with a pale base makes recipe development repeatable and sets you on your way to all grain brewing. For a pumpkin ale I would steep some 60-90L crystal to get an amber color. I never made an extract pumpkin ale, but I have heard of ppl putting canned pumpkin in the boil or directly in the fermenter. I would probably just skip it though so I wouldn't have to deal with the guck and just go with pumpkin pie spices.