Pumpkin Ale

Wow!
It's hard to believe...but this topic has never-ever come up before in the BA HB forum.

Don't believe me.
Search on 'pumpkin ale' and see how few hits are returned.

Oh wait.
Turms out...this topic has come up many many times before in the BA HB forum.
Who knew?

Guess the Bros' SEARCH function is fallin'down drunk...again.

 

Actually not a lot of starch, total carbohydrates for pumpkins are ~14% whereas say corn is 75% and barley is 73%. It's also high in fiber and protein so considered a 'health' food. Total gravity boost is approx 5 points per pound of pumpkin in the mash for a 5 gallon batch.
I just finished a story on pumpkin ales for BYO so if you see one, pick one up , but there is a good article in last year's Sept/Oct's Zymurgy with some tips and recipes.

 

+1. I did a spiced Old Ale, which I aged (and sampled) for over a year. The spices faded with time, pretty much the way hop flavor/aroma does. At one point toward the end, I "dry spiced" it in the keg to restore the spices. The re-spiced beer was a hit in the next competion, whereas it had done okay, but not great, before re-spicing. If I do this recipe again, I may not even spice it at all until after it has been well aged and it's nearly time to tap.

 

This will be my 3rd year brewing a pumpkin ale. I use 2 cans of pumpkin that I roast for about an hour in the oven. I sprinkle brown sugar and pumpkin pie spice in too before it goes in. Once it has had a chance to cool, I toss it all in the mash. I do add 1tsp of spices at the end of a boil, then 1.5-2tsp at the end of fermentation. Always been a huge fan of it. Always comes out great.

 

correction...pumpkin is 5-7% carbohydrates.

 

That's fairly small percentage-wise, but to put that in context... say you're going to use 5 lbs of pumpkin in a 5 gallon recipe... at 7%, that's almost 6 ounces of carbs. Kind of like putting 6 ounces of, say, flour into 5 gallons of wort. So if I were going to use pumpkin, I'd mash.

OTOH, I wouldn't use pumpkin at all. The spices are where what most people think of as pumpkin flavor come from.

 

using pumpkin will provide carotene which can help get that amber-orange hue and a reason many brewers will still use pumpkin...just something to keep in mind.

 

Here’s my recipe (a modification from others):

Batch 5 gallon
ABV 7.5%
OG 1.073
FG: 1.016
IBU 25
Color 15

Mash Ingredients:
7.5 lbs 2-Row
2 lbs 6-Row*
1.25 lbs Victory
0.75 lbs Crystal 60
4-cans (15 oz cans) organic pumpkin puree*
Mash @ 156 degree F 90 mins
Mashout @ 168 degree F 10 mins

Boil Ingredients:
1 oz Hallertauer @ 60 mins
0.5 oz Hallertauer @ 30 mins
0.5 oz Hallertauer @ 15 mins
0.75 tbsp McCormick Pumpkin Spice @ 5 mins

Yeast US-05

* I bake my puree at 350 for 45 to 60 mins on a flat sheet and then add to mash along with the other ingredients. If you adjust the recipe or make your own and plan on adding pumpkin puree, I recommended to include 6-row (0.5 lbs / can). 6-row has good diastatic power at around 160, which will greatly help starch conversion of the puree.

 

one other minor point...of the 6 ounces of carbs, ~50% is already as simple sugars, so would be more like 3 oz. I agree...still, as always, will be mashing mine, but a reason many folks don't bother mashing pumpkin since then they don't need to deal with it in the mash tun.