I just can’t decide what beer style to brew today. Oh, I know pumpkin!
Recipe for 5 gallons:
- 7 lbs 2-row American Pale Malt
- 2 lbs Aromatic Malt
- 2 lbs Munich Malt
- 2 lbs Victory Malt
- 1 Roasted pumpkin
- 1.00 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] – Boil 60.0 min
- 1.00 tsp Ginger Root (Boil 10.0 mins)
- 1.00 tsp Cinnamon Stick (Boil 10.0 mins)
- 1.00 tsp Nutmeg (Boil 10.0 mins)
- 1.0 pkg American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056)
Quite excited for this one. Pumpkin beer. Okay. So things start off like normal. I’ve preheated my strike water. And can I add in the grains measured in mass for me by Atlantic brew supply. Thanks guys.
Now, the question is when to add the pumpkin into this beer?? Because really you could perceivably do it almost at any stage. You can do it in the mash. You can do it in the boil. Uh, you could even put it in the fermentor in primary or secondary.
I was originally going to put the pumpkin into the boil and boil for 60 minutes. But after chatting with Atlantic brew supply, they persuaded me that I might want to give it a try by putting it directly in the mash. I have my roasted pumpkin here and I’ll show you how I made this in a little bit, but I’m just going to try putting this directly in the mash.
The thing I hadn’t decided is should I just throw this in like this, in these little chunks or should I mash them up? Going to mash them. Surely don’t call it the mash for nothing.
Right Here we go. All mashed up. I’m just going to throw these into the mash.
I’m hoping that by doing this, I’m really going to pull out the sugars in here, but also the flavors and the starch from the pumpkin. Mashin at 152 Fahrenheit or 67 Celsius for an hour.
My friend Chris took some pumpkin seeds and planted them in his back yard. Before a long, the pumpkin’s had taken over. They were everywhere. And so I became the proud owner of a couple of home grown pumpkins.
2 pumpkins ready for brewing.
Now looking to build a beer here with an original gravity of around 10 64. So 6.6% ABV, although that’s pre pumpkin. Cause I didn’t really know what sort of sugars the pumpkin are gonna contribute to this beer.
In terms of what’s in the mash. Well, 55% is pale two row malt and then to that I’m adding in three specialty malts. I’m adding in at 15%, each Munich, aromatic, and victory.
Let me show you how I prepared the pumpkin for today’s brew. First of all, I started out by cutting it in half. Then it’s a case of scooping out all the seeds and the innards. We don’t need any of that. With the pumpkin, the hollowed out, it’s a case of slicing the pumpkin, each slice being a couple of inches thick.
Add those slices to a baking sheet with foil. Don’t want to skip the file here, sprinkled with brown sugar and add into the oven at 375 Fahrenheit for about two hours.
At this point in your whole house is going to smell like a pumpkin spice latte. It’s wonderful.
So from there simply remove the skin by cutting into slices, put into a tub. And if you’re not brewing right away, store it in the fridge.
I’m bittering this one to about 31 IBU with just a single bittering hop, which goes in at the start. I am using Northern Brewer, in that goes, We have 10 minutes left in the boil, it’s time to add in the spices and I’ve got three. I’ve got ground ginger, ground nutmeg, and a cinnamon stick. Just going to put these directly into the boil. I think I’m going to put this guy in the hop filter.
It smells the part, this is going to be good. For the yeast I’m using nothing fancy here, just using Wyeast 1056 American ale yeast. I want all of the flavor to come from those spices and of course the pumpkin itself. I’m going to ferment this one at 68 Fahrenheit or 20 Celsius.
So the man with the pumpkins. Yeah. Yeah. That’s going to be interesting to see how they taste. Yeah. Yeah. The pumpkin’s we’ll use well, I think.
It’s crazy what happened with all your pumpkins, like taking over your yard, and I’ve got two now on my porch at the front and they took over the whole of the yard. I think the pumpkins owned the yard at this point. Not anymore though. They’re all dying off now. So yeah.
So, let’s have a look at the color of this one. Oh, it’s lovely. It does look a really nice. Yeah. Does it.
Smell that pumpkin? I could smell spices in it. Yeah. Let’s give it a try. Yep. Cheers. Cheers.
Really nice. You can taste the pumpkin coming through. Pumpkin flavor. Is there isn’t it? There’s definitely. That is like, um, a glass of pumpkin pie without the sweetness, I would say not too sweet.
Can you imagine having this with your Thanksgiving meal? That would be pretty nice. I think sometimes I find the pumpkin beers, a little overly sweet for my taste, but I don’t think this is all that it’s not sweet at all. It’s nice. It has a real kick to it. I think a real spicy kick.
I have to say when you’re thinking about doing a pumpkin beer, I’m not really a big fan of pumpkin beers. Um, but I quite like this one. I really like it. I really like it. Well, I think the answer is if you have pumpkin’s and have more than you know what to do with, pumpkin beers a good idea. Stick them in a beer. This works out. It works out perfectly, I would say. Yeah.
Well, thank you very much for the pumpkin. I thank you for doing the tasting. Thank you. Thanks for doing the beer and thanks for giving me the opportunity to taste it, yes, it’s a beauty.
Cheers. Cheers!
Lead marketer, brewer, dad, and husband. Pretty much an all-round awesome guy.