{"id":346,"date":"2014-12-31T14:24:11","date_gmt":"2014-12-31T19:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brewitright.com\/wordpress\/?p=346"},"modified":"2014-12-31T14:24:11","modified_gmt":"2014-12-31T19:24:11","slug":"pumpkin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/brewitright.com\/wordpress\/2014\/12\/31\/pumpkin\/","title":{"rendered":"Pumpkin"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"pumpkin-junk\"<\/a>
Leftovers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We whipped up our first pumpkin ale back in September when pumpkins were new and the world was young.\u00a0 It went over so well we barely got any ourselves.\u00a0 Now we have to rebrew it.\u00a0 We went for something much more subtle than Pumking<\/a> but still clearly a spiced pumpkin beer.\u00a0 Our base recipe was an amber ale inspired by nothing in particular except a lust for sweet malty goodness and a bit of spice.<\/p>\n

The Recipe<\/strong><\/p>\n

Name: Pumpkin #2\r\nBatch size: 5 gallons\r\nExpected OG: 1.065 (75% efficiency)\r\nExpected FG: 1.016\r\nExpected IBU: 45\r\nMash: 90m @ 152\u00b0F\r\n\r\n 9.0 lbs Rahr 2-Row\r\n 2.5 lbs Weyermann Dark Munich 10L\r\n   8 oz  Briess Light Munich 7L\r\n   8 oz  Briess Victory\r\n   8 oz  Muntons C60L\r\n   8 oz  Briess C120L\r\n   6 oz  Belgian aromatic\r\n   6 oz  rice hulls (not milled)\r\n   3     pie pumpkins (8.3 lbs before roasting)\r\n\r\n   1 oz  Northdown   7.9%AA @ 60m\r\n   1 oz  Willamette  4.7%AA @ 15m\r\n   1 oz  Willamette  4.7%AA @ 10m\r\n 1\/2 tsp cinnamon           @ 10m\r\n 1\/4 tsp ginger             @ 10m\r\n 1\/8 tsp nutmeg             @ 10m\r\n 1\/8 tsp allspice           @ 10m\r\n   1 oz  Willamette  6.5%AA @  5m\r\n\r\n1 pack Wyeast 1217 Northwest Ale\r\n<\/pre>\n
The astute among you may recognize the spice schedule as coming from Jamil Zainasheff and John Palmer’s Brewing Classic Styles<\/a>.\u00a0 Jamil recommends tossing half the spices into the boil kettle and the other half into the fermentor if needed, but we found adding all the spices to the boil gave just the subtle hint of spice we were looking for.<\/p>\n
The Brew<\/strong><\/p>\n
\"pumpkin-pre\"<\/a>
Magic goodness<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
While it doesn’t look very appetizing, these are pumpkin bits and they go right in the mash.\u00a0 Each pumpkin gets cut in half, seeds scraped out, placed cut-side-up on a baking sheet, and receives about a tablespoon of dark brown sugar in the middle.\u00a0 After 1 1\/2 hours of roasting at 325\u00b0F, drain the brown sugar liquid pumpkin nectar from each half into a bowl and save for later.\u00a0 Then flip each pumpkin half over and roast another hour until soft all the way though.\u00a0 Scrape out the pulp, discard the skins (see above), and dump the pumpkin into the mash with the grain.<\/p>\n
\"pumpkin-mashin\"<\/a>Because pumpkin isn’t as granular as malt, you’ll need some rice hulls to prevent stuck sparges.\u00a0 These help buoy the grain bed in the mash tun, forming a filter to catch pumpkin and other particles before they clog the mash screen.<\/p>\n
(The first time we brewed this recipe we used the Brew-In-A-Bag (BIAB) method with the pumpkin and the grains in separate bags, and it worked fine.\u00a0 If you don’t have a 3-vessel setup, then BIAB will definitely work too.)<\/p>\n
Pumpkin doesn’t contribute many fermentables to beer, so don’t expect a big gravity increase.\u00a0 All you get is a small amount of flavor and bit of mouthfeel, with most of the flavor coming from the spices and the malt.\u00a0 This means the beer needs to be excellent without the pumpkin<\/em>, since you don’t have much to hide behind if the recipe is weak.\u00a0 The pumpkin and spice enhance<\/em> the recipe instead of taking the place of anything else.<\/p>\n
\"pumpkin-bits\"<\/a>After mashing in the pH dropped way low (5.05) so we corrected with 1\/2 tsp baking soda to bring it back up around 5.25.\u00a0 Odd, since there aren’t many dark grains like chocolate, roast barley, or black malt, which are the usual pH-reducing culprits.<\/p>\n
First runnings were 15.5\u00b0 Plato (1.062) and at boil start we had 7.5 gallons @ 13\u00b0 Plato (1.052).\u00a0 Remember the brown sugar pumpkin water nectar goodness collected during the pumpkin roasting?\u00a0 Throw that into the boil kettle now for an extra pumpkin shot.<\/p>\n
At the end of the boil there was a ton of hot break, helped along by Whirlfloc at the 10 minute mark.\u00a0 We finished with 5 gallons of 16\u00b0 Plato (1.065) wort, chilled, kegged, oxygenated, and pitched the Wyeast 1217 Northwest Ale yeast.<\/p>\n
The Fermentation<\/strong><\/p>\n
Unfortunately, our fermentation fridge was filled with tapped kegs, and our Son of Fermentation Chiller<\/a> got infested by ants last summer and had to be tossed.\u00a0 So this beer’s fermentation was at ambient temperatures of about 65\u00b0F during the day, and 60\u00b0F at night. If the temperature dropped below 63\u00b0F a seedling heat mat was used to raise the temperature slightly, to ensure complete fermentation.\u00a0 Even with the lower temperatures, fermentation was vigorous and almost explosive, finishing at 1.012 for a total of 6.3% ABV.<\/p>\n
Tasting the blowoff foam indicated a good amount spice may have been lost out the airlock, since the spices are light and buoyant.\u00a0 This may have tempered their effect on the final taste, but we’ll have to ferment a future batch in a large bucket to be sure.<\/p>\n
The Evaluation<\/strong><\/p>\n
We found Pumpkin #2 to be less malty than #1, which we attribute to a different yeast (Wyeast 1217 instead of the original 1469) and lack of Maris Otter malt which the first version contained.\u00a0 Number 2 also finished about 7 gravity points lower than the first, so we carbonated it more highly to increase mouth-feel.\u00a0 That combined with a slightly sweeter taste from the Special B gives this brew just the kind of pumpkin pie flavor we wanted.\u00a0 We believe this version achieved the right balance of spice, crystal sweetness, and grain maltiness that we want out of pumpkin beer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We whipped up our first pumpkin ale back in September when pumpkins were new and the world was young.\u00a0 It went over so well we barely got any ourselves.\u00a0 Now we have to rebrew it.\u00a0 We went for something much more subtle than Pumking but still clearly a spiced pumpkin beer.\u00a0 Our base recipe was … Continue reading Pumpkin<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/brewitright.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/brewitright.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/brewitright.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brewitright.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brewitright.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/brewitright.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":359,"href":"http:\/\/brewitright.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions\/359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/brewitright.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brewitright.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brewitright.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}