Seasonal brewing

Bottled 10/12 - pretty tasty...

Saisons in summer, pumpkin in fall. Lagers in winter, we love them all.
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This one is adapted from a pumpkin ale recipe in the Sept/Oct 2013 issue of Zymurgy. Pumpkin beers are pretty hit-or-miss, so when someone prints one they've used successfully for a decade or so, I'm willing to give it a try. I changed the adjunct sugar from a maple/honey mix to all maple, and upped the pumpkin a bit.

Batch #83
Autumnal Equinox

10 lbs Golden Promise
0.5 lb Victory
0.5 lb Crystal 60L (US)
10 oz Melanoidin
~3.75 lbs pumpkin (mix between canned and cooked fresh)

7 AAU, 60m, I used 1.2 oz 5.8% Cascade pellets

Whirlfloc, 1 tab, 10m


2 qts maple syrup (~1 3/4 lb sugars) at flame-out
1/2 Tbsp pie spice at flame-out

Safale US-05, 11.5g

OG: 1.065
FG: 1.012
ABV: 7%
IBU: ~30

Dough-in with 20qts water at room temp, direct heat with constant stirring to bring to 154F, about 1 hour ramp time. Hold there for about an hour. I batch sparged 14qts to save some time today.

Autumn is Ausumn

Spooky Christmas is again almost here,
so it's time once more for our favorite beer.
Brewed with four pumpkins thrown into the mash,
we'll later add spices but, please, just a dash.
A fistful of caramel and another of chocolate,
a pound of roast malt to make a sweet stout of it.
Just enough fuggles for bittering hops,
we swear that you'll scream, 'this is the tops!'

Batch #65
Pumpkin Stout
8 lbs Maris Otter
1 lb British Roasted Barley
1 lb White Wheat Malt
6 oz British 70/80°L
4 oz British Pale Chocolate
6 lbs Pumpkin flesh (cooked, smushed)
8 oz Rice hulls
1.5 lbs Molasses (10m)
4 oz Lactose, 10m
1 oz Fuggles, 5.1%AA (60m)
1 oz Fuggles, 9.2%AA (20m)
1 tsp calcium chloride (mash)
1 tab whirlfloc (10m)
Safale US-05, 11.5g dry
OG: 1.064
FG: 1.016
ABV: 6.3%
IBU: ~25

Get up earlier than usual. Split, scrape out the seeds, and bake your pumpkins at 300F for an hour to 90m (want the skin to be a little saggy and the flesh to caramelize a bit). Pie pumpkins are best (sweet taste as opposed to just big). I had four pumpkins, weighing almost 17lbs total, to get the 6lbs of flesh (cooked weight). Once cooked, scrape out the flesh and save in a bowl for the mash.

Mashed in with 4 gal water (162F) to reach an initial infusion of 146F (difficult to calculate thanks to the pumpkin and rice hulls (pumpkin = starch, rice hulls = no stuck mash, please). Added tea kettles full of near-boiling water after 15m and 30m mash time to reach 150 and 153F, respectively. This was not my plan. I initially wanted a single infusion at 154F, but the pumpkin threw me off.

Boil 60m, adding hops and adjuncts as indicated. Cool to fermentation temp (I like 68F) and pitch yeast.

Halloween!

It's October, and there are pumpkins aplenty. Two pie pumpkins are used in this bottom of the grain bucket amber (hence the odd quantities on a couple of the grains). Spice should be fairly restrained. I'll likely add a little vanilla extract at kegging.

Batch #47
Pumpkin Beer
--8.5lbs 2-Row (RAHR)
--0.5lb Crystal 75L
--2oz Brit Pale Chocolate
--6.75oz Melanoidin
--7.62oz Crystal 40L
--1 fresh pumpkin, ~3lbs pre-cooked weight (15min)
--1 fresh pumpkin, ~3lbs pre-cooked weight (mash)
--1 oz Kent Goldings 6.1% AA (65min)
--1 oz Kent Goldings 6.1% AA (20min)
--1/4 tsp supermoss (15min)
--0.75 tsp pie spice (15min)
--1 tsp vanilla extract in keg
--1/4 tsp gypsum (mash water)
--Safale US-05 Ale Yeast, 11.5g
OG: 1.048
FG: 1.012
ABV: 4.7%
IBU: ~30

Cut, cleaned, and cooked both pumpkins. Removed the skin, and mashed into a paste. Mashed one of the pumpkins and grains for 60m at 152F. Collected 7 gallons wort. Boiled for 65m (I've got my reasons...reheat time after adding pumpkin and such), adding rest of ingredients as indicated. Chilled and pitched yeast (without rehydrate).

Weird.

Halloween's a-comin', so here's one of the draft beers for that. I revised the recipe from last time. The main goal was to use fresh sugar pumpkin. Fresh pumpkin was located...after I started the mash. I scaled back the amount of canned pumpkin under the assumption that I'd find the fresh stuff in time to secondary for a bit before kegging. This one should actually taste like pumpkin. I also toned down the spice and added some chocolate malt for color and maltodextrin for body. Still f-ing terrible efficiency on this one, though.

Batch #22
Old Pumpculiar v1.5
--8 lbs 2-Row American Pale Ale Malt (RAHR)
--1 lb Flaked Wheat
--2/3 lb Crystal 75L
--1/8 lb British Pale Chocolate
--4 oz Maltodextrin (60min)
--8 oz Cane Sugar (15min)
--8 oz Molasses (15min)
--45 oz Canned pumpkin (in mash)
--1/2 fresh pumpkin (15min)
--1/2 fresh pumpkin (in primary)
--1 oz Glacier 6% AA (60min)
--0.5 oz Willamette 4.6% AA (15min)
--Whirlfloc (15min)
--1.25 tsp pie spice (15min at flameout)
--White Labs WLP001 California Ale Yeast (1.1L starter)
OG: 1.046
FG: 1.007
ABV: 5.1%
Calc. IBU: 27

Single infusion, 1hr at 150F. Collected 6.5 gallons of wort with an efficiency of under 60%. Rargh. No idea what's up with that, seeing as I pulled 75%+ on the blackberry a couple weeks ago. Fresh pumpkin was split in half (goo and seeds removed) and baked face down at 300F long enough to soften the flesh. Pie spice was 2 parts cinnamon to 1 part each of cloves, allspice, nutmeg, and ginger.

It's pie time I brewed this.

Update 8/14 - Bottled. Spices are good, pumpkin flavor is a little mild. I think I'll add that a little differently for the next round. In other news, I'm done with WLP007. I don't really want a FG below 1.010. I didn't even really want that yeast, but am too impatient to wait for the Los Altos B3 shop to get the right strains in stock.
--

I was advised to try brewing Old Pumpculiar, as everyone that has made it seems to love it, and I'm looking for a good pumpkin brew for the fall. So, it being August, I decided to give it a go. I figured that if this is ready by September, that gives me plenty of time to decide on changes before the Halloween edition.

Batch #18
Old Pumpculiar (with substitutions)
--8 lbs 2-Row American Pale Ale Malt
--1 lb Flaked Wheat
--2/3 lb Crystal 75L*
--8 oz Cane Sugar
--8 oz Molasses
--75 oz Canned pumpkin* (in mash)
--1 oz Glacier 6% AA (60min)*
--0.5 oz Willamette 4.6% AA (15min)*
--Whirlfloc (15min)
--1 Tbs Pie spice* (15min at flameout)
--White Labs WLP007 Dry English Ale Yeast
OG: 1.046
FG: 1.006
ABV: 5.2%
Calc. IBU: 23

*Substitutions and changes. I added cloves to the pie spice because they belong there.

Mash grains and pumpkin (fresh or canned) at 153F for 60 minutes. I collected 6 gallons of wort, which makes for a slightly small batch. I'd recommend 6.5 gallons. My OG was about 10 pts low - I think due to over sparging during lauter. [I ended up making closer to 7.5 gallons of wort and not collecting all of it. The mistake: submerged hose tricked me into thinking I needed more water in the tun. So, my efficiency was low (really low...like 50-60%) unless I use the 7.5ish estimate which puts me right around 75%.]

Add hops and sugars at the appropriate times during the boil. Add the spices at flame-out and rest for 15 minutes before chilling. I used yeast from a 2L decanted starter. Good kraeusen when I checked about 10 hours after pitching.