AG#60 - Pumpkin Ale

[kev]

Not done a write up in donkeys so decided to do one on my Pumpkin Ale that I'm brewing for Autumn/Halloween.

Brewday went well and I ended up massively over on my gravity and I think this is down to my increased sparge temp. I've been having efficiency issues for a while so have been tweaking things step-by-step. Today I tried a slightly hotter (78c instead of 75c) sparge water and it worked a lot better. Might do this from now on. Only bad point was my boiler filter got clogged up so I left a fair bit in the boiler. I tried to syphon and that got clogged too. I then literally poured out the wort from the boiler trying to minimise ***** coming across but when a few wee bits of hops went in the FV I decided to stop. I just hope that I didn't get any infections, etc whilst doing this. Ended up with 20 litres at 1072. Was aiming for 20L @ 1065 and when you consider I probably left a litre or two in the boiler, I was massively over on my efficiency numbers versus my previous brews.

Anyway, the recipe was fairly simple :

6.82kg M/otter (Crisp)
0.36kg Crystal
0.31kg Oats
0.06kg Chocolate

1.5 kg Pumpkin puree

90 min boil
15g Magnum @ 60
15g Fuggles @ 10

California V Ale yeast

Grain shot



Underletting



Starting temp



Overnight mash ended up at this with no pre-heating. Decent wee mash tuns these are.



Grain in morning



Very clear runnings



Pumpkin!



Sparging



Preparing the pumpkin - needs to get roasted for 30 mins



Hit 30 litres pre-boil bang on




Boil coming



Pumpkin about to go in the oven



Yeast!



Begin of chill



Starting to break







Pouring into FV - very slowly!



Colour



Gravity

 

[TheMumbler]

Did you use any spices in this kev?

 

[kev]

Sorry forgot to mention that. I am putting a tsp of nutmeg and a tsp of cinnamon into secondary fermenter.

Apparently this works a lot better than in the boil.

Just tasted the gravity sample and you can really taste the fruit. Liking it so far. Just hope I didn't contaminate anything with my dodgy transfer into FV.

K

 

[jonewer]

Well done.

At what point did the pumpkin go in?

 

[kev]

Plopped it in with the 60 min hop addition.

K

 

[TheMumbler]

Plopped it in with the 60 min hop addition.

K

Interesting, I put it in the mash when I did one. I went with a spice tea in the FV.

Hope it turns out well.

 

[kev]

Yeh LOADS of recipes said put it in the mash but I decided just to boil it as seen a few recipes that way and it seemed easier.

K

 

[kev]

Going like a rocket. Big head and loads of action.

Lovely stuff.

K

 

[kev]

Popped in nutmeg and cinnamon last night.

Smells amazing. Will probably bottle this weekend which means Halloween will be bang on 4 weeks after. Should work out fine.

K

 

[BrewBilly]

Looks like a cracking brew - where did you get the tins of pumpkin puree from? if I did a brew like this I don't fancy peeling that much pumpkin.

Did the roastiness of the pumpkin still come through once fermented?

Cheers
BrewBilly

 

[BrewDan]

Looking good, I had the plan of doing this for AG3, got the same pumpkin as you too from Waitrose. I'm sure this is going to taste fantastic, will be keeping an eye on this

 

[BIGJIM72]

Watching with interest Kev