Timothy's Pumpkin Ale 2013

[timothy]

Timothy's Pumpkin Ale 2013

Well, I picked up some canned pumpkin pie mix (pumpkin, sugar, salt & spices) on clearance so I figured this would be a great excuse to try a fall themed pumpkin ale. Two cans of 30 oz pumpkin pie mix and one 15 oz can of pure pumpkin were used in this 5 gal. batch. I mixed the pumpkin together with 1 cup of light-brown sugar and roasted at 350 F (175 C) for 1.5 hours for some baked caramel-y goodness. The pumpkin was then placed into a fine meshed hop sack and mashed along with the grain to prevent mucking up the works and to allow easy removal of the pumpkin goop. The rest of the recipe is as follows.

Fermentables
Type...........................Amount .....Percent by Wt.
American 2-Row .............5.0 lb........33 %
Canned Pumpkin Pie Mix....4.5 lb........30 %
Munich Malt I.................2.0 lb........13 %
Rolled Oats...................12.0 oz........5 %
Caramel Malt 90L............8.0 oz.........3 %
Red Wheat....................8.0 oz.........3 %
Victory Malt...................6.0 oz.........2 %
Caramel Malt 120L...........4.0 oz.........1 %
Brown Sugar, Light...........1.0 lb..........6 %

Hops
Type.............Amount....Time........Use ..........Form.....AA
Willamette......0.5 oz .....75 min.....First Wort....Pellet....4.7 %
Hallertau........1.0 oz......75 min.....First Wort....Leaf.....2.5 %
Willamette......0.5 oz......20 min.....Boil...........Pellet ....4.7 %

Yeast
Nottingham Ale Yeast

Extras
Type.....................Amount......Use
Pumpkin Pie Spice.....TBD...........Secondary

Stats
Batch size: 5 U.S. Gal (19 L)
Mash Temp: 140 F for 30 min. 158 F for 75 min.
Est. Efficiency: 66 %
Boil: 75 Minutes
Gravity: 1.060 OG - 1.010 FG (Predicted)
IBU: 19
ABV: 6.5%
SRM: 16


Grain


Roasted Pumpkin


Mash


Post Boil Racking. Getting rid of precipitated proteins and residual pumpkin and grain matter before pitching yeast.
Pictured alongside my yeast starter.


Active fermentation 8 hours post pitch



Looks, smells, and tastes delicious already. Can't wait to enjoy this over the coming fall and winter months.

Cheers!

[seymour]

Cool idea, Timothy. Looking good! I like the pouring spout on that boil kettle, that would be handy at times. I also like the Jack Daniels yeast bottle.

[timothy]

I like the pouring spout on that boil kettle, that would be handy at times.

The spout is especially helpful since that's my only way of getting liquid and grain out of the kettle, unless I want to start a siphon, which obviously wouldn't work with the mash. I just pour the entire contents through a course wire basket/colander then fly sparge by hand pouring hot water over the grains a couple cups at a time. After sparging into a bucket, the wort is poured through a much finer meshed colander back into the mash/boil kettle where the boil then commences. After the boil, I just pour it back out into the FV, leaving most of the bottom debris behind. Definitely convenient. Not the best way to get the clearest wort, but I haven't had any problems with clarity yet.

I also like the Jack Daniels yeast bottle.

Thanks! It's funny, that's what I used for some of my first batches of wine. Now it's used solely for creating yeast starters for batches that are just a little bit bigger now Does that mean that microbreweries use 5 gallon carboys for their yeast starters? Most likely. One man's fermentation vessel is another man's yeast starter.

[alix101]

I made a decent pumpkin ale once but my advice would be bottle it ! It takes some getting through a keg of it...very rich.

[timothy]

I made a decent pumpkin ale once but my advice would be bottle it ! It takes some getting through a keg of it...very rich.

Oh don't worry, I'm not even close to having the means to keg anything anyways. It's all bottles for me whether I like it or not. Besides, I like holding onto bottles and gifting them months/years down the road so this is probably best anyways. Plus, bottling fulfills my hoarding tendencies, for better or for worse.

[sbond10]

I seem to remember wytchwood brewery did a pumpkin ale last year they might assist you if you wanted to see a commercial equivalent ?

[seymour]

I seem to remember wytchwood brewery did a pumpkin ale last year they might assist you if you wanted to see a commercial equivalent ?

Man, that would be fun to sample! But I swear, Schlafly sets the highest bar for pumpkin ale that I know of, and is walking distance from Timothy and I! They practically give their recipes away, in case you're interested: http://schlafly.com/beers/styles/pumpkin-ale/

At their biggest festival last year, the special brew was a high-grav Pumpkin Stout. Mmmmm.

[sbond10]

That looks lovely Seymour like you wishing you could try some of the beers over here, that looks like something I'd try

[seymour]

Drinking a bottle of Timothy's Pumpkin Ale right now in a snifter glass: fruity, caramelly, just the right amount of pumpkin and pumpkin pie spices, I especially like the nutmeg notes, perfect hoppy bittering balance but only faint aromas, super smooth alcoholic warmth, light body, low carbonation, lasting complex aftertaste which eventually finishes dry. Delicious.

[Clibit]

I got a bottle of Wychwood Pumpkin a week or two ago from Aldi for 99p. Its ok but nowt special, not a whole lotta pumpkin or spice goin on.

[timothy]

Bottled 14/10/2013 after 6 weeks of primary fermentation. Fermentation was still dying down, but I was getting impatient and jumped the gun and went ahead and bottled anyways. The beer was still fairly opaque with suspended yeast, so I don't know what I was thinking. Gravity was at 1.011, so I thought, "It must be about done, right?". Opened a bottle at day 5 of bottle conditioning and had perfect carbonation. However, at day 7, I had a bunch of mini-volcanoes. So, to prevent a bunch of bottle bombs, I threw all of them into the fridge for 2 days, then slightly cracked the bottle caps off of every single one to let the excess CO2 escape for a bit, letting them foam and bubble for about an hour as they slowly warmed on the counter, then re-crimped them all. What a hassle.

After a few more weeks in the bottle, they are perfectly drinkable and delicious, with a relatively nice amount of carbonation, but did end up on the lower end of the carbonation scale. No complaints here...It's certainly better than the alternative. The only downside with this beer in my opinion is the lack of head retention, which I am surprised by with the 12 oz of unmalted oats and 8 oz of unmalted wheat.

At bottling, the small amount of spices present in the pre-mixed pumpkin pie mix had long since dissipated, and the pumpkin character itself was fairly faint, despite using 4 1/2 lbs of pumpkin in the mash. I had planned on adding spices to secondary, but since I skipped secondary I decided to add them directly to the bottling bucket. I seasoned to taste, and ended up using 2.0 tsp pre-blended pumpkin pie spice, 0.75 tsp ginger, and 0.25 tsp cinnamon. The spice had approximately two hours of contact time with the beer before bottling. If adding to secondary where the beer will be spending more time on the spices that don't dissolve and simply settle to the bottom, less spice might want to be used, but that is just an assumption based on what I observed.

Overall, I am very happy with this beer. Fermentation was in the 68 degree F range, and ended up somewhat estery and fruity compared to the super malty pumpkin beers I have tasted for comparison. Its a nice change a pace but still very much true to the pumpkin beer style. I will certainly be enjoying this and sharing this with family and friends over the upcoming Fall and Winter holidays. Cheers!

[6470zzy]

The only downside with this beer in my opinion is the lack of head retention, which I am surprised by with the 12 oz of unmalted oats and 8 oz of unmalted wheat.

Upon reflection, do you think that your post boil racking impacted the head retention somewhat ?

Cheers

[timothy]

Upon reflection, do you think that your post boil racking impacted the head retention somewhat ?

Cheers

You know, I'm not really sure. But, I don't really think so since I've done this with most of my other beers and haven't had any head retention issues. On some bottles that I opened recently the retention seems to have improved with long-term bottle conditioning. However, there's always the chance that my 140 F mash rest could have also activated some proteinases that could have degraded some of the beneficial head retaining proteins.

[seymour]

Most pumpkin ales I've tasted had poor head retention. Perhaps it's simply a by-product of the fatty oils in the pumpkin and cooking spices?