I’m planning on brewing my pumpkin ale tomorrow morning, but am thinking about baking and caramelizing my pumpkin today. You don’t think I’ll lose anything if I bake it, then stick it in the fridge until tomorrow, do you?
Should be fine. If youre going to mash the pumpkin (All grain) then I would heat it back up to mash temps when you brew.
Yes, doing AG. I was thinking half in the mash, and half in the last 10-15 minutes of the boil, in a bag. It’s a pretty big pumpkin.
that is a good idea, I am going to do the extract version and was thinking of bypassing the pumpkin mini mash in favor of just doing a spice tincture. I do have 10 lbs of pumpkin i had bought for it though so I suppose there wouldn’t be any harm in roasting it and boiling for the last 15 in a bag?
Am I going to get any added flavor from doing this?
I think I will still do the tincture.
To get good color on the pumpkin when oven roasting spread the pumpkin out on the baking tray do not over crowd or you will get a lot of steam that will prevent browning and caramelizing. It may take several trays.
Normally when you oven roast you would coat the food in oil to encourage browning because it conducts heat well. but since you dont want any oil in your beer you could coat the pumpkin in some honey the syrup will conduct heat and the sugar will caramelize. dont use too much honey though or it will run off and burn on the pan.
Sorry if this advice was unsolicited, I just roasted 30# of pumpkin for pumpking bisque the other day at work and it was fresh on my mind when I read this thread.
You’re not going to get much in the way of gravity or flavor from the pumpkin itself. You will mainly get proteins and some pectins, and it will make your beer cloudy. Most commercial pumpkin beers are brown ales with a spice regimen similar to pumpkin pie. I like to go easy on the clove, as once the other stuff fades (and it will early), clove is all you will get. If it were me, I would say just get your color from some crystal 120 and some toast from a small amount of chocolate malt and around 10-15% munich.
Obviously your call though, and YMMV on the above. My two favorite pumpkin beers are Pumpking from Southern Tier and Schafly’s Pumpkin. I know the former actually does use pumpkin in the mash, and not sure about the latter. A lot of homebrewers just use it so they can say “this is made with REAL pumpkin!” Would be cool to do a side by side though. Maybe split your collected wort in half and do one boil with pumpkin added at the end, and one without, and see if you can perceive a difference to refine your recipe for Pumpkin Season 2013!
Good luck!
I think Pumpkin ale has to be made with some real pumpkin. I like to use the spiced vodka to get the flavor just right. I agree too that the clove is one to be leary of as it is dominating. I have never had any problems with it making the beer cloudy or hazy and neither have my brewer friends. YMMV.
I’m so disappointed. I cut up the pumpkin, and it’s still green on the inside. So, I baked it at 400 for almost 2 hours. it never caramelized, only shriveled. So, I’m going to use Libby’s pumpkin in the last 10 minutes of the boil, in a bag. I’ll add my first set of spices with 5 min. remaining in the boil. I’m not planning on a secondary, so I’m also going to make a vodka tincture with more spices, and add it to the primary after 3 weeks. I’ll bottle after the 4th week in the primary. 3 years ago, I make a pumpkin beer from extract, but i got impatient with the fermentation, and ended up with gushers. that’s why it’s going to sit in the primary for 4 weeks, then bottle.
