Did I mess up?

Hey,

I brewed the smashing pumpkin ale and I’m coming up on 1 week in the primary. I realized that I didn’t follow the directions too good. I added all the extract at once with the hops and also the pumpkin pie spice.

I’m not too concerned with the extract as I am with the spice, seeing how it boiled for the whole 60min. I’m thinking of just adding a tsp of pumpkin pie spice to the secondary, will this bring the spice aroma and flavors back out or will this just be too much to add to the secondary?

Should I do a oz. of vodka to sterilize?

Or will it just be fine the way it is?

What are your thoughts?

I would not add any more spice until you taste it from the secondary.

In theory you may have killed a lot of the spice flavor my boiling the whole 60 minutes but maybe not. I would let it ferment another week and then take a sample and let that be the judge of how much you add.

Think about cooking a big batch of chilli. Once you add that cayenne pepper, you can’t take it back out, no matter how long you cook it. I’d say those spices are still in there, the flavor profile may have altered a bit. As others have said, don’t add anything until you taste it.

Ok, I’ll taste it and if it needs some how should I add it? I need to sterilize it right, what is the best way? Boil it in some water or DME, or use some alcohol?

Many have reported that the smashing pumpkin kit doesn’t include enough spice to begin with. While I agree that you need to taste before adding more spice, you should look on the forum for a recent thread about using vodka to make a spice tincture. Taste when you transfer, and make your decision about adding more, if you need more spice you can add the tincture at bottling time.