Help with a pumpkin beer!

Making a pumpkin beer for a friends jack and Jill… Was directed here for a critique of my recipe. Wanted to know how the recipe looked, also how much pumpkin should I add?
I want it to be spiced and have pumpkin in it because I know that’s what my friend likes
Thanks!
2.00 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (19.5%)

6.00 lbs Amber Dry Extract (58.5%)

2.00 lbs Munich Malt - 10L (19.5%)

0.25 lbs Brown Sugar, Light (2.4%)

0.50 oz Magnum 60 mins 14.00 (21)

0.50 oz Magnum 15 mins 14.00 (10)

0.50 tbsp Allspice 05 mins Boil

1.00 tbsp Cinnamon Stick 05 mins Boil

0.50 tbsp Cloves, Ground 05 mins Boil

1.00 tbsp Nutmeg 05 mins Boil

0.25 tsp Ginger Root 05 mins Boil

1.00 tbsp Vanilla

It’s really the spices that make the beer, the pumpkin adds very little if anything.

Adding pumpkin isn’t really necessary.

If you want to add pumpkin it’s best to caramelize some of the pumpkin meat in the oven at ~250-275F for 90 - 120minutes. Then add to the last 10-15 minutes of the boil.

Munich malt must be mashed. You have way to high of crystal malt. In addition amber DME contains crystal malts. This, coupled with the extract norm to finish at a higher FG, screams a cloyingly sweet finished product.

My suggestion is to use light DME, keep the crystal malt below 10% of the total fermentables, and drop any late hop additions. Pumpkin beers focus is on the spices so it just needs a bittering charge to balance the sweetness. As jd14t said, no real need to add pumpkin. It causes more trub/wort loss than what its worth. Its the spices that provide the flavor. Don’t believe me? Make a pumpkin pie WITHOUT the spices and see how good it is.

I would make a spiced vodka with your spices and then after a few weeks, decant the vodka off the spices and add to your beer until it tastes how you like it. Be careful of the cloves. A little goes a long way. I’d use half or a third of what you called out.

I tried my first pumpkin spice tincture ( but not first tincture) and it is now the consistency of ecto plasm from ghostbusters. More vodka needed? Op, check out my thread “keys to pumpkin beer” on here if u haven’t already. Lot of good stuff from experienced brewers on there.

[quote=“Pietro”]I tried my first pumpkin spice tincture ( but not first tincture) and it is now the consistency of ecto plasm from ghostbusters. More vodka needed? Op, check out my thread “keys to pumpkin beer” on here if u haven’t already. Lot of good stuff from experienced brewers on there.[/quote]Mine is the same way but the vodka is all you need off the top.

[quote=“jd14t”]It’s really the spices that make the beer, the pumpkin adds very little if anything.

Adding pumpkin isn’t really necessary.

If you want to add pumpkin it’s best to caramelize some of the pumpkin meat in the oven at ~250-275F for 90 - 120minutes. Then add to the last 10-15 minutes of the boil.[/quote]

I tried that once, but the beer just turned out way too grainy. Must have been the Briess.