I am brewing my first pumpkin ale and i want to make sure i have the spices correct and a double check of the grains. I am going to be using a real pumpkin in the mash.
Also has anyone had a better effect of taste as far as spice goes by adding them in the fermenter as opposed as during the boil?
Its a five gallon all grain
1 teaspoon of the last five min of boil
-Allspice
-Cinnamon
-Nutmeg
-cloves
Pale mat 2 row (7.5 lbs)
Munich Malt (3 lbs)
Caramel 80 (.75 lbs)
Caramel 60 (.50 lbs)
As far as the spice blend, I’d double or triple the cinnamon, cut the clove and allspice in half and maybe add a teaspoon of ginger. Figure out how much of the blend you want to add and reduce that by 1/3 to 1/2. You can always add more later but can’t take it out.
I recently brewed a pumpkin porter (still in the fermenter) and added 1 Tbsp of a blend roughly to the proportions I mentioned above with about 5 mins left in the boil. I tasted it about 2.5 weeks after pitching and it had a nice subtle spice, almost undetectable if you didn’t know it was there. I put another Tbsp in about 3-4 oz of vodka. I plan on adding a little bit of the “pumpkin extract” at bottling to make the spice a little more noticeable, but not overpowering. I don’t want the Porter (White House Honey Porter from our host) flavor to get too lost in all the spice.
As far as the rest of the recipe, looks good to me. You won’t get much character from 1056 but that’s probably what you’re looking for anyway.
Okay thanks i think what im going to do is make a little bowl of the spices all mixed into one and just add 3 oz at 5 min left of the boil and add more during secondary ferm if needed. Also thinking of adding in .25 lbs of chocolate malt to darken the color a little.
I’ve made a few pumpkin beers over the years, and I’ve done spice additions using pumpkin pie spice as well as a custom blend of spices both in the kettle and as an alcohol tincture. For my tastes I like the kettle addition the best, last 5 min or flame out, with a new container of ordinary pumpkin pie spice, and I and only add a teaspoon/ 5 gal. I know it sounds incredibly lame, simple, and amateurish to do it that way, but thats is what I have found the best to my liking as well as to others who drink my beers. It adds just a subtle pie flavor that isn’t overpowering, if you find it needs more spice, you can always add more.
For the pumpkin addition, I usually quarter 1-2 pie pumpkins/ 5 gal and bake them at 350 until slightly brown and tender, then mash with a fork and add to the mash. You could also add some cubed in a bag to the boil as well.
I think you grain bill looks good, I like to keep the bitterness low: 20 -25 ibu.
