I am kind of new to brewing and recently decided to try brewing my favorite seasonal beer, a pumpkin ale. To do this I bought the Smashing Pumpkin Ale from Northern Brewer as well as 3lbs of Row 6 and a pumpkin as instructed. I am just a little unclear on what I am supposed to do next. They say to boil the row 6 AND the included grains with 3 gallons of water and the mashed up, cooked, pumpkin. My question is, do I let ALL of the grains freely float in the boil or do I put them in the sack as per usual. Also, do I start as if it were boiling water when its time to put the hops and malt in? I just want to be sure I am going about it right beforeI give it a go. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
I’m assuming this is going to be your first mash. In a mash, the grains are held at about 145-158°F (this kit specifies 152°F) for an hour or so. The wort is then separated from the grist before it’s boiled. You might want to look over NB’s instructions
Great! Thank you. That helped answer some of my questions. My one remaining question though is, do I take the row six and the specialty grains provide along with the pumpkin and make the mash all at one or do I just do that procedure with the row six and pumpkin and then do the specialty grains as if it were just water? I apologize if these questions seem stupid! I just want some good home brewed beer!
I just ordered the same kit and had one additional question. I’m assuming that by adding the 6-row I’m just turning this into a partial mash kit, correct? So, after mashing the 6-row, pumpkin and specialty grains the resulting wort is then boiled with the included extract just like a regular partial mash kit (using recipe schedule)?
The only real reason for the 6-row is the enzymes. Mashing the 6-row with your pumpkin will convert the starches in the pumpkin to sugars just like it would do for grain. 6-row typically has more enzymes than 2-row and pumpkin doesn’t have any, of course.
For what it’s worth, that isn’t really the case for most contemporary maltsters. 2-row and 6-row pale malts are all around 120-160°L, with considerable overlap. Unless the mash is >60% adjuncts, you can use other factors to choose a base malt.
I’m about to try this all-grain kit this weekend and I will be roasting about 5 lbs. of pumpkin for the mash. Question: when I determine my mash thickness, etc should I add the 5 lbs of pumpkin to the total grain weight to determine my strike water volume? Or just use the weight of the actual grains for my calculations? Thanks!
