Pumpkin Ale

It’s that time of year again! I’ve brewed a pumpkin ale kit before, but this year I wanted to make my own. The goal is for it to have some real pumpkin flavor and nice spice to complement it.

Ingredients

Grain Bill

• 8 lb 2 row malt
• 1 lb 40L caramel malt
• 1 lb munich malt

Hops

• 2 oz northern brewer
• 1 oz cascade

Yeast

• Omega Voss Kveik yeast

Other

• 6 lbs canned pumpkin
• 3 cinnamon sticks
• 1 vanilla bean, split
• 0.5 tsp ground nutmeg
• 0.25 tsp ground allspice
• 0.5 tsp ground ginger
• 0.5 tsp pumpkin spice
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp irish moss

Directions

1. Bring 6 gallons water to 160° F
2. Mash in 2 row, caramel, munich malt
3. Add 4 lbs pumpkin
4. Hold at 150° F for 60 minutes
5. Drain grain and increase temp to boil
6. Sparge enough water to bring total to 6 gallons
7. Bring to a boil and add northern brewer hops
8. Boil for 30 minutes
9. Add remaining 2 lbs pumpkin and boil for 30 minutes or until volume is ~5 gallons
10. Add cinnamon sticks, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, pumpkin spice, cloves, irish moss, boil 10 minutes
11. Add cascade hops, start circulating wort in chiller
12. Chill to 80° F
13. Pitch yeast
14. Let sit 1.5 weeks or until fermentation is complete

Results

• OG reading: 1.050 at 84.2° F. + 3 (temp) = 1.053
• Mid week reading (Wednesday evening) – 1.012 at 70 ° F + 1 (temp) = 1.013
• FG reading: 1.012 @ 70 ° F = 1.013
• ABV: 5.25%

Lessons learned:

• There was a lot of pumpkin pulp while racking into the fermenter – used muslin bag to filter out
  • A larger bag would help, larger funnel would help
• Cooling
  • After it gets to around 100 degrees, can keep the water running and start racking into fermenter instead of waiting for the temp to read 80° F
  • My faucet is old and can be finicky. If using a couterflow chiller, be careful both when putting the nozzle on and when putting the aerator back on. On mine if it isn’t sitting correctly or not screwed on (very) tight, it will cause water to back up in the faucet and leak everywhere.
• Emptying the mash was much easier by turning the basket upside down in a garbage bag
• Need to get some PBW – I don’t trust my regular dish detergent to get the job done without adverse affects.
• Didn’t hit OG….
  • May not put top strainer on next time so I can stir during mash for better efficiency
  • Couldn’t see the markings on the tank very well and added too much sparge water (got up to 7 gallons instead of 6!)
• Don’t try to do too many things at once, I spilled water/wort everywhere an embarrassing number of times
• Kveik ferments quickly! Checked on Wednesday and it had already fermented out. Check again on Thursday and it hadn’t moved, so I kegged it.
• After tasting on Wednesday/Thursday, a lot of the spice flavor had fermented out. While kegging I created an extract using ~1/2 the amount of spices in the original recipe, added to a few ounces of vodka and poured directly into the keg.