Pumpkin - fermentable material?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Greig McGill on October 4, 2010 at 10:36am

Interesting idea!

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Permalink Reply by Barbara Joppa on October 4, 2010 at 1:44pm

I would be careful how much spice you add as well. I note that I only added about 1 teaspoon of fresh grated nutmeg to 20L and it still came out as the predominant flavour. If I remember correctly, I also added cinnamon.

I thought the pumpkin added body and a little aroma to my batch. Again, I used 1kg roasted pumpkin into the mash.

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Permalink Reply by Greig McGill on October 4, 2010 at 3:33pm

My spice mix is (all added at 1 minute to flameout):

1tsp cinnamon
1tsp nutmeg
1tsp allspice
1/2 tsp ginger (maybe)

1kg pumpkin, roasted, undecided how to mash yet, but loving Joseph's idea.

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Permalink Reply by Chuck on October 10, 2010 at 1:20am

I added 6 Kg of baked pumpkin pulp to my 100L all-grain, and I could barely detect it. I added it to the mash after the HERMS had set the bed, so had no clogging problems.

Other posters are right about most pumpkin ales being all spices. I'd rather get any fermentables I could from the effort, and forget the spices.

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Permalink Reply by Greig McGill on October 10, 2010 at 6:48pm

Well, it's in the can (or rather, fermenter). Brew day went swimmingly and all my fears were laid to rest.

For those interested, I pre-roasted the pumpkin, then mashed it, microwaved it to ~68C, and stirred it into my mash. I liked the "dissolve it in the strike water" idea, but it turned out to be impractical for many reasons I won't bore you with.

No stuck sparge issues, and while runoff was a tad slower than usual, not really enough to worry me. The wort was crystal clear, and tasted noticably of roast pumpkin. No idea if that quality will survive the fermentation.

I dumped in my spice blend right at flame out and chilled quickly to lock it all in. The smell was amazing, just like a fresh pumpkin pie. I'm fermenting with US05 at 17C hoping for an extremely neutral fermentation profile. OG was 1.065.

If the finished beer tastes and smells as good as the wort did, I might have to change my opinion on spiced beers...

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Permalink Reply by RickyP on April 20, 2011 at 7:10am

Hi Greig,

Have you cracked this one yet?

 

I've got a few pumpkins from the garden and wondering about giving it a shot as a winter warmer.

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Permalink Reply by Greig McGill on April 20, 2011 at 8:57am

Yep. Roast 'em, Skin 'em, mash 'em, nuke to mash temp (or near enough), dump 'em in the mash tun!

No stuck sparge issues at all, and a nice subtle flavour.

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