Pumpkin Porter Brewing Session
I made this beer on a whim, had the ingredients and a basic porter recipe. I monkeyed around with the ingredients list till I got what I think might be a good or at least interesting beer.
First of, started with a liter yeast starting using dryed Nottingham British Ale yeast. This yeast has a pretty high attenuation, which I though might balance out some of the sweetness from the pumpkin and spices.
The mash
Simply Beer Pumpkin Porter (5 gal All grain)
The Grains:
- 9.5 lbs 2 row
- 1lb crystal 60
- 8 oz crystal 80
- 8 oz chocolate malt
- 8 oz black patent
- 4 oz special B
Collecting the Wort
Mash grains with 1.25 q/lb for 60 min. Then sparge with 170° for 90 minutes. resulting in a total wort collection of 6 gal.
The Boil
The Boil:
boil the wort for 60 minutes adding the following ingredients at their specified intervals.
- 32 oz Pumpkin puree (60 min)
- 1.75 oz UK Kent Golding, 5.0% (60 min)
- .5 oz Cluster, 7.9% (20 min)
- .5 oz Cluster, 7.9% (10 min)
- 1tsp whole cloves, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp allspice, 1 tsp ginger, 2 whole cinnamon sticks (10 min)
- .25 UK Kent GOlding, 5.0%(5 min)
- .25 UK Kent Golding, 5.0% (1 min)
finally cool to 75° or less, transfer to primary vessel, take hydrometer reading. Original Gravity should be about 1.062-1.068. Pitch starter into fermentation vessel and your on your way.
Fermenting
5-7 days Primary
7-14 days secondary
Keg 2 weeks – Drink!
Cheers
That’ s amazing actually. Its like magic, or science. Are you planning on bringing any of this to those homebrew meetups on Tuesdays?
yeah, probably Novembers meeting, if its any good 🙂
I read up on another blog (can’t remember which one) about a guy trying a pumpkin homebrew. He stated that the pumkin was added during the mash. I thought that was odd. I’ve never brewed a pumpkin, but I had assumed the puree was added in the boil, like yours there.
Pumkin porter…sounds interesting. Is your lauter tun there 5 or 10 gallon? I’m trying to upgrade to 10, myself. Actually taking apart my old dishwasher…using the motor to create an internal automatic stirring arm, and the heating element and thermometer to hopefully step mash in the cooler rather than brew pot.
it was the Captain’s Chair, that’s what inspired this recipe. I thought the pumpkin in the mash as odd, but if you’re using real pumpkin it may be what is needed.
I’m not a huge fan of pumpkin beer, but what the hell ya never know and I don’t recall ever really seeing a commercial pumpkin porter.
it’s 5 gal :-(… have a max capacity of about 11.5 lbs of grain. I’m looking to upgrade to 10-15 gal to give myself some room. What your doing sounds interesting. I hope you document the building of it on your blog!
You would add it in the mash for this reason (to increase the sugars):
Mashing is the process of breaking down starch into >>fermentable<< and non-fermentable sugars through temperature controlled steeping in water.
Adding at the first stage allows you to use it like a grain akin to how oatmeal stouts among others are brewed.
Then you really have only two ways to impart flavor to a beer you can modify the ingredients so as to subsume the fruit pulp into the body and introduce the basic flavor or you can "salt" it at the end and add the flavor as a separate item. The first way imparts a subtle flavor that will mingle and possible change and the second one will pop and stay true to it's taste; but may come across as forced.
So if you are adding pumpkin at the boiling stage you could just a well use pumpkin juice because as you won't really be incorporating the pumpkin pulp into the beer and both will have a similar impact on the taste; plus one will save you straining your beer. =)
Since I didn’t use real roasted pumpkin, I felt the boil was a better spot to add the puree, then the mash. If this turns out palatable, I may try it again next year with real roasted pumpkin in the mash.
Regarding adding pumpkin to the mash vs. the boil:
One pound of canned pumpkin has 15 grams of sugar and only 8 g of starch. There’s just not much in the way of fermentables to be had by mashing the pumpkin. So it seems like when to add it is mostly a consideration of flavor.
Another possibility, as is common with other fruits, is to add pumpkin in the secondary to capture delicate flavors that might blow off during the vigorous primary fermentation.