“Tom's" Pumpkin Ale

Brew date: Jan. 26, 2014

#25 - 5 gal

It's nothing pretty, but chilling by a sink is a breeze.

My father-in-law received the gift of homebrewing from a friend -- a pumpkin beer kit -- but no equipment with which to brew, ferment, or bottle. So he left it to me. We were all set to spend the day brewing together, but he had to cancel on account of the godawful weather we're (still) having this winter.

Yet, we must leave no beer behind.

Even though it was disappointing that I couldn't illustrate my homebrewing hobby obsession to Tom -- I suppose I can come off as a little crazy about beer making -- it was kind of fun working on my kitchen stove again with only a partial mash and some malt extract. Not freezing my ass off outside was definitely a nice change of pace.

I altered the kit recipe slightly. Since Tom had the kit for sometime before I was able to use it, I decided to add some aromatic malt, and threw in about a pound of 2-row to up the starch conversion in the pumpkin. I also added a 15 minute hop addition and held off from pouring in the malt extract until about 30 minutes into the boil in order to increase the bittering from the tettnanger.

On the whole, it was a relaxing brew day. Chilling the wort to pitching temperature was a snap with the sink nearby. Again, the good old days. Since then, it's been fermenting at about 64/68F each day.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb Pumpkin pie mix, canned
• 1.25 lb 2-row malt (Briess)
• 1 lb Aromatic malt
• 1 lb Caramel 60L
• 7 lbs  LME (30 min)
• 1.5 oz Tettnanger (pellet) (60 min)
• 0.25 oz Mt. Hood (6.1%, pellet) (15 min)
• 1 t Irish moss (15 min)
• White Labs WLP008 East Coast Ale yeast starter

Target OG: 1.064

Target FG: 1.016

Target ABV: 6.27%

Target IBU: 28

Schedule:

• Mash 3.5 gal water @ 155F
• Sparge 1 gal water @ 168F
• Boil 60 min
• Chill to 72F, add 1 gal cold water to fermenter, and pitch yeast
• Ferment @ 64-68F

Observations:

• Mash @ 1.027
• Pre-boil 5 gal @ 1.023
• Post-boil 4 gal @ 1.079
• OG 1.065