Babbs 2011 Mash Paddle "pumpkin Beer"

[clarkey7]

We have a lot to learn when it comes to brewing pumpkin beers. Really keen to see what some of the others turn out!!!!!!! Especially the ones who are keeping................ weeeeelie weeeelie qwiet!

Screwy

h34r:

PB

 

[Screwtop]

 

[lczaban]

FFS!!! :icon_cheers:

 

[Screwtop]

Can Damien Cooke PM me or if one of the BABBS boys sees this can they get him to contact me re his entry in the Goomeri Comp. Need some details from him for his entry.

Remember the Goomeri Comp is all about representing the theme - Pumpkin. Sadly there is not much Pumpkin evident in my entry

Screwy

 

[bum]

So, now that the two pumpkin comps are done and dusted, anyone willing to detail their experiences of working with pumpkin? It would be equally helpful to hear of the stuff you wouldn't do again or what you would do differently as to hear from the comp grinners.

I'm sure my asking this has nnothing at all to do with me biting the bullet and finally making one myself next brew.

 

[bconnery]

So, now that the two pumpkin comps are done and dusted, anyone willing to detail their experiences of working with pumpkin? It would be equally helpful to hear of the stuff you wouldn't do again or what you would do differently as to hear from the comp grinners.

I'm sure my asking this has nnothing at all to do with me biting the bullet and finally making one myself next brew.

Well I know one of the winners has said to me that they will definitely roast the pumpkin first next time. Peeling 3kg of pumpkin wasn't much fun for them
A lot of people did roast it first, and I would definitely second that from my experience.

I know the general consensus, at least from my experience and those I spoke to was that the pumpkin didn't really lend any definite pumpkinness, unless you put bucketloads in like Dave, aka PocketBeers, or put in a pilsner as one we judged did.
But there was often a hint of extra sweetness, something in the flavour that we thought the pumpkin lent...
Mostly these beers seemed to be about what else you put in, spices, etc. but I doubt that they would be quite the same without the pumpkin.
I think a spiced holiday ale would be one thing, but I think it is worth the extra effort to put in the pumpkin, but I don't have any hard evidence, just an opinion...

Oh, and rice gulls. Plenty of them...
My mashes were gummy as hell.

 

[browndog]

So, now that the two pumpkin comps are done and dusted, anyone willing to detail their experiences of working with pumpkin? It would be equally helpful to hear of the stuff you wouldn't do again or what you would do differently as to hear from the comp grinners.

I'm sure my asking this has nnothing at all to do with me biting the bullet and finally making one myself next brew.

Having judged all the beers at Goomeri, the only ones that stood out from their base beer were the spiced beers. My advice, if you are looking for a pumpkin beer that tastes of pumpkin is roast the pumpkin then put it in a blender then add that to the fermenter near FG.

 

[winkle]

I impression is that you'd be far better served with sticking to the Belgian Xmas or Bier de Noels. The spices are the thing that carries thru, only if you are dedicated or silly can you get a pumpkin flavour that is recognisable. (I'd put PB in the first cat.)
I'm drinking my effort right now in front of a decent fire and thinking how much better a 'standard' christmas ale would have been considering the effort.
Mind you the beer I put in the comp (BABBs) was a horror. rest of the batch is ok-ish

 

[bum]

Hmmm...food for thought there, gentlemen. Thanks. The plan was to make a malty-ish pale (almost amber), spiced in the US pumpkin ale style, about 2kg of roasted pumpkin ("cereal" mashed) to 4kg-ish grain bill for a 22l batch size and the spices added late to primary. Now I'm thinking I'll lighten up the base beer (say, JW Trad and some carapils only), try to go to 3kg on the pumpkin and maybe spices and more pumpkin in secondary. No, even now as I type it I still prefer the idea of the original grain bill but I do want the pumpkin to come through. I can't put it down 'til the end of the month so I've got some thinking time (i.e. time to over-think it).

 

[browndog]

Hmmm...food for thought there, gentlemen. Thanks. The plan was to make a malty-ish pale (almost amber), spiced in the US pumpkin ale style, about 2kg of roasted pumpkin ("cereal" mashed) to 4kg-ish grain bill for a 22l batch size and the spices added late to primary. Now I'm thinking I'll lighten up the base beer (say, JW Trad and some carapils only), try to go to 3kg on the pumpkin and maybe spices and more pumpkin in secondary. No, even now as I type it I still prefer the idea of the original grain bill but I do want the pumpkin to come through. I can't put it down 'til the end of the month so I've got some thinking time (i.e. time to over-think it).

Keep in mind, the pumpkin will provide you with bugger all fermentables Bum.

 

[bum]

Yeah, the cereal mash was just because I read some seppo saying they got more pumpkin flavour going that way. No idea if that holds with the actual science of it but I've never done one so it is something else to stuff about with on the day so that's cool. Wasn't gonna head down the heavy seasonal/Christmas ale road so not looking for too much in the way of fermentables. Was thinking somewhere around 4%. Haven't run any numbers yet, I want to sort out my direction before I get bogged down in stats - not really much idea what my targets should even be for style so I might just take a suck-it-and-see approach on this one (taking good notes, in case it works).

Cheers.

 

[winkle]

Yeah, the cereal mash was just because I read some seppo saying they got more pumpkin flavour going that way. No idea if that holds with the actual science of it but I've never done one so it is something else to stuff about with on the day so that's cool. Wasn't gonna head down the heavy seasonal/Christmas ale road so not looking for too much in the way of fermentables. Was thinking somewhere around 4%. Haven't run any numbers yet, I want to sort out my direction before I get bogged down in stats - not really much idea what my targets should even be for style so I might just take a suck-it-and-see approach on this one (taking good notes, in case it works).

Cheers.

Florian did a lager based pumpkin beer + it weren't too bad either. Give him a PM if you're keen.

 

[bum]

So I basically had my recipe sorted in my head (hadn't run numbers yet) and SWMBO throws a spanner in the works by bringing home 4 x 822g cans of unspiced pumpkin pie filling for me from a US grocery place. My biggest concern to date had been trying to adapt US recipes to using fresh pumpkin here but now I could use a well regarded recipe from there with a certain level of confidence. Not sure which way to go now. Kinda thinking of sticking kinda closely to my current plan but also adding a tin to the mash and another to the boil? Dunno.

 

[bconnery]

So I basically had my recipe sorted in my head (hadn't run numbers yet) and SWMBO throws a spanner in the works by bringing home 4 x 822g cans of unspiced pumpkin pie filling for me from a US grocery place. My biggest concern to date had been trying to adapt US recipes to using fresh pumpkin here but now I could use a well regarded recipe from there with a certain level of confidence. Not sure which way to go now. Kinda thinking of sticking kinda closely to my current plan but also adding a tin to the mash and another to the boil? Dunno.

Bum if you have 3+kg of pumpkin that's already been prepared for you I'd use that I don't think anyone I spoke to really enjoyed the prep part...

Plus if you are heading for a US style pumpkin beer then it makes sense to go for the ingredients they'd use if you have access to them.

 

[bum]

Yeah, but it makes even more sense (to me anyway) to use fresh ingredients over tinny canned stuff - fresh pumpkin really is rare as hen's teeth over there and I've been assuming they use this stuff out of necessity.

Anyway, I prep pumpkin for pretty much every meal and I dunno what there is to whinge about really.

But, yeah, your point does make sense to me hence my indecision.

 

[clarkey7]

Yeah, but it makes even more sense (to me anyway) to use fresh ingredients over tinny canned stuff - fresh pumpkin really is rare as hen's teeth over there and I've been assuming they use this stuff out of necessity.

Anyway, I prep pumpkin for pretty much every meal and I dunno what there is to whinge about really.

But, yeah, your point does make sense to me hence my indecision.

Bum,

I really enjoyed the whole process and you learn something every-time you use a new ingredient in beer.....you can keep the tinned stuff and use it later...Go fresh mate.

For you.



Have fun,

PB

 

[bum]

Cheers, PB.

View attachment 46477

This picture is a wee bit terrifying. I can feel my first stuck mash coming on.

 

[bconnery]

Cheers, PB.


This picture is a wee bit terrifying. I can feel my first stuck mash coming on.

Rice gulls. A whole flock of them...

 

[bum]

I'll go get some fish and chips to lure then in.

 

[tallie]

So, now that the two pumpkin comps are done and dusted, anyone willing to detail their experiences of working with pumpkin? It would be equally helpful to hear of the stuff you wouldn't do again or what you would do differently as to hear from the comp grinners.

I'm sure my asking this has nnothing at all to do with me biting the bullet and finally making one myself next brew.

I brewed two beers that had additional spices added, and I personally didn't notice much flavour contribution from the pumpkin underneath the spices.

The first beer was a pumpkin pie sweet stout. I replaced 1kg of base malt from the original recipe with 2kg pumpkin, and still came in 8pts under my pre-boil gravity. Some brewers who tasted that beer thought that the pumpkin may have added to the body of it, but with the lactose in it, it's a pretty full bodied beer to start with. I definitely liked the spiced aspect of this beer and would brew it again, but not necessarily with pumpkin. For the spices, I added 15g of this straight to the keg:



The spices came through quite strong at first (probably from being drawn straight from the bottom), but mellowed and blended over time. I would probably back that off to 10g next time, and add more if I felt it needed it.

The second brew was wheat ale with honey and ginger. I'd brewed this Australian white xmas ale recipe a few times before with US-05, and thought that the honey & ginger would work well with the pumpkin. For this recipe, I ditched the lemon zest and I replaced the 250g wheat flour with 3kg of pumpkin (and still struggled to make pre-boil gravity). If you really search for it, you could possibly find some pumpkin in the aroma and flavour, but again, the honey & ginger dominate this recipe.

Well I know one of the winners has said to me that they will definitely roast the pumpkin first next time. Peeling 3kg of pumpkin wasn't much fun for them
A lot of people did roast it first, and I would definitely second that from my experience.

Yep, that would be me . I peeled, boiled and blended the pumpkin for both beers and added the puree to the mash. What's worse was winning the comp and having to do 9kg for the commercial brew



This is what you hand looks like after peeling said pumpkins:



If I was ever to put pumpkin in a beer again, I would forgo peeling and roast instead of boil it to make things easier on myself.

Oh, and rice gulls. Plenty of them...
My mashes were gummy as hell.

Mine too. I had to reset the grain bed no less than 3 times for each brew due to stuck sparges. I ended up adding 1kg rice gulls by the end of the second brew!

This picture is a wee bit terrifying. I can feel my first stuck mash coming on.

If you find that one terrifying, here's what it looked like at the end of sparging the brew on the Craft Brewer system!



Luckily, aside from getting stuck right at the start, the sparge otherwise went well, albeit slowly and inefficiently.

Cheers,
tallie