Spiced Pumpkin Ale Brew Day

With Halloween not too far away it was time to do our test batch of Spiced Pumpkin Ale. We decided to use a mix of pumpkin, some canned American and some fresh Jap pumpkin.The jap pumpkin was roasted to bring out some of the sweeter caramel type flavours.

The pumpkin went into the mash with our grains for a 90 minute soak at about 66c, as we were looking for a little more body in this beer. Now I'm not going to blame the pumpkin for the stuck sparge that happened next, but I'm sure it was the bloody pumpkin that did it. Not happy Jan. So a quick change to a batch sparge, mix it all up, give it 20 minutes - and all was well.

The boil got a nice whack of Citra Hops as well as the same secret spice mix that goes into the wife's pumpkin pies.

A quick chill down and taste test gave us quite a surprise, most recipes for Pumpkin Ale say you can leave out the pumpkin as you cannot taste it - but then it's not really a Pumpkin Ale, is it?  The taste profile was very distinct - first you got the malt and hops, then the pumpkin and last of all the spices. I think this is going to be a really good brew.

After the boil, the beer got a dose of pectinese and into the fridge for the night.  The next day we racked it off the trub and mixed in the yeast slurry, and back into the fridge it went to stay at 20c.

Now we wait.....