Pumpkin Brown 2011
I finally got some brewing momentum going this past weekend and decided to brew a 10 gallon batch of beer befitting the season – a pumpkin brown ale. I made a similar recipe a few years ago that I seem to remember as really tasty, so repeating it with some small modifications seemed the way to go.
My day started early at 7am by slicing and roasting the victi… er… pumpkins. I baked them in the oven for two hours at 350°F, then peeled them and mashed the flesh with a potato masher. I then mixed in four pounds of crushed 2 row and 3 quarts of water to form a somewhat thick minimash. I held this on the stove at around 127°F for about an hour, followed by another rest at 150°F for as long as it took me to mash and sparge the main grain bed.
One I had about 9 gallons of wort from the main mash (look at that gorgeous color! It is a deep brown with red highlights), I put a large steeping bag in the kettle and dumped in the pumpkin. I left the pumpkin mush to steep for about 30 minutes, removed the bag and let it drain out, then topped up the kettle to my desired volume.
Things went went reasonably well. I haven’t brewed much because of the heat and running out of starter wort, so I felt a little rusty… but I came close to my 10 gallon target and had a pretty fast fermentation. We will see if I truly did ok in a few weeks when this goes on tap in time for Halloween and Thanksgiving.
I’ve got another brew coming up this weekend, but in front of an all-grain class at How Do You Brew?. I believe we are making a saison, which always turns out nice. It’s a bit late in the season for a saison, but I don’t care – I’m just glad to be brewing again.
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