Ray Spangler's Pumpkin Spice Beer

[Ron Price]

A fantastic fall brew!!!

Beer Recipe of the Week: Ray Spangler's Pumpkin Spice Beer

This recipe is located in Randy Mosher's book, Radical Brewing:
Recipes, Tales & World-Altering Meditations In A Glass (Page 182).
This is one of the many recipes in his book that showcase not-so-
conventional ingredients. Pumpkin beer is a delicious seasonal style
that brings the wonderful fall flavors of cinnamon, allspice, and
nutmeg into your beer. While you're picking out your pumpkins to
carve, grab a few extra for your homebrew!

All Grain: 5 gallons (19 L)

Ingredients:

8 lb (3.6 kg) Six-row lager malt
4 lb (1.8 kg) Pumpkin, baked 90 min at 350°F (176°C), get nice and
smushy, add to mash
2 lb (.9 kg) Pale crystal malt
1.5 lb (.68 kg) Wheat malt
1 lb (.45 kg) Dextrine malt
2 lb (.9 kg) Mild-flavored honey, added to brew kettle
.5 lb (227 g) Rice hulls
.5 oz (14 g) Cascade, 6% Alpha acid (60 min)
.5 oz (14 g) Kent Goldings, 5% Alpha acid (60 min)
.5 oz (14 g) Cascade, 6 % Alpha acid (10 min)
.5 oz (14 g) Fuggle, 4.4% Alpha acid (10 min)
.5 oz (14 g) Corriander (crushed)
.25 oz (7 g) Allspice
.5 tsp (2 g) Pumpkin pie spice
.5 tsp (2 g) Cinnamon
.25 tsp (1 g) Nutmeg
4 packets Wyeast 1056 American Ale Yeast (or make an appropriate sized
starter)

Starting Gravity: 1.079
Final Gravity: 1.012
Boil Time: 60 minutes
Bitterness: 27 IBU

Directions:

Conduct a mash at 154°F (68°C) for 60 minutes then sparge. Collect
roughly 6 gallons of runoff and bring to a rolling boil. Once boiling,
add .5 oz (14 g) of Cascade hops and .5 oz (14 g) of Goldings hops and
allow them to boil for the full 60 minutes. With 10 minutes left in
the boil add .5 oz (14 g) of Cascade hops and .5 oz (14 g) of Fuggle
hops. After the boil add your spices. Cool your wort to an appropriate
pitching temperature and strain the wort in to your fermenter. Aerate
the wort very well. Once the wort is both aerated and cooled, pitch
the yeast. This beer should reach maturation in 3 to 6 months.

Note:

Keep in mind that you want the pumpkin very soft/mushy, it's going to
be in the mash with all of your grains. Also, the temperature of the
pumpkin being put in to the mash tun should be considered, there will
be a heat exchange between the grains, pumpkin and strike water.


Enjoy!

Cheers,

Ron Price

[Peter Garofalo]

Also, use a pie pumpkin, not an ornamental one. The ones suitable for
eating have much better flavor. Squash works well, also.

I've never made a pumpkin ale, and wonder how it would come out without
the pumpkin--just the spices?

Pete Garofalo

On 10/24/2011 11:10 AM, Ron Price wrote:
> A fantastic fall brew!!!
>
> Beer Recipe of the Week: Ray Spangler's Pumpkin Spice Beer
>
> This recipe is located in Randy Mosher's book, Radical Brewing:

> Recipes, Tales& World-Altering Meditations In A Glass (Page 182).

[Woodall Daniel (DDA)]

Hello Everybody,
I used a single cinnamon stick in the boil for 60 minutes. That's all the spice I added. I found the beer to have a wonderful spiced flavor without being overwhelming. That beer did have pumkin in it Pete.
-Dan Woodall

[res...@aol.com]

I recently made one and I used 5 pounds of baked Crookneck Pumpkin.  It's a curved pumpkin that looks like a Cashew on steroids.  I followed a recipe that was in Zymurgy Vol 36, No. 6 (Nov/Dec 2008).  I've made it in the past and it was really good.  I left the pumpkin in cubes this time and boiled it for 90 minutes.  The Pumpkin ends up floating and when you go to empty the kettle the clean wort runs from your tap!!  Worked out well this time.  It's in the seconday and added 4 tsp of Vanilla Extract.  I will be bottling verry soon!!