Mike and I brewed up our annual batches of Pumpkin ale on Sunday. Mike picked up some small sugar pumpkins on Saturday (about 6 pounds worth), quartered them, and roasted them in the oven at around 400°. After letting them get nice and soft and letting a bunch of the sugars begin to caramelize, he scooped out the pulp, which we blended up in the food processor just before brewing. We added the pumpkin directly to the mash and it was super tasty going in. Pulled off the mash, which gave off a beautiful deep amber color. Brought to a boil and added our single hop addition. Pretty easy going brew day, as the only thing left was to add a mixture of spices a few minutes before the end of the boil. Chilled and poured into the fermentation buckets and pitched some rehydrated Safale S-04 dry yeast. Headed down to the basement Monday, only to see this -
Pumpkin Ale fermenting
Damn! Guess I forgot the one thing I always remember to do…put the buckets on a towel. Oh well, it’s all cleaned up now and fermenting vigorously. With such an easy brewing session, we took time during the boil to refurbish a few corny kegs (new poppets and o-rings all around). After the refurbish job, we ended up racking Mike’s IPA, my Oktoberfest and my Blonde ale into the fresh kegs. Good times.
Remember, beer and candy are supposedly recession proof…at least I got the first half covered.
Messy Messy. I haven’t had one ferment that vigorously yet that it blew out the airlock on my 6.5 primary. The beer sounds uber tasty, what did you use for malt in it? Liquid, dry or did you do your normal batch sparging/full grain?
While refurbing kegs takes a bit of time, cleaning bottles SUCKS!
How was the Belgian Beer Fest?
Yea, I should really use a blow off tube, but that would require the forethought of going to the hardware store and picking up some tubing. With as many fermenters as I run, it’s actually just easier to clean up the lids and airlocks and throw the towel (that’s usually under the buckets/carboys) in the laundry.
The recipe was a pretty straight forward all grain recipe - mostly just 2-row, with some Crystal and Belgian Aromatic (super tasty grain!). For the spices, we just pulled out some dried cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and allspice. Just a little bit will do ya.
Refurbishing kegs is surprisingly simple. I’m going to have to do a write up here sooner or later. The longest part is just cleaning/sanitizing the little bits. It probably takes around 5 minutes a keg.
BBF was awesome as usual! There were a lot of really great funky beers, but my favorite beer of the fest would have to be Port Brewing’s Cuvee de Tomme, just a really deep and complex beer. It was a bit like eating bourbon soaked sour cherries…
Nice on the Cuvee de Tomme.
Kegging is in my plans for 2009 spring.
Nice spice bill on the pumpkin. I almost piked up some Full Moon today but I decided to wait till I get past total bev and see what they have friday.
Daaaay-aaaaam, boy! That’s some super-charged yeast!
I gotta believe Curious George (at right, surreptitiously inching his way closer and closer to the beer) had something to do with this mess.
DT,
Just picked up some Sierra wet hop Harvest Ale from Norm’s this weekend. It is really good. Hops in the kettle within 24 hours of picking. See if you can find some.
CL
Chris - yea man, the hop Harvest Ale is pretty phenomenal. Damn, all extra bringing up Norms! Going to have to hit up that place over turkey day…by the way, congrats on #2!