This is a simple recipe that can be brewed by anyone with basic brewing equipment. The differentiator with pumpkin ales are that they contain 100% natual pumpkin. The key here is that the pumpkin must be baked on a cookie sheet or shallow pan in the over the 60 minutes a@ 350 degrees. So, you may want to start the bake before you even draw the water for your beer.
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Gather these ingredients:
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Follow these simple steps and have fun with it
- Spread the pumpkin evenly in a cookie sheet and bake for 60 minutes in the oven at 350 degrees.
- Draw 5.75 gallons of strike water and start heating it.
- Put the grains into a grain bag, tie a knot and steep the grains in the strike water once it reaches 150-155 degrees. Steep for 20 minutes then remove and discard. Don’t squeeze the grains, let the water drip back into the kettle until your tired of holding it or it stops dripping.
- Continue heating the strike water until it begins to boil, then add the DME, baked pumpkin and brown sugar.
- Continuously stir the mixture until is returns to a boil. Try not to let anything settle on the bottom and burn.
- When it starts to boil, start a 60 minute timer (counting from 60 minutes down to 0).
- When the timer reaches 30 minutes, add the Columbus hops taking care to not let the wort boil over.
- When the timer reaches 0, stop heating and begin chilling, preferrably with a beer from your last batch. Cool the wort to the yeast pitching temperature, which can be found on the back of the yeast packet. Usually for ale yeast, this would be 70 degrees.
- Transfer the wort to your fermenter, sprinkle in the yeast, put the lid on and shake vigorously to oxygenate the wort. Oxygen is needed by the yeast for reproduction. This is the only time you want to add oxygen, your should try to avoid agitating the wort when it’s hot.
- Ferment for 1-2 weeks, bottle and in a couple of weeks, you can enjoy your new batch.