Brewed a pumpkin pie ale on Aug 29th, will be ready in time for Thanksgiving!
After some Interwebs research and some great input from The Bald Brewer, here's what I did:
Pumpkin pie ale.
1 can 29 oz canned pumpkin.
Bake in crock pot 60 mins to carmelize the sugars. I also added a Tbspn of butter, hopefully that didn't ruin anything.
Meanwhile, boil water and begin the partial mash:
20 min steep grains @150 degrees. I actually heated all the way up to 200 this time, then shut the burner off and dropped the grain bag in. It was at 150 by the time I pulled the grains out 25 mins later. This was about 2 lbs of a select grain mix that Dr Mark chose for me. About 5 different types.
Then the wort boil begins. Dumped in 7.5 lbs of Pilsen LME, and 1 oz of Willamette hops at the 60 min mark.
Next up, I scooped the pumpkin into a nylon bag and steeped that in the wort for 10 mins starting at the 20 min remaining mark. At the end of that, I dumped a little bit of the pumpkin into the wort itself, why not!
Then at 10 mins remaining, I added 1 oz of 'tet' hops and also a pound of lactose powder. Mark says this lactose is what will give the ale a little sweetness.
Then at 5 mins left, I dumped in 3 tablespoons of pumpkin pie spice.
Used Whitelabs WLP002 English Ale yeast for this brew.
There you have it. Hopefully this one turns out good! I'm always filled with so much hope at the time of brewing, it's a fun feeling.
-R
