Thunderstruck Pumpkin Ale Brew Day
Last night I undertook my second brew day. I am in love with Autumn. The cooler temperatures, the food, the color of the trees; amazing. Knowing that October is just around the corner, I decided I would brew up a Pumpkin Ale to celebrate the greatest season of them all.
The recipe I was using came from Yuri_Rage on homebrewtalk.com. I went with the extract version because I am not even close to moving up to all-grain yet. The hardest ingredient to track down was the pumpkin purée. Last year Libby’s, which accounts for 85% of pumpkin destined for canning, was plagued by heavy rains resulting in a less than stellar crop. This effected supplies of canned pumpkin nationwide and has carried over to 2010. So I took to the internet to see if I couldn’t order some, desperate to get this beer in the pipeline in time for the height of fall. As luck would have it, Amazon actually carried cans of organic pumpkin purée. I ordered a case and visited my local home brew shop, Great Fermentations, and got everything I needed.
I started the day by preparing the pumpkin and also steeping my speciality grains. First, I spread out the 60 ounces of purée on a cookie sheet and put in a pre-heated over at 350°F for 20 minutes. I was told this would get some of the natural sugars working and help out the wort when it came time to boil.
Next, I got my grains together. I read a great article from Brew Your Own which covered some simple ways to help improve your extract brewing. One of the methods they highlighted was steeping your speciality grains in a small batch of water, rather than steeping it in the full boil volume. They also mentioned boiling as much water as you can, however I already use a 15.5 gallon converted keg, so full boils aren’t a problem. I heated 4 quarts of water to 155°F and steeped the grains for 30 minutes. I then removed the grain bag and let the liquid run off into the pot.
Another suggestion they offered was to rinse the grains, almost as if you are doing a sparge. I had to think creatively as to how I was going to achieve this. I ended up using my colander for my pot, perched on two metal spoons above the pot with my wort. I slowly poured 150°F water over the grain bag and let it run off into the pot.
With those steps complete, I set up my kettle and burner outside and poured in 5 gallons of water to get my boil started. I used a jug of Ice Mountain water, that my work was kind enough to let me take home, because after reading up on water and the importance of its makeup, I was concerned my water might not be dialed in for brewing. I haven’t had the time to really draw any conclusion or figure out what steps I will need to take to balance out the water, so I decided this would be a fairly safe bet.
So while the burner was going, I poured in the product of steeping the grains, stirred, and got set to get my boil going. There was just one problem. Tank was dry. Ok, no problem, go exchange it for another one, easy fix. I got in the car, drove to the gas station, paid for a new tank.
Usually when I exchange a propane tank, someone has to unlock the storage unit, and they get swapped out. Makes sense, you don’t want people to steal them and since propane gets used in making meth and those people are literally out of their minds, you would want to secure something like that. Not at my friendly neighborhood BP. The attendant told me to just switch out the tanks, it was already open. Ok, fine. So I went out to switch my tank and I realized I had no idea which one was full and which wasn’t. I made the idiot mistake of thinking he would have told me if there was some qualifier for a full tank, so I grabbed one and left. Got home, hooked it up, empty. Man. So I ate some food at my wife’s behest and then went back, asked for assistance this time, to which he informed me “they have a blue tape on them” but also came out to help me find a full one. Problem solved and now the heat is on.
The boil went very smoothly for me. Last time, which was my first time, when I added the Dry Malt Extract, the wort went crazy and almost consumed the full 8 gallons of head space left in the kettle. This time there was no fuss even though I was using only Dry Malt Extract.
I added the pumpkin for the 60 minute boil and put it in a grain bag, thinking that might help contain it. The pumpkin just liquified and left the bag, but thankfully wasn’t a problem in the end. I also added Irish Moss, per the recipe, at the 10 minutes to flame out mark.
With the boil completed, but with it getting late, I set my newest cooling plan into motion. During my first brew session, I was a little dismayed by the sheer amount of water I was wasting in order to cool the wort. I used a counterflow chiller that I built, and it worked amazingly well, dropping the temperature down to pitching temps (75°F) in one pass. I decided to see if I could recirculate the cooling water, so I would only use about five gallons of water. In order to combat the heated return coolant, I was going to add frozen ice packs to the water. It seems I underestimated how hot the return water would be. Instead of getting the wort down to the 75° range, I was hitting mid 80s and into the 90s. I had to immediately ditch my plan, run and get the hose, and start introducing cold water into the system. I should have stopped the process right there but I figured even 90°F was better than the current temp in the kettle.
After all was said and done, I was only able to get the wort to 85°F. I decided to put the fermentor in a cold water bath and try to coax the temperature down to a pitching temp of 75°F. I, for the life of me, do not know how people cool their wort in ice water baths alone. It took forever to make it move just fraction of a degree. After hours of waiting, exhausted, I was able to pitch my starter I made and take my readings. I was glad to have a working hydrometer as well as a refractometer so I could actually know my Original Gravity. The refractometer was a joy to use! Not only does it only take a tiny sample but it is much easier to get an accurate reading. I had to focus pretty hard, but I was able to see it was reading 13.8 brixs which would be 1.056 starting gravity. I was shooting for 1.053, so that isn’t horrible. I also took a hydrometer reading, just to see if the two lined up, which they did and so I could sample the wort. It was nice and sweet, with a subtle hint of pumpkin. As long as everything goes smoothly with fermentation, I think this should turn out to be a very nice beer.
It seems every time I brew, something is going to come up, and I will learn something new. I am still not sure what I am going to do as far as cooling goes, but I have some ideas I might try out. I am planning on brewing with some friends of mine on Saturday, so I will have to default to just using water from the house and capturing as much as I can for cleaning and sanitizing. I might look into getting some garbage bins and capturing the water in there and then using it for watering my lawn, or washing the cars. Either way, I am getting more comfortable with the process and using my equipment, learning as I go, and am excited to finally try the fruits of my labor.
