Pumpkin Cream Ale

arget recipe: my base recipe started with Jamil Zainasheff’s recipe in Brewing Classic Styles, then I added my own flourishes like honey malt, Victory, Toasted Oats, Golden Naked Oats, and graham crackers all to add toasty breadiness and honey graham cracker flavors.

Target Original Gravity: I shoot for 1.065 but as you can see in the recipe I came in a bit high

Hops & target BU:GU ratio: 0.43 ratio which translates to roughly 28-29 IBUs for 1.065 gravity. Jamil uses nothing but EK Goldings and that works for me! I get most of my IBUs from the 60-minute addition but then I add a 5 or 10 minute addition as well.

Bake your oats. Around 300 degrees for 15-20 minutes until they darken a bit and smell nice and toasty.

Also add oats to boil: before the wort comes to a boil like around 180F, I add 4 more ounces of oats to the hop spider and leave them in there until the wort has been boiling for 5 minutes, then I remove them and run through a strainer or sieve and basically ring out all of the slimy oat protein which I then add back to the boil and discard the oats.

Low Fat Graham Crackers: 1 box per 5-gallon batch--two sleeves in the mash, one sleeve in the boil added at the same time as the last can of pumpkin about 15-20 minutes left in the boil

Bake your pumpkin. I spread on a baking sheet and sprinkle with brown sugar and pumpkin pie spice. Bake until you can see some browning.
Pumpkin: Approximately 5 pounds of pumpkin. It’s strange, small cans are 15 ounces and large ones are 30 ounces, why not just make it an even 1 or 2 pound can??

When to add the pumpkin: I use 4 small cans in the mash and THIS IS KEY--make sure that you include the volume of the pumpkin in the valume of the mash water and not in the grist weight, I stir the pumpkin in with the strike water. I also add 1 small can in a steeping bag in the boil, added at the same time as the graham crackers, last 15-20 minutes of the boil.

MASH OUT! I cannot stress this enough to do a 2-rest mash, dough in at a low water/grist ratio of like 1.20 quarts per pound so the saccharification rest will be a relatively thick mash, but add an infusion of hot water to bring the mash up to 168-170 degrees and significantly thin the mash, which will help with lautering.

Spices: either use your favorite pumpkin pie spice or make your own based on personal preference. I use this: Pumpkin Pie Spice II allrecipes.com (I split the cloves with Allspice)

Spice quantity:
Pumpkin pie spice: 1 tsp at knockout/whirlpool and then ¼ - ½ tsp or to taste post-fermentation.
Vanilla: 1 tablespoon good quality vanilla extract.

Sugar! Add about ¾ pound of sugars in the last 5-10 minutes of the boil using a combination of mainly brown sugar and then some molasses and raw demerara sugar (if you have on hand), this is really just to drive gravity a bit and add some complementary fall flavors.

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Rice hulls necessary in mash to help with stuck sparge. Also, need at least 7.5 gallons of boil water so may need adjust recipe. Adding pumpkin to the boil soaks up a lot of water.