But I digress. Fall is approaching, probably my favorite season. The leaves turn, the air gets crisp and clean and cool .. football returns ! Cheerleaders return, and my thoughts also drifted to what would I brew for Halloween ? Let's see .. I know .. pumpkins ... pumpkin pie .. pumpkin pie beer ??? Well, pumpkin ale anyway. I was very excited and looking for it .. vision of pumpkin pie ale swirling in my head. I could just taste it. In getting ready, I decided to try a few store brands. Tried the Uinta and Shipyard brands. Disliked the Uinta .. liked the Shipyard. What I really want to try is the Sam Adams blend .. never had a bad Sam's.
Browsed the internet and various brewing websites and forums .. could only find a few recipes that sounded promising .. however, I wanted to use real, fresh baking pumpkin .. the problem is I haven't seen any in the stores. I finally went into my local homebrew store, MainBrew and got a recipe from them which used canned pumpkin. Though I was told repeatedly that the pumpkin addition did very little, as it would get boiled off and no taste would truly be imparted .. at least not anything noticeable. I just wanted to add it, for me , so I know it is there and hopefully a little bit of the feel of the pumpkin meat will be retained.
I purposely planned my brew day for Sunday .. fellas .. this is a MUST !! Great excuse to stare at the football games while cooking beer. See, you're just doing it for the wife and kids.. by doing this I am not taking quality family time from them over two days ! HA HA HA ! (evil laughter). So gt the recipe ready .. some old historic one that is close to the one brewed many moons ago in the confederate times. Hunted down the spices .. locally a neighbor had most of it .. cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, molasses, pumpkin, and a couple more that escape me at the moment .. can look it up for you if interested. Anyway, Games on TV .. Check ... gear in the kitchen ready to begin the day .. check ! Game on !
Also, there were some toasted oats required for the recipe, so step 1 was to toast them on a cookie sheet in the oven at 350 for 15 minutes. Once done, crush them with a rolling pin .. looking to fracture the husk, not crush them .. mix it in with the other grains, add the grains and molasses and bring it to 180 in the 8 gal brew kettle. Again, I much prefer doing a full volume boil rather than the 2 to 3 gallons they say you can use when extract brewing. Feels more right, you can exceed the 5 gallons a bit and get some extra brew. Watch football game and stir occasionally .. look at those cheerleaders too. Time to remove the grain and bring it to a roiling boil. Takes me forever to do inside .. that gap between 180 and boiling for 6 gallons on an indoor stove .. even though it is a dual burner takes an eternity ! Bad fr the gas, and bad for time management , but lots more football time I guess. Got to get a propane tank for that outdoor turkey broiler and do it faster.
The additions were an unusual time pattern .. but it kept me busy and my mind occupied. It was nice once I had the cinnamon in there.. really started to smell like I was baking a pie.
Once done, I had the usually daunting and scary task of carrying a boiling 6 gallons in the kettle over to the kitchen sink across no mans land, strewn with the debris of toys, food and carpets. This is really the 2nd think i most want to eliminate from my brewing process .. outside I can run the garden hose where I need it to be and roll the kettle over by the grass for the water discharge. Plus, I am always worried it will slosh over the top (yes I put the lid on though) and burn me .. knowing I couldn't remove my hands from the danger lest I drop 6 gallons of it. Slow and steady wins the race. All went off without a hitch and I got it cooled down and transferred to the fermenter. Does anyone else squeeze the liquid out of the hops ? I heard someone at the brew store mention that, but it is not something I had previously done. In my method, I cool the brew down with an immersion chiller and drain straight out the kettle through the ball valve and spigot and directly into the fermentor. The bazooka filter keeps all the hops and other items out for me .. and then I dump the hops and wash. Maybe I need to squeeze them prior to and drain into the fermenter as well ??
Fermenter is bubbling away and I will have some dry hopping to do with vanilla, nutmeg and hops. I am thinking of adding cinnamon to that mix as well .. see what happens. All I know is it smells good, hopefully tastes amazing and I look forward to it's initiation on or just prior to Halloween. It has garnered a fair amount of interest so I know I wont be drinking it alone. Ill try to keep you updated better.
I have a few photos and will upload soon .. check back .. daddy's time is over for now.
Have a good brew with good friends.
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