Brew Day: Pumpkin Ale

Pumpkin strike water ready to mix with grains.

Well it's late August early September so that means its the time of year when I foolishly try to make another pumpkin beer.  I have not had success trying to brew these beers.  I don't know why.  If something can go wrong it does.

So why try to make it again.  That's the fun part of home brewing for me - trying to figure things out and create great beer.

This time I found some more blog postings about the Zymurgy article that I tried last year.  I read on one of the reviews that the user would mix the mash every 15 minutes or so to stop the pumpkin puree from turning into concrete.  I figured what could go wrong - everything else has trying to make this beer.

To my surprise this brew day was pretty near perfect.  The beautiful pumpkin orange infused strike water was no match for me this day.  I was able to pull of 6.5 gallons of a nice amber orange wort and give it the full 90 minutes boil.

Rolling boil that caused a boil-over

I did have a little boil over but nothing too crazy.  The only real disappointing thing is that I missed my target OG by a full point.  My Beersmith recipe said it would be about 1.074.  I came in at 1.064.  With all that has happened the past few years trying to brew with pumpkin I figured this was a very minor issue.

I pitched the yeast around 6:30PM last night and when I checked on it at 11am today it was already bubbling away.

Once primary fermentation has finished I will move to a secondary where I will add some more pumpkin pie spice.

Later this week while I am off I will be brewing up a Chocolate Milk Stout.  I will bottle each of it straight and then have a small batch where I mix the two in a tertiary carboy for one week and then bottle.

This time I will be sterilizing the cocoa nibs with vodka hoping to avoid another bacteria infected batch.

UPDATES:

8/30/14
Brewed and yeast pitched yeast. Activity within 12 hours
 
9/3/14
Fermentation is starting to slow down.  I should be able to move this to the secondary and add more pumpkin pie spice by the end of this week or Saturday at the latest.

9/7/14
Racked to secondary.  Added 0.5 Tbsp of pumpkin pie spice.  Gravity reading = 1.011

9/21/14
Bottled 3 gallons straight.  Added a pinch more of spice.  The other 2 gallons were mixed with a chocolate milk stout.

O.A.T Ale - American Farmhouse Ale Yeast

Yesterday I tried the O.A.T ale that we brewed with American Farmhouse ale yeast.  It tastes pretty good. Interesting mix with the tansy and the saision/brett combo in the yeast.  Only problem is that it will not carb up.  So today I put it into a saision storing spot - the attic in August.  Maybe the yeast are sleepy and need some warmer temps to wake them back up.

I will pull one next week and one after that.  If after two weeks in the warm attic it does not carb I will start to think about degassing the beer and trying again. 

Tasting Day - O.A.T. Ale

Tasting day for O.A.T. ale was actually about a week ago. It's hard for me to write blog postings about beers that failed.  O.A.T. with Burton ale yeast was a fail.  The infection I noticed at bottle time took hold of the beer and it could not recover.  Band-Aid flavor all through it.

Was it because there were no hops to help prevent bad things happening?  Or was it the 2 gallon plastic bucket had a poor seal?

I am leaning more towards the bucket having a poor seal.  This is the 3rd batch I have put into the small 2 gallon buckets at all 3 have had issues.  I cant say with certainty that this is the issue but I see a trend starting.  I am going to throw those buckets out an only use my 3 gallon carboys moving forward.

Here are a few things we learned about this beer.

1. An all oat beer is possible with malted oat.
2. The beer is way thinner that you would expect.  I need more oat for a more velvety finish like a golden stout - if you will.
3. The oat does provide a unique flavor that works pretty well with Saison type of brews.  
4. The tansy does not taste nearly as herbal as it smells.  I would recommend using tansy as a flavor agent at the end of a boil with minimal hops.
5. The tansy is not as bitter as we expected.  This is another reason I would recommend using hops at the 60 minute mark and then dose the boiling wort with the tansy.

 We tasted the batch made with American Farmhouse yeast and it seems to have a good chance of turning into something.  The carbonation was low so hopefully next time we crack one open it has a bit more so we can properly assess the beer.

As of now here is how I see the next batch playing out:

1. Increase the flaked oat to about 20% of the grain bill. The next grain bill would look like this.  20% flaked oats - 25% Maris Otter - 55% malted oat.
2. Use Fuggle's hops at the 60 minute mark for an IBU count around 12-15.
3. Use the full amount of tansy during the last 15 minutes of the boil
4. Potentially use American Farmhouse as the only yeast. I feel Burton yeast deserves another shot to see what a fruitier version of the beer could taste like.  The flavors we picked up in the beers we tried seemed to compliment the American Farmhouse a bit better though.  With the hop and tansy being switched though it would provide a new base beer for the Burton.

I will post again about this beer if the American Farmhouse version we have turns the corner.  We also have the Brett. B version aging away.  That will be ready in the fall for a sample.