Homebrew Pumpkin Ale Underway

Just wanted to give an update on the homebrew pumpkin ale recipe my father and I had been developing. We officially began the brewing process this past Saturday.

There's not any particular way to do it, but by preference. So, we decided to roast two pumpkins before ripping the meat off and mashing it. The pumpkin meat was the very first ingredient we added to the pot of water before we steeped our Biscuit and Crystal malts.

The pumpkin started the brew off with a buttery scent and golden color. We then strained the meat from the mix before adding more malt extract to tone down the color we thought the Biscuit and Crystal would give the body.

We used two kinds of hops (Sterling and Magnum) that we found in the recipe for Southern Tier Pumking, but tried to go as easy as we could so the brew wouldn't employ a ton of bitterness.

What we wanted to be strong was the spices. We took a load of typical pumpkin spices and precise measurements from a friend via Twitter that he uses in his yearly recipe. Once they were mixed and kept in a sandwich bag, the scent could be picked up from across the room.

The beer finally took on a deep crown color with what appears to be some red highlights once we finished the wort. I'm excited for this to finish. It's currently fermenting like hell. We're hoping to be bottle conditioned in time for Thanksgiving Dinner.

After the pumpkin meat was tossed in.

The color prior to adding the hops and spices.