The Pumpkin Ale Recipe :
- Color: Copper
- Alcohol: 6.8%
- Quantity: 20L
- Bitterness: None
- Difficulty: High
- Brewing Time: 6/7h
Ingredients :
- 5kg Maris Otter Malt
- 2kg squash (Pumpkin, Butternut, and/or Red Kuri)
- 400g brown sugar
- 600g Biscuit Malt
- 400g Carared Malt
- 200g Special W Malt
- 10g East Kent Goldings hops
- 10g East Kent Goldings hops
- 20g fresh ginger (or 4g dried/powdered ginger)
- 8g cinnamon
- 5g nutmeg
- 2 packets of Safale S-04
- Total water volume: 38L (Preferably Sulfate < Chloride: 1:2)
Want to brew this recipe ?
A Word on our Halloween Pumpkin Ale Recipe :
What’s a Pumpkin Ale ?
This type of beer was invented to drink healthily and consume one of the five daily servings of fruits and vegetables recommended by the health authority. 😅
Pumpkin ales originate from the United States. They are typical autumn beers. Amber, creamy, spicy, and comforting, they are really nice to drink when the weather starts to cool down.
In this Halloween beer recipe, squash is used during mashing. It will release its starch, which the malt enzymes will transform into sugar for the yeast. The taste is therefore not as explosive as that of a fruit added during secondary fermentation. In fact, the role of the squash is to provide an orange color and the creamy texture typical of this style.
If Halloween is the day of pumpkins, I recommend using butternut squash because it is the easiest to peel and cut. For a more pronounced taste, red kuri squash will also be an excellent choice.
Brew our Halloween recipe step by step :
Step 1 :
No brewing for this first step, but cooking! Preheat your oven to 180°C. Peel, core, and cut your squash into small cubes. Prepare a bit more than the 2kg mentioned in the recipe as it will reduce. Bake your squash cubes for about 20/25 minutes. Once this time has passed, you can pour 400g of brown sugar over them to caramelize everything for another good quarter of an hour.
The given times are indicative, don’t hesitate to do it by eye; the goal is to soften the squash and caramelize it. For better sugar extraction, you can mash your squash after cooking, but this is optional. Let it cool a bit before adding it to the brew.
Step 2 :
Now we start brewing! Heat 24 liters of water to 72°C and pour in the crushed grains.
Stir well to avoid lumps, then add your caramelized squash. Mix everything with your paddle. The temperature should drop to 67°C. Maintain it for an hour.
30 minutes before the end, heat 14 liters of rinsing water to 77°C.
Step 3 :
Once the saccharification hour is over, proceed to filtration and rinsing.
Step 4 :
Heat your wort to proceed with a 60-minute boil.
In a Hop Spider or a hop bag, add 10g of East Kent Goldings (EKG) hops to infuse from the start of the timer.
In the meantime, you can peel and cut your 20g of ginger roots into pieces. If you have chosen dried ginger root pieces, then you don’t need to do anything.
If you are using an immersion chiller, don’t forget to sterilize it in the wort 15 minutes before the end of the boil.
10 minutes before the end, add the remaining 10g of EKG hops and your ginger.
Add the cinnamon and nutmeg for the last 5 minutes.
Step 5 :
Cool the wort to 19°C and transfer it to the fermenter.
Your initial gravity should be around 1.065.
Add the yeast and ferment at 18-19°C for about 3 weeks.
To ensure fermentation is complete, gradually raise the temperature to 22°C for the final week.
The final gravity with this type of yeast should be around 1.015.
Step 6 :
Add 4 g/L of sugar at bottling. Since this type of beer is quite creamy, I recommend not over-carbonating it.
