In the Fermentor: Flaming Pumpkin

I'll admit that I'm not a huge Pumpkin Beer fan. I didn't have one on my brewing calendar for this year and didn't have my sights set on one for next Fall either. Then my niece came along and threw down the gauntlet. She asked me to brew her a pumpkin beer and I accepted the challenge.

I did a lot of reading to see how to best go about using pumpkin in beer. Some people mash it with the grains. Others add it to the brew kettle during the boil. Some add it to the primary or secondary fermentor. The consensus from professional brewers appears to be adding it to the mash, so I took the same approach. The pumpkin was cooked ahead of time by my girlfriend to soften it, convert some of the starch and help release some of its sugars. It then joined the grains in the mash.

I really want the pumpkin pie effect here, so I've thrown in all of the requisite spices toward the end of the boil. I've also gone with just enough bitterness to balance the sweetness of the rest of the beer. Finally, I prepared the brown sugar in the same manner as the Candi Sugar in my Quad. With approximately 45 min left in the boil, I heated the brown sugar in a small pot with enough water to make a syrup. I tossed in a little cream of tartar and boiled the sugar over medium heat between 260-275F. I kept the sugar cooking until there was roughly 5 minutes left in the boil of the wort. I then slowly poured the hot sugar into the brew-pot.

If everything precedes as planned, this beer should be ready just in time for Halloween. How appropriate. Here's the full recipe:

Grains:
8 lbs Colorado Pale Ale
8 oz Carastan
8 oz Extra Dark Crystal

Hops:
0.5 oz Newport (9.8% a.a.): 60 min

Yeast:
Safale US-05

Extras:
3 lbs Fresh Pumpkin: Mash
1 lb Dark Brown Sugar: 5 min
1 Tbsp Cinnamon: 10 min
1 Tbsp Finely Chopped Ginger: 10 min
2 tsp Allspice: 10 min
2 tsp Clove: 10 min
2 tsp Nutmeg: 10 min

Mash Schedule:
Saccharification Rest: 151F for 75 min
Mashout: 168F for 15 minutes

Original Gravity:
1.057
Estimated Final Gravity:
1.012

IBU: 19
SRM Color: 17

Fermentation Schedule:
3 Weeks Primary
2 Weeks Bottle Conditioning

Cost: $15 per case
Commercial Equivalent: Samuel Adams Harvest Pumpkin: $32
Savings: $17