Big Time Brewing: Quadratic Formula

One of my proudest moments as a homebrewer was having one of my beers selected to be brewed at Mad Jack's Mountain Brewery in Bailey, Colorado. It was the first time one of my beers had been chosen to brew and sell to the public.

The beer was a Quadrupel that I brewed as an excuse to try the new at the time Simpsons DRC malt in place of Special B. Apparently it worked out quite well. The owner and the brew master at Mad Jack's both tried my beer, and the rest is history.

For the brewery, my original 5 gallon brew was scaled up from 5 gallons to 3 barrels. The switch was also made to a brewery made Candi Syrup in place of the commercial Candi Syrups from my original brew.

The recipe below is therefore a 5 gallon brew that was modified and scaled up to 90 gallons and then brought back down to 5 gallons again.

If you'd like to forgo making your own Candi Syrup, I've also listed the original syrups. In addition, I've provided two mashing options. At the brewery, we did a single Saccharification Rest. When I made this at home, I added in a Protein Rest.

Grains:

11lbs Castle Pilsen
3lbs Weyermann Light Munich
12oz Simpsons DRC

Hops:
0.5oz Magnum (12% a.a.): 60 min
1oz Styrian Golding (3.5% a.a.): 30 min

1oz Tettnanger (4.8% a.a.): 15 min

Extras:
At flameout, add 2lbs Amber Homemade Candi Syrup or

1lb each of Candi Syrup D-180 and Simplicity

Total Boil Time: 90 Min

Yeast:
Imperial B45 - Gnome

Mash Schedule:
Protein Rest: 131F for 20 min (Optional)

Saccharification Rest: 150F for 60 min

Mashout: 168F for 15 minutes

Original Gravity:
1.095
Final Gravity:
1.024

IBU: 26
SRM Color: 20

ABV: 9.2%

Fermentation Schedule:
3 Weeks Primary at 69F
11 Weeks Secondary
1-2 Months Bottle Conditioning (Optional)

Comments

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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 ...

Colorado Kitchen Brew

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