You could smell it, once it got going.  That, and boiling some extract for the yeast starter.

I am not concerned by the shrinkage.  Honestly, most of the flavor in these pumpkin beers comes from the spices, so a little less squash will not make much of a difference.

Fuck no.  I don't like squash.  Mrs Finn was picking on it.  And, the son in law tried it.  i think that he will like the beer more than the squash.

It definitely caramelized a bit though, you could see it.

I would mash it up and just stir the sparge.  If cooked enough, it may just fully liquefy.  If cooked inadequately, it is unlikely to contribute much.  I would smash it in my hands!

By the way I took before and after pictures of the roast, and will try to remember to get a shot of the mash.

Can you post smellovision too?

Nice! More pics?

SIL?  Sister in law?  With a beard?  Weird.

Son in law, but you know that.  Those are all of the pics I have.  I forgot to get pics of the spices.

As I said, sparging was extremely slow, but it never stuck.  It took at least an hour to sparge.  Normally it is a half hour or less.  I also forgot to get a gravity reading before pitching the yeast.  Oh well.

I ended up using 4 whole cloves.  They were tiny.  I used one nutmeg.  For the nutmeg we put it in a baggie and gave it a couple of whacks with a rubber mallet.  One cinnamon stick, broke in half.  And a half a cup of molasses.

The earliest that this will be consumed will be October, so the spices will have time to mellow.  But wow, what an aroma.  Wow.

I am going to brew a holiday beer similar to this, taking out the molasses and adding ginger root.  I'll get a taste of this beer first so I can tweak the spices if need be.