Prince of Fatness
I'm not going to worry about the gravity reading. Generally I come close to what the recipe calculates, and I use 70% efficiency. I'll take a reading when I rack it to the carboy just to see how far along it is.
I usually shoot for 5 1/4 gallons, and we got a little more this time. I didn't notice that the flame was not on as high.
I will let you know what it tastes like in a couple of weeks when I rack it to secondary.
Not at it at all.
Good Bad & The Monkey
I never worry about the gravity. But I am always curious.
I'm running somewhere tomorrow. It's going to be beautiful. I can't wait.
Poor baby
Yeah, I'm curious, but not enough to bother taking the lid off, etc. Plus, it's already chugging along at over a bubble a second.
Update.
22 days in the bucket today, so I racked it over to the carboy. Filled that sucker to the top and had to pour out a couple of glasses. Oh well, it ain't my beer.
Took a gravity reading ... 1.010. Looks like it is mostly fermented out.
Aroma. Damn, when I opened the bucket you could definitely smell the spices. Not as much as brew day, but still.
Taste. It definitely tasted like a pumpkin beer. I had my kid sample, he said the same. I definitely did not over spice. A couple months in the carboy and it will be fine. As for the squash, I am not sure how much that came into play with the flavor. Maybe a little.
I think that this will be a decent beer. If I had to do it again I may up the spices just a tad, but I have no complaints.
We bottled over the weekend. The spices mellowed quite a bit, but they are there. I would use more next time. It definitely tastes like a pumpkin beer. I am not sure how much of a squash taste there is ... seems like some is there.
Anyway, the son in law is pleased to have a couple of cases of it. He's going to wait until September at the earliest to have some.
I finally got around to having one of these over the weekend. I really didn't get much of a taste from the squash, although my son in law said that he could taste it. I think that we spiced it pretty well. The spices mellowed quite a bit with aging but are definitely there. All in all I would say that this one turned out pretty well. The son in law wants to brew this one again next year.
FFS, I brewed that pumpkin beer 7 years ago? I bring this back from the dead because my son is getting married in October and wants to brew a pumpkin beer for the occasion. I am tweaking the recipe a bit. This is what we will do...
Pumpkin Beer (to be named later), 11 qts
3.5 lbs US 2 Row Pale
1.5 lbs Light Munich
.75 lbs Aromatic
.5 lbs Caramunich III
6 oz Black Strap Molasses (add late in boil)
2 lbs (after roasting) Butternut Squash (roast beforehand, cube, and add for entire boil (see below))
1 oz Tettnang hops (60 minutes)
Wyeast 1968 London ESB, 1 qt starter
Spices
Cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg (amounts tbd and will depend on my mood)
Mash 152 for an hour. Boil for an hour. Chill and pitch yeast. Bottle after about 4 weeks. Use brown sugar to prime.
I got the idea to add the squash to the boil instead of the mash here. I was intrigued so that's what we'll do. H suggests to sprinkle brown sugar on the squash when roasting but I'm not doing that. I am adding molasses to the boil so I'll get that flavor from there.
Brewing this the last weekend in August.
We bottled the wedding beer a couple of days ago. It came out nice. Spices are more on the nose than the palette. It's a nice pumpkin beer.
The kid had some nice labels made for it. We put them all on and I noticed that the year of their wedding day was 28 instead of 18! We must have looked at them 100 times before then. I was able to take the labels off easily and he will have correct labels made.