Beer Forum

OK, it's a little late in the game, but this honkin jack-o-lantern my nephew carved is screaming to be recycled in something other than the compost heap.

So I read up on pumpkin beers, and want to get something rolling here right away. I'm thinking maybe 30 percent wheat malt, and 70 percent high diastatic barley (suggestions here for source?). Roast the pumpkin and add to mash--maybe 3-4 # for a 6 gal batch. Shoot for a grav in the 57-62 range.

For mainstay fermentation I want to use 1056 as I have an active fermentation already using it. But am playing with the notion of adding a wheat beer yeast somewhere after high krausen--maybe one of the more subdued types with more clove/phenols than banana/estery profile. But don't want to overdo it as I'll be adding spices as well.

Am I making this too complicated--maybe I just throw in a couple cans of Libby's and call it good, along of course with some cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, vanilla?, orange peel, and molasses. All new ground to me, any help greatly appreciated.....I don't want this to be a spice beer so much as a pumpkin ale, and can see a dunkel weizen base even...

I wouldn't mess with wheat yeasts at all. My first pumpkin beer was a pumpkin wheat and it tasted like wheat beer. You are on the right track with 1056 yeast as it is fairly neutral. You want subdued yeast and hop flavors so that the spices and pumpkin can come through.