Bend Brew Day One: I shall call it "Artisan Pumpkin Ale"

Tis the season for one of my favorite recipes of the year. This is my first brew at the new house but with the same set up I have been using all along.

I have a two gallon kettle on an electric range (for now, soon to upgraded to a ten gallon kettle on a gas outdoor stove).

So first things first, I collected my ingredients from the local homebrew shop a few days ago.

6 lbs of Light Dried Malt Extract

1 lb of crushed Carapils

1 lb of Crystal 60 L

1 Bag of wyeast 1056: American Pale Ale Yeast (the same Sierra Nevada Brewery uses)

2 oz of Willamette whole leap hops, gotta love the Northwest.

In addition since this is my artisan pumpkin ale I also will use these ingredients, i have not decided what order or in what amount yet:

2 small pumpkin pie pumpkins (7 lbs)

4 cans of pumpkin pie filling

1 tsp of cinnamon

1/2 tsp of nutmeg

1/2 tsp of ginger

1/2 tsp of corriander

I checked to make sure I have all the necessary equipment:

kettle.........check

Ingredients..........check

iodophor and star-san for sanitation.............check

Muslin bags for my speciality grains and pumpkin.........check

timer........check

good thermometer.......check

big ass funnel...........check

glass carboy and carboy rack for drying..........check

carboy brush........check

sanitizer bucket.........check

tasty brews to down while making some tasty brew..........check

This will be a 6o minute boil, I do use a wort chiller and I will do a two stage fermentation. I predict this beer will take around 1 week in primary fermentation and then another week in secondary until i transfer into my keg. By then I hopefully will have my kegerator built ( I still need a fridge if you know anyone).

I start this brew by roasting 7 lbs of pumpkin pie pumpkin that I sliced into large pieces in the oven at 350 degrees for one hour. I sprinkled brown sugar ontop just for good measure. This was not enough pumpkin, I wanted 5 lbs and I ended up after I stripped the skin off with only 3 lbs so I supplemented with 4 cans of organic and preservative free pie mix.

Add the pumpkin mixture with the speciality grains into a kettle with 1.5 gallons of water and heat to 150 and try to keep it at that temp for 1 hour. By all means you have to keep it under 170 F.

You then take this and strain it into a separate bucket and then sparge the mixture with 1 gallon of water with170 F water.

Take this and put back into the kettle and bring to boil. Add your 6 lbs of DME, and when it comes to a boil add 1 oz of willamette whole leap hops. While your wort is boiling, start sanitizing your stuff. remember that everything that comes into contact with your wort after the boil is over needs to be sanitized.

At 55 minutes add the spice mixture and another ounce of willamette whole leap hops.

At 60 minutes cut the boil and remover from heat

Try your best to get the wort down to temperature (70 F) as soon as possible with either a wort chiller or an ice bath

Aggressively shake to aerate the wort.

Add the yeast. I use a blow-off hose because I expect serious fermentation to happen.

I plan on adding one more small pumpkin to the secondary along with the same spice amounts that I added into the kettle.

cheers