Luke O' Lantern Strong Pumpkin Ale

7.0 lbs. 6 row
1.0 lbs. wheat
1.0 lbs. munich
1.0 lbs. vienna
1.0 lbs. crystal 60L
1.0 lbs. carapils
3 medium pumpkins (~10 lbs.)
1.0 oz. saaz at 0 min.
1.0 oz. willamette at 60 min.
1.5 tsp. cinnamon
1.5 tsp. nutmeg
1.0 tsp. allspice
0.5 tsp. real vanilla extract
1.0 tsp. irish moss
1056 wyeast american ale yeast

gut pumpkin, chop into large pieces leaving skin on. bake at 350F for 1.5 hours. scoop pumpkin from skin.


mash along with grain, using 1 quart water for each pound of pumpkin (same ratio for grain).


boil for 90 minutes.


add 1.0 tsp. of cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice at 30 minutes. add 0.5 tsp. of cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla at 75 minutes. add 1.0 tsp. irish mosh at 75 minutes as well.

Mash / Lauter Tun... Upgrade!

My beloved cousin Jason has given me one of his keggles, now I can brew 10 gallon batches! It was necessary for me to upgrade my mash tun to support the new volume, so I sold off my old 5 gallon to Pete, and began working on a bigger one. I converted a 48 quart cooler, which is equivalent to 12 gallons.

This time I took my experience with the old mash tun, and some tips from Jason, to improve my original design. I noticed the false bottom gets stuck if you aren't careful dumping the grains into the cooler. So this time I built a slotted manifold. It was a pain in the butt cutting all those slots with a hacksaw, but it was worth it in the end !

Hop Harvest

The hop flowers were getting paper-like and slightly brown near the bottoms, a sign that it was time for a hop harvest. 2 minutes later, harvest was complete.

I put the hops in a paper bag and left them in the sun room where they will dry out for a few days. This was the first year so there weren't many flowers.

I think I'll have enough for one dry hopping, I guess I'll have to make a pale ale next.


I put some fresh hops in my beer as a garnish. Squeezing the hop flower in my mouth like a sponge elicited a wonderful hoppy taste.

Hopalicious

I couple months ago I happen to be at my local brew shop and they were selling fresh hop rhizomes. I thought hell why not? In a couple years I could be brewing homemade beer using home grown hops ! I bought 3 cascade and 2 golding rhizomes which were all they had of these particular types. Turns out 1 golding died when the vine somehow snapped at the base, and 1 cascade was eaten by an animal. Still I managed to grow 2 vines per type. My first hop cone grew in a few days ago on one of the cascade vines so I had to take a picture. I'm really glad I decided to plant these.

Smoke on the Porter (Frankenstein II)

I threw together a recipe using all my left overs... strangely enough the ingredient list resembles a porter recipe I found online that used rauch, peat, chocolate, black patent, and flaked barley. I just bought the London Ale III and hops and I was ready to go. The foaming, chocolate brown wort tasted delicious.

ingredient list
3.0 lbs. rauch
2.0 lbs. munich
1.0 lbs. 2 row
1.0 lbs. caramel 20L
1.0 lbs. caramel 60L
1.0 lbs. peat
1.0 lbs. chocolate
0.5 lbs. black patent
0.5 lbs. cara pils
0.5 lbs. vienna
0.5 lbs. flaked barley
1.0 oz. pearle 60 minutes
1.0 oz. kent goldings 30 minutes
1.0 oz. fuggles 15 minutes
1318 Wyeast London Ale III

I bought a plastic bucket with an attached spigot, which came in handy while sparging since now I don't need to siphon the sparge water.