Brewing with both fruit and malt extract

[masonpi]

Hey everyone,
I'm very new--bottling my first beer tomorrow.
My girlfriend loves pumpkin beer, so my goal is to brew a pumpkin beer for our Halloween party this year.
To that end--do you need to do all-grain to effectively brew with fruit? I was hoping to move from malt extract --> malt extract + fruit --> all grain + fruit in order to learn each step fully.
Does malt extract + fruit work or should I focus on getting to all-grain more quickly?
Thanks!

 

[OSULumberjack]

You are fine to brew a pumpkin beer using extract. Pumpkin beers aren't actually that reliant on the use of pumpkin in the brewing process, most of what we think of as the pumpkin flavor is really the pumpkin pie spices. I have seen a wide variety of pumpkin brews, some using pumpkins, some using canned pumpkin, some using no pumpkin at all. I would encourage you to look around and check out several recipes to see what other people's experiences have been.

Welcome to the hobby, I'm like 4 or 5 beers and a cider into it myself. I have my eyes on a pumpkin beer this year as well. I had a pumpkin porter somewhere that was really good, so maybe that's the ticket for me.

 

[RPh_Guy]

There's no problem using pumpkin and extract.

I suggest using Libby's canned "pumpkin" toward the end of the boil (around the same time you add your malt extract, right? Hint hint), along with brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove. If you use ginger, add it early in the boil. Add vanilla extract when packaging.
48oz pumpkin for 5 gal.

Cheers & welcome to HBT!

 

[masonpi]

Excellent, thanks for the tips! I think I'll follow your advice and used canned pumpkin added to the wort so I won't have to complicate the process more than it needs to be.

 

[Jag75]

Rph have you ever used canned pumpkin in the mash ?

 

[RPh_Guy]

Rph have you ever used canned pumpkin in the mash ?

No, I hear almost nothing but bad things about using pumpkin in the mash. No flavor, huge mess.

 

[tmendick]

I use the canned stuff in the mash, every time. It dissolves pretty quick and I don’t know that it really makes much of a difference, but I would recommend roasting the purée for awhile to get some nice depth of flavor.

 

[Jag75]

There was a thread in here about that. I do believe they did say to roast it first as tmendick said.

 

[applescrap]

Pumpkin literally has very little flavor. I brew one every year. I boil the canned pumpkin and also make sure it gets in the fermenter. mashing it I guess could convert starch? Idk. The flavor is the spices as noted and very little is what I use. I want to say its 1/2 tsp each of cinnamon, ginger, and all spice. I dont have recipe on me. Some recipes call for near 10 times those amounts. Less is more. Hunt around on this site for pumpkin beers and you are bound to run into my recipe.

 

[Jag75]

I'll look again . If I remember right they said they used roasted puree in mash and spices in last 5 min of boil. I've never made one . I have made a spiced hard apple cider and learned about less is more lol. Cloves go a long way .

I thought it to be odd as puree in mash I figured would cause dough balls .

 

[applescrap]

Yeah last 5 minutes at the most, dont want to boil spices off.

 

[Jag75]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/punkin-ale.145060/

This is the one that caught my eye .

 

[applescrap]

That's a nice recipe. My only critique is that I dont think they age that well. Or at least in this case, he likes the aging because of the huge amount of spice. I dont have my recipe but it is very similar. Two cans of libby and all. Never roasted it, but sure. I like the idea of simplifying the spices. Just need way less imo. A tsp and a half is my gut instinct for a perfectly quaffable beer that people will want more than one of. I like the brown sugar. Mine calls for maple syrup. Never used it. But I like brown sugar sure. The other idea with light spice is to preserve the delicate squash flavor. That is what it tastes like. A deli ate squash and imho if you are going to use pumpkin and roast it. Lightly spicing gives best shot of allowing that to come through, ymmv.