Thanks to everyone for all the advice. I guess my town is not big enough (pop.~4,000) or else it's too early before Thanksgiving, but I counldn't find any canned pumpkin in town, and not having time to drive to the BIG city, I postponed my pumpkin ale and just brewed an Oatmeal Stout and an IPA (experimenting with both of them because I used 10% of Gambrenus Honey Malt in each). Anyway, a brewer in another forum opined that he thought the flavor for pumpkin ales is primarily from the spices and that the pumpkin itself adds very little if anything; I've heard that before, but have also read opinions about how much better fresh pumpkin is than canned (and vice versa), which suggests that if enough pumpkin is used, that it really does impart a flavor. Anyway, I am still planning to brew a pumpkin ale in the next week or two, and if either the Oatmeal Stout or the IPA would make a suitable base, I could conduct an experiment here. My thoughts are to add spices to one of these brews WITHOUT pumpkin, and then brew an identical batch WITH pumpkin next week, and then compare the two. First I'd like to know whether the Oatmeal Stout or the IPA would be best to use; I had originally planned to use a Pale Ale base so that specialty grains and extra hops wouldn't interfere with the pumpkin flavor, but I can't help that now. If either the OS or IPA would be appropriate, my next question is which would be the best way to add the spices.
Both of my brews are now in high krauesen; would it be better to wait until all fermentation has stopped since CO2 production might tend to scrub some flavor and/or aroma. Or would it be better to rack to secondary?... which I usually don't bother with, but I do have an empty carboy to use if that would be better. Or maybe add the spices to the bottling bucket, maybe boiled with the priming sugar? My thoughts are that I can boil them in a little bit of water in a very small sauce pan and either add directly or filter the water through a coffee filter, or else I can let them soak in a shot of vodka for an hour or however long would be appropriate (or soak in pure grain alcohol if that would be better than vodka). Any thoughts on these ideas and which methods would be best.
Thanks.
Bill Velek - PERSONAL sites =