A few weekends ago Angelos and I dusted off our brewing equipment after a long unplanned break and brewed up three batches of beer. We bottled them today, and we’re very pleased with the results. We should have some solid entries into this year’s Knickerbocker Battle of the Brews, but more than that, we’ll have some tasty homebrew to enjoy for a while!
We brewed up a pumpkin ale, a mocha stout, and what we’ve named a Fränkenbier which was a mix of spare grains from the pumpkin and stout with some additions to bring it to a full batch.
The pumpkin ale was a recipe I put together. It’s a partial mash of Vienna malt, Crystal malt 40L and torrified wheat combined with amber dry malt extract, canned unspiced pumpkin, brown sugar and honey. The pumpkin was spread thinly on a baking sheet and baked at 325 degrees for an hour, which caramelized it nicely. Into the last 15 minutes of the boil we added vanilla beans, cinnamon sticks, cloves, ground ginger and ground nutmeg. We used a light amount of Mt. Hood and Hallertauer hops, and fermented using Safale US-05 yeast.
The mocha stout was Angelos’s creation. While I don’t have the notes, it was an all-grain batch. The base recipe was for a strong stout, and to it he added coffee grounds and dark chocolate powder. We used a Wyeast smack pack to ferment. I’ll try to update with the details.
The Fränkenbier was something we both threw together. We started with a partial mash of black patent, roasted barley, Crystal 40L, cara pils, torrified wheat and flaked oats. To it we added extra light dry malt extract, and used a mix of amarillo, centennial, simcoe, Kent Golding and Citra hops. We fermented with Safale US-05 yeast.
All three taste and smell wonderful. The pumpkin (8.3% ABV) has a solid pumpkin pie flavor and aroma with a silky finish. The mocha stout (6.7% ABV) has a solid chocolate nose with a nice coffee flavor to it. The Fränkenbier (7.3% ABV) was better than we’d hoped, and fits nicely into the Black IPA style profile; it has a beautiful citrus nose with lots of toasted malts and bittering going on in it.
Can’t wait to try these after a couple weeks of bottle conditioning!
