Pumpkin Marathon

Whew. What a weekend. So Friday night I decided I was going to get the pumpkins out of my pantry and get my pumpkin brews started. And deal with the cherry limeade while I was at it, too.

So, even though it was the last thing I did Friday night, I'll tell you about it first, because it is the quickest to tell. I was going to top it up with another gallon or so of sugar water, but as it was cooling down to add it to the must without killing the yeasties, silly me forgot to cover the pot, and it got contaminated. "Ummm, brewmistress, there is a fly in my limeade!" So, I got fed up with it (I needed the space in my ant-free water zone, patent pending), moved it to a corner of my kitchen and had my roommate knock the lid on it. Airlocked it and left it alone. It's gurgling away, slowly, but noticeably. It took me until this morning to realize what that strange gurgling noise was, I was wondering if my new house had a leak in it somewhere. Thank goodness it's just a happy batch of limeade!

So now for the pumpkin marathon: For all three batches I started by chunking up a couple of pie pumkins I had bought, sprinkling the small one with brown sugar and pumpkin pie spice, just brown sugar on the other, shoved it all in the oven to cook for and hour and a half at 350. The smaller pumpkin, with sugar and spice, was then shelled and put in a ziploc to keep in the fridge until I transfer the mead into a secondary. The larger one, with just sugar, became the base for my pumpkin wine:

Midnight (recipe from Jack Keller)
5 lbs. (ish) Pumpkin
3 1/4 lbs sugar
1/2 oz. citric acid
1 t. nutrient
6 1/2 pts. water
K1V-1116 yeast

Removed cooked pumpkin flesh from shell and put in a hops bag. Brought water to a boil, and stirred in sugar to dissolve. Removed from heat. Placed bagged pumpkin in primary and poured boiling water over it. Allowed it to cool overnight, covered, until it was at room temperature. Then added 1 T. citric acid (I don't have a kitchen scale yet, so I spent about 20 minutes looking for the conversion) and nutrient. Rehydrated yeast according to package directions. Pitched yeast.
Temp: 78 degrees
O.G.: 1.120 (not adjusted, gotta find my charts . . . it's a pain finding one online with google)


Halloween Trick
3.5 lbs local honey
1 c. brown sugar
1 T. pumpkin pie spice
1 t. nutrient
water to one gallon
D47 yeast

Put honey in primary. Add warm water and stir to dissolve. Add brown sugar and pumpkin pie spice, stir. This is a pain in the patootie. Like adding tannin, the spice just wants to float there in clumps. When it came to room temp, added nutrient and rehydrated yeast. I split the rehydrated yeast between this batch and the next, because I was originally planning on getting a 3 gallon bucket or carboy to start these batches, so they would be the same until I added pumpkin to one. Pitched yeast.
Temp: 90 degrees
O.G.: 1.130 (again, not adjusted)


Halloween Treat
3.5 lbs local honey
1 c. brown sugar
1 T. pumpkin pie spice
1 t. nutrient
water to one gallon
D47 yeast
1.5 lbs (ish) pumpkin

Okay this one was done exactly the same as the one above, except for preparing the pumpkin to be added later, as I said above. I don't know how, prolly inaccurate honey measurements (honey is hard to measure by the cupful! I want a measuring cup like Alton Brown has), but the two batches are already slightly different:
Temp: 85 degrees
O.G.: 1.125

I will prolly be transferring the wine to a secondary tonight, and the meads tomorrow night. That way I have a chance to clean the plain pumpkin flavor of the wine out of the racking cane before I contaminate the meads with it.