Smoked Pumpkin Imperial Stout, a new creation from Brewmaster Jerry! It brings together two thing I love, brewing beer and smoking foods. So for another try at something different, I decided to smoke some pumpkins. It is really cool, I sourced the pumpkins from a former student. He grows them, and then gives a bunch of money to charity. So, this is a brew with a good cause being supported from it.
Smoking The Pumpkins
The pumpkins were cut up into pieces then seasoned with some brown sugar cinnamon and nutmeg. I then put the pumpkin quarters on the smoker for a few hours.
My Camp Chef smoker with the jerky racks in can hold a bunch. This is where things went a little haywire that day. My son returned home from a friend’s house with blood gushing from his chin, so I left the smoker running as I brought him to urgent care to get stitches.
When returning later to take the pumpkins off of the smoker, I cut them up into smaller pieces and put them into a bag in the fridge since I was not going to be able to get to the brewing of the beer that night.
Brew Day And Fermentation
So the next day I’m in action, and cut up a few pounds of smoked pumpkin to put into the boil. I had placed a little bit into the mash tun, and probably should have done more. I used some Wunder Grain from Austin Homebrew Supply. I also added in some dark dried malt extract to kick up the ABV and increase the darkness.
During the fermentation, it was fast and furious. I came down to check on things, to find my airlock was all foamed over and a puddle of wort on the floor.
When going from the fermenter to the keg, I still use the Bouncer. I didn’t realize just how much pumpkin flesh made it into the fermenter! So glad the ouncer MD is easy to hook up and run. I keg the beer and made sure that it was ready to go on tap. It did take a few days for the carbonation to dial in. I later used this batch 2 try out the Growler Bro.
Tasting
The first tasting of this beer with friends went well. There was a slight amount of smoked pumpkin flavor, but lots of dark and multi flavors of the Imperial Stout. We did try it when it was not fully carbonated, but it was still quite tasty. When I tried tinkering this stout with The Growler Bro, I added coffee, chocolate, and one with both. The strong winner was the coffee addition.
Future Thoughts
In the future I would do a few things differently. I would smoke the pumpkin for longer to make it more soft. I would probably remove the skin of the pumpkin first to allow for more smoke flavor into the pumpkin itself. I did really enjoy the spice mix that was put on there so that would be a repeat part of the process. Next time I think I would add more pumpkin to both the mash and to the actual Boyle. I may even think about incorporating some smoked malts in, to accentuate the Smoky flavor a little bit more
