Category Archives: brewing

Brewing a Pumpkin Ale with our Magnum Hops

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We had an ounce of Magnum hops to use up and with it being so close to the fall season, brewing a Pumpkin Ale was a no-brainer. The Magnum hop variety is typically used to provide a slight bittering to lagers and some ales. We chose to use it in this pumpkin ale batch because we don’t want a hop forward flavor but, we still wanted a hint of bitterness.

This specific Pumpkin Ale recipe is an all-grain batch and can be found here. We just simply replaced the Mount Hood variety with our Magnums. We did end up using our own Cascade variety as well. Enjoy the photos!

Ingredients for our Pumpkin Ale
Ingredients for our Pumpkin Ale. Magnum and Cascade hops, pumpkin spice (cinnamon and nutmeg), fresh pumpkin, and brown sugar.
Mashing in the grain at 157 degrees. Brought the original strike temp up to 170.
Mashing in the grain at 157 degrees. Brought the original strike temp up to 170.
Our mash tun made of an old water cooler. Perfect for home brewing and easy to make one!
Our mash tun made of an old water cooler. Perfect for home brewing and easy to make one!
Transferring the hot liquid. Used 170 degree water to sparge. Transferred directly into the brew pot.
Transferring the hot liquid. Used 170 degree water to sparge. Transferred directly into the brew pot.
Added the brown sugar and brought to a boil. Magnum hops were added at 0 min. Cascade at 30 min. Boiled for 60 min.
Added the brown sugar and brought to a boil. Magnum hops were added at 0 min. Cascade at 30 min. Boiled for 60 min.
Our fresh Magnum hops.
Our fresh Magnum hops.
Cooling down the wart. After we hit 70 degrees, it was transferred to the primary fermentation bucket and the yeast was pitched.
Cooling down the wart. After we hit 70 degrees, it was transferred to the primary fermentation bucket and the yeast was pitched.

Brewing Trip Up-North!

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We took the trip up north this Labor Day weekend to visit my son, Brian. We ended up doing some home-brewing with our freshly processed, whole leaf, hops. We brought two ounces of Centennial and three ounces of Cascade. Brian ended up choosing an American IPA to brew up (see recipe).

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Brewing Trip

We brewed this using an all grain recipe that included 2-row malted barley and 60L Crystal malt. Mashed in at 158 degrees for 90 minutes. Then boiled for 90 minutes, adding hops at different intervals. Our original gravity measured in at 1.059 and we’re shooting for a final gravity of 1.018 – leaving an abv around 5.4% (tasty!)

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We will be doing another 5 gallon batch with our Cascade and Magnums very soon too!