Fri Aug 18, 2006 3:58 pm
My hard cider recipe is pretty simple. First check the gravity of your apple juice. Compute how much brown sugar you will need to bring it up to 1.068 (or whatever OG you want) for 5 gallons of cider. I heat up the first gallon of cider on the stove (being careful not to boil it) and dissolve the sugar in it. I also add a pound of chopped raisins, 2 or 3 cinnamon sticks and 4 or 5 whole nutmegs, and a teaspoon of whole cloves. I let this all steep for 30 minutes or so and then dump the whole works into the fermenter and add the other 4 gallons of pasteurized apple juice. I generally use Wyeast 1007 or you can use regular cider yeast. Just don't use champagne yeast unless you want the FG to drop to 0.994 like the one time I tried it. I had to add malto-dextrine post ferment to get it drinkable.
My favorite winter warmer (next to the spiced cider above) is Denny Conn's Bourbon Vanilla Imperial Porter. You can google for the recipe, it's everywhere. I have a bunch of that bottled right now. Soon I will be brewing up the same porter base, but instead of adding the Jim Beam and vanilla beans, I will be adding hazelnut syrup. It's the same stuff they put in those fancy latte coffees. I add 4 tsp per gallon.
I haven't made a pumpkin ale, but my observations from what I have read and the ones I drank is that the pumpkin really doesn't add much flavor at all. If you add spices as you propose, you won't be able to taste the pumkin at all. If you tell people it is a pumkin ale, they will be looking for a pumpkin pie flavor that they won't get from a straight unspiced pumpkin beer. Just leave the pumpkin out, but use the pumpkin pie spices and no one will know the difference. This will also eliminate a sticky sparge and massive starch haze in your finished beer.
Don't have an Octoberfest recipe, sorry.
Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company
