pumpkin booze!

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Coon Dog
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pumpkin booze!

Post by Coon Dog »

I read an article online about different kinds of pumpkin likker. I can't find anything recent about it, so I thought I'd bring it up. (If it is recent, sorry for the double posted topic) it seemed like there were two basic ways of making a pumpkin likker: distill a pumpkin wine/beer, or put pumpkin and spices in a vapor basket. I suppose the former is more like a brandy, and the latter more like a vodka/gin. Who has run something like this? What seems to work best? What shouldn't a person do?
maheel
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Re: pumpkin booze!

Post by maheel »

my local beer brewers association recently did a mini comp on "pumpkin beer" and there were plenty of different ideas.

some roasted the pumpkin and mashed it, some used no skins some used skins etc.

none of the ones i tasted had me going back for 2nd glasses... drinkable is not always enjoyable.... but each to their own
blanikdog
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Re: pumpkin booze!

Post by blanikdog »

We made some pumpkin booze when I was doing nasho training. I can't recommend it, but we were only twenty year old 'know it all' boys then. I'll come back here one day and see if adults do better. :)
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Coon Dog
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Re: pumpkin booze!

Post by Coon Dog »

I was either thinking of distilling a pumpkin beer to make a sort of pumpkin pie brandy, or putting pumpkin and spice in a vapor basket to flavor a sugar wash similar to a gin process. Maybe ill try both. If they turn out terrible I could just reflux the hell outta them and salvage a neutral. I read thru the other theads on it and was hoping for updates on what people have liked/disliked.
frozenthunderbolt
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Re: pumpkin booze!

Post by frozenthunderbolt »

My pumpkin pie wine smelt great but tasted like arse, not worth the bother IMHO
Where has all the rum gone? . . .

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Tater
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Re: pumpkin booze!

Post by Tater »

Try a search on pumpkin
I use a pot still.Sometimes with a thumper
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Husker
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Re: pumpkin booze!

Post by Husker »

I agree with people about the pumpkin beer/wine. It smells good, but does not have the most pleasant flavor. However, I have made a wash with 4 gallons of pumpkin juice, and bumped it up to 7 gallons and added 5lb of sugar, split it into 2 5 gallon fermenters (you WANT head room), then tossed in some trub from a UJSM wash. It fermented dry in about 6 days, and cleared in another 2. I double distilled that, and ended up with about a 1/2 gallon of 65%, oaked for 4 weeks, added 2 cinnamon sticks, about 10 whole cloves, and some fresh ginger, a little nutmeg powder, and still on oak. I gave that another week, then filtered it all off. During those 5 weeks, I had it in 1 gallon glass jug, shook every day (or every other day), opened and blew a little air in. I let that sit for two weeks, very still, then racked off the sediment. Cut it to 35% with spring water, added a couple drops of vanilla, and it was one of the drinks my wife liked more than any other drink I have made.

It was very unique, and carried over a nice pumpkin flavor, but the nasty of the pumpkin wine/beer was left in the boiler. The dunder in the boiler was VERY VERY nasty, more so, by far than whiskey dunder.

So I for one, think pumpkin 'can' work very well, for distillation. Yes, I think it sucks when you drink the beer/wine, but with the still, you can get what you want. The tails of pumpkin are horrible, so do NOT go deep into tails. IIRC (it's been 4 years, and I did not make notes), the heads did have a very nice smell in certain parts. They also had some harsh/sharpness, but I think I put certain parts of the heads in, and it mellowed with the oak.

The pumpkins I had were the wrong kind for pie, but I was making pie. It was a whole lot more liquidy than I wanted, so I put it into colander with cheese cloth, and let it drain. I was amazed at the amount of juice that came out. It was 2 parts juice to 1 part pumpkin when I was done (like I said, it was REALLY soopy). But when I had that much juice, I figured what the hell, and I was very happy with the end results. It went down well over xmas, and new years. We even found a bottle of it the beginning of summer this year (that was shoved in the back of the liquor cabinet). It was still very nice.

H.
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maheel
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Re: pumpkin booze!

Post by maheel »

frozenthunderbolt wrote:My pumpkin pie wine smelt great but tasted like arse, not worth the bother IMHO

really???? should we question the underlined above..... :crazy:
frozenthunderbolt
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Re: pumpkin booze!

Post by frozenthunderbolt »

maheel wrote:
frozenthunderbolt wrote:My pumpkin pie wine smelt great but tasted like arse, not worth the bother IMHO

really???? should we question the underlined above..... :crazy:
Figuratively not literally of course . . . :sick:
Where has all the rum gone? . . .

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Coon Dog
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Re: pumpkin booze!

Post by Coon Dog »

Tater - Yup. Did a search. Just trying to pry more data from those experienced.

Husker - what you did was essentially just flavored a sugar wash with pumpkin, and added spices during aging. What do you think he effect would have been to make a mash with all the spices, and distill that? I honk the way you did it reduces the amount of spice needed, and reduces the chance of off-flavors developing during distilling. If you have any thoughts on he former I'd Luke to hear what you think.
Coon Dog
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Re: pumpkin booze!

Post by Coon Dog »

Well, I finally have my pumpkin wash going. Here's what I did: I got about 8 pumpkins after Halloween for free, gutted them, peelws, and cooked in a crock pot for about 20 hours on high to overcook the veggie to release as much of the substance as possible. Then I blended it to a baby food consistancy and dumped in my fermentor. Then I converted about 5 lbs white sugar, 1 lb of brown sugar and half cup of molasses and a few tbls of lemon juice. I poured this into my bucket also. In order to get it to be somewhat liquid I had to add about 3 gallons of water. This meant splitting between two buckets. The "slop" is all contained inside some homemade brew bags to hopefully make it easier to get the solids out when its done fermenting. I pitched some lager yeast I had laying around and its slowly bubbling this morning.

When I distill, I was going to put the rest of pumpkin pie spices in a vapor basket to hopefully end up with a light pumpkin pie flavor. Aging I'm not sure on yet. Just clear? Or with a little oak(not toasted or anything) maybe a stick of maple also for added sweetness if it needs it??
Coon Dog
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Re: pumpkin booze!

Post by Coon Dog »

EPIC FAILURE. I thought in the sake of learning I'd describe my failure. On Thursday evening I started separating the pumpkin from the wash. I had the mash in "new bags" for easy separating, but that didn't work well. The bags I made from t-shirts were too tight of a knit and the liquid didn't pass through well. Also, the liquid that did come through was more of a thick slime, not a thinner beer-like wash. I added more water to thin out the wash. Upon distilling, I brought up temp very slow to avoid scorching the thick mess. I had some cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg in the vapor path. The first 200 ml of foreshots came out at only 40 proof - odd I think. He next 200 ml was the same, and the alcohol content only went down from there.

My thoughts are two-fold. First, my mash was very thick. Like a pea soup. Perhaps it was too thick for the yeast to adequately move through? More importantly, I think the mash got an infection. When I cooked the pumpkin, it took a few days in the crock pot. The first batch sat in my cool garage for three days before pitching the yeast. I'm going to claim this as the biggest problem. The pitched yeast weren't able to overcome the infection thereby not producing much alcohol (despite reading 1.002 at he end), and the infection causing he goody slime. I pulled as much alcohol as I could, and just put it all in my heads/tails jug to use later.

Oh well, ya live and learn I suppose.....
retlaw
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Re: pumpkin booze!

Post by retlaw »

rose hips give off a pumpkin type flavour, they might be a good subsitute,
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Re: pumpkin booze!

Post by Gonzo_distills »

retlaw wrote: Sun Dec 04, 2011 9:23 am rose hips give off a pumpkin type flavour, they might be a good subsitute,
Hmmm rosehips may find their way into my next rye.
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Re: pumpkin booze!

Post by Chevystairs »

I found on my only batch I've made , that the pumpkin distillate was fairly light tasting. Same with my first rosehip batch.
There are hints of flavor. The pumpkin has a watered down pumpkin taste the rose hips have a flowery softness to them, like a rose peddle water I guess.
Mind you I did basically do a sugar mash with the solids in it. No spices or anything.
But if I do the same with cranberry, crabapple, or apple. I et alot of the flavors coming through especially the tartness and smell.
The pumpkin and rosehip spirits have not been aged yet but seem good on there own. Whereas the more Brady styles were much better when aged for a bit. I'll be aging the pumpkin and hips later this week probally tho.
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