Punkin' Hooch

[lumberped]

Here we go Papaw ! Findin' myself in the midst of our current economy , I took a fit and decided to go cheap ! While wandering through our kitchen the other night, I looked at the pumpkin that we have had leftover ever since Halloween. I knew the gourd was well past the pumpkin pie stage since it had been hangin' around since the 2nd week in October , and pondered a good use for that big orange ball. Well it took me all of about 20 mins to come up with a plan of "waste not, wan't not". Not wanting to dig into my cornmeal stash for the first run of our season I decided to put together a recipe to put the punkin' in the pot! Here's the "how to" thus far :

Peel and dice the entire medium sized pumpkin into small cubes about 1 in square ( thereabouts)
Cook the pumpkin for about 1 1/2 hours , with 45 mins of that being at a steady mild boil.
Do not cook the life outta the gourd , cook only till soft and the outside of the cubes begin to break down -- you should be able to cut the pieces easily with a spoon though.
Cook just enough to allow the starches to be able to be released from the cubes , but do not cook to a "mash" as this will make separation a royal pain in the arse.
When cooking the gourd , just cover the top of the material with water , don't drown it - mine was about 1/2 gal of water to each pot ( 1/2 punkin in each pot)
While cooking , add 1 cup of sugar to each pot , or each half of the punkin'

After the cooking is finished , pour into your fermenter. Mine was two 5 gal. fermenters , so I will give the breakdown for that.
Let cool for approx. 15 mins , then add 3 1/2 lbs sugar to each wash
Add 2 tablespoons lemon juice , or substitute citric acid as is available.
Add 1 well crushed and powdered multivitamin tablet to each batch
Fill the remainder of your fermenter with distilled water at about 75-80 deg. f
Stir the mash vigorously to ensure all nutrients and sugar are dissolved.
Pitch yeast - 1 tbsp regular bakers yeast -per batch - stir again
Hydrometer reading at this time - 1.07 or about 9% pot abv ( my readings my differ from your actual results)
Cover mash and wait for airlock to begin working.

Within 30 mins , I had a vigorous stream of bubbles rolling , and have had the same consistency for 24 hours now.
I anticipate the mash being finished and clear in 5-6 days , but that is just a guess at this point.

There is bound to be some science in figuring the amt of sugar and starch in the pumpkin , and that combined with the added sugar and vitamins to figure processing time. But that is far beyond my scope. I will keep you guys posted on the progress. Thus far , I have only found limited experimentation with Pumpkin here , and the results seem to be hit or miss. So we will proceed and see.

Thanks for lookin'

Lumberped

[blind drunk]

Bull by the horns and all of that. Welcome to the tsunami.

[Tater]

try-- http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/veg ... cts/2601/2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[lumberped]

Well into day two of fermentation , and the bubbler is still running hard and fast. Best estimate would put bubble rate at 95% of the initial rate after pitching yeast!
....he's got hiiigh hopes , he's got hiiigh hopes....hiigh apple pie in the skyyyy hopes !


Crosses fingers and waits for the inevitable disaster




Lumber

[lumberped]

Mash had stopped bubbling this morning as of 9:30 am. Thought the batch would be ready to run this evening. However , as I began to move the buckets , a few bubbles began to percolate from the airlock , so I decided to just sit and watch. As the ambient air temperature increased, the bubble rate increased as well. Indicating we are still at least one day from the mash being ready to process. The bubble rate is much slower than previous entries, and I anticipate we should be ready to run withing 48 hours.

This recipe seems to be much more active than my previous experiences with simple sugar washes , or the DWWG recipe.

[blind drunk]

Rack it into a clean container. Sometimes the percolating stops after a good racking.

[lumberped]

Will do. Im thinkin' that it should have been finished today , and anything that is left in the mash would be best if left as backsets.

[lumberped]

First 10 gal. wash has been distilled , and produced spirits as good as I have made thus far. The spirit is completely neutral with only a very slight aroma , but no hint of pumpkin. The aroma would be best described as sweet. The aroma continues throughout the run , and not just at the heads (foreshots). The cuts seem to be a bit wider on this recipe than on a simple sugar ro DWWG wash.

Heads come on quickly , and die of just as quickly. Hearts seem to be a much longer run than what I am accustomed to. However , the tails seem to set on just as the heads ; almost immediately , with no hint that they are coming. There seems to be no grey areas on these runs this far. Heads (foreshots) are easily identifiable by scent and by taste. Hearts are not so asy to recognize by aroma , but more by temperature. Hearts seem to come on in my rig between 178 -180 deg. farenheit. My rig runs a bit higher in temp. due to shortened column length , so keep this in mind if you decide to use this recipe in your rig.

Overall , I am extremely pleased with this batch , due to simplicity , and the ease of using backsets. The pumpkin breaks down much more slowly , allowing the backsets to be separated with a collander as opposed to a filter bag.

Second batch of mash is currently being fermented with the backsets , and seems to be processing fine. Simply throw your backsets back into your fermenter , add approx. 75% as much sugar as orginally called for , a few crushed vitamin supplements ( 2 multivitamins) , enough water to refill the fermenter at approx. 80 deg. farenheit , and 3/4 tablespoon of yeast ( bakers yeast is fine). Mash will fire up like a rocket. Results are still out on the second run , but I will update as available.