All-Grain Pumpkin Ale

So my first all grain recipe is a Pumpkin Ale.  It was brewed on September 25th.  It was 5 gallon recipe.  I just transferred to the secondary (10/2), only 4 gallons made it.  Lots of trub (hops, spices, and pumpkin) left behind.  I had my lovely wife and my friend Mike help me brew.  We made a pretty good brew team.

The target on this beer is as follows:
Batch Size: 5.5 Gallons
Original gravity: 1.075
Final Gravity: 1.022
ABV: 7.0%

Actual results (as of Sunday October 2nd):
Batch size: 5 gallon --> 4 gallons Secondary
O.G.: 1.075
F.G.: 1.010
ABV: 8.4%

The higher ABV is a tribute to the pumpkin that was added.  The brew calculator did not have pumpkin as a fermentable option.

Ingredients:

Grains:
10 lbs. 2-Row Malt
1 lbs. Crystal Malt (~90L)
1lbs. Wheat

Sugars and Other Fermentables:
2 lbs Brown Sugar
60 oz. Canned Pumpkin Puree (unspiced)

Hops (49 IBUs):

1.5 oz Cluster pellets (aa7.9%) @ 60 mins
0.5 Challenger pellets (aa 7%) @ 10 mins
0.5 Challenger pellets (aa 7%) @ 5 mins

Notes: After tasting when transferred to the secondary, the bitterness was a little over powering.  If it was a normal ale, it wouldn't have been too bad, but because Pumpkin and the spices are the star, next time would use less hops.  I was attempting to balance out the higher alc%, but I should have left it with less hops.  The bittering may also have been from not sparging correctly.

Yeast: Wyeast 1968 London ESB Ale

Additions (Spices):
1 tsp. Ginger
1 tsp. All-spice
1 tsp. Nutmeg
1 tsp. Clove
2 sticks of Cinnamon

All added 5 mins before the end of the boil.

First, the pumpkin was spread out on a cookie sheet and baked at 350F for 45 minutes, a nice light browning.  Then I let it cool to room temperature.  I used single step infusion for the mash type.  What this means is that I head the mash to a single optimum temperature ~152F, rather than raising and lowering the temperature to develop proteins.  It depends on the style of beer, the grains used and equipment as to what mash type one will use when doing all-grain brewing.  The grains and pumpkin puree was added to the mash ton along with 4.5 gallons of 163F strike water.  The temperature stabled at around 150-155F.  I let it sit for 60 minutes.  While waiting for the mash, I warmed up the sparge water, 4.2 gallons to 181 F.  After the 60 minutes, I mashed out into the brew kettle.  The first 2 quarts of wort, I cycled back in until it was clear.  I then sparged with the 181F 4.2 gallons of water.  For future, I will try to fix the hot liquor tank that had a leak in it.  In doing this I can have an even spread of the sparge water and maintain the water bed with the grains preventing it from sticking to the mesh strainer.  I think that not having it sparged correctly, i.e. leaving water above the grain bed resulted in some of the husks to get into the wort and boil causing the bitterness. Lesson learned is to be more careful with sparging.

I ended up with about 6 gallons that boiled down to 5 gallons after the hour long boil.  I added the hops and spices at the times given in the recipe.  I used the wort chiller to cool the wort which took 30 minutes.  I might try looking into building a more efficient wort chiller.

It was done fermenting by Friday (5 days) at a final gravity of 1.010.  I transferred it to the secondary and was only able to get 4 gallons.  There was a lot of trub, but that was expected.  Next time, I might try to top off the primary to get around 5.5-6 gallons because the ABV is a bit high and wouldn't be hurt too much by adding some water.

Test (10/02): Gravity Reading: 1.010
Aroma: "pumpkin pie" notes of clove hints of cinnamon and nutmeg not overpowering.
Color: orange/reddish (20-24)
Taste: "pumpkin pie" flavor not as prevalent, slightly more bitter than expected.