Wicked Widow Pumpkin Porter

Before moving to Houston 3 years ago, my wife and I lived in Tempe, Arizona, while we were in grad school at ASU. For a few years, we had the privilege of living within walking distance of 4Peaks Brewery, and I must say, we spent quite a bit of time there. I've never been much for "flavored" beers, but 4 Peaks made a seasonal pumpkin beer that was A-mazing. I heard through the inter-webs that the recipie on the Brewer's Connection site was pretty close, so I decided to start with that. I wanted to do it all-grain, so first I converted the extract to 2-row pale malt. Then, since I'm doing it all-grain, I decided to mash the pumpkin instead of adding it to the boil. Actually, I first baked the pumpkin in a 9x9 baking dish at 350 deg for 1 hour to caramelize it a little, then mixed it in with the grain bill. Finally, I added some rice hulls to the mash to avoid a stuck sparge with all that sticky pumpkin. The final recipe I came up with is below. The name "Wicked Widow" was a friend's suggestion; When I racked the beer from the fermenter into the bottling bucket, I found a small dead spider at the bottom of the fermenter (I brew outside, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised...)!

Recipe: Wicked Widow Pumpkin Porter
TYPE: All Grain


Recipe Specifications
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.050 SG
Estimated Color: 30.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 22.6 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 61.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes


Ingredients:
Amt Name Type %/IBU
8.8 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 4.4 %
10.4 oz Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 5.2 %
8.8 oz Special Roast (50.0 SRM) Grain 4.4 %
6.7 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 90L (90.0 SRM) Grain 3.4 %
4.5 oz Carafa II (412.0 SRM) Grain 2.2 %
1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 60.0 Hop 19.2 IBUs
1.00 oz Fuggles [4.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 3.4 IBUs
0.17 oz Burton Water Salts (Mash 60.0 mins) Water Agent -
0.25 tsp Ground Clove (Boil 5.0 mins) Spice -
0.25 tsp Ground Ginger (Boil 5.0 mins) Spice -
0.75 tsp Cinnamon (Boil 5.0 mins) Spice -
1.00 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining -
22.00 oz Libby's Pumpkin (Boil 5.0 mins) Flavor -
1.0 pkg London Ale (Wyeast Labs #1028) [125.00 m Yeast -
8 lbs 1.3 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 64.5 %
1 lbs Pale Malt (6 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 8.0 %
1 lbs Rice Hulls (0.0 SRM) Adjunct 8.0 %


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 12 lbs 8.5 oz
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Mash In Add 17.71 qt of water at 164.6 F 154.0 F 60 min