Pumpkin Chilli Surprise

A natural progression from Stomach Pumpkin, well for numpties like us anyway, is to add something a little bit more spicy to your brewing repertoire.  Therefore, having lots of dried chillies around we figured we should spice things up a bit.  This is not for the fainthearted but a great brew to serve to your mother-in-law.  You should also ensure that your bowels are in fully working order as well.
As with Stomach Pumpkin it retains that lovely fruity/caramel aftertaste and has good head retention.  Depending on how much chilli you use you will either get a pleasant tingle on the lips or have your lips flapping so much that you bruise your nose.  If you are expecting a crystal clear beer then this isn't the one for you but don't let that put you off, we love this one.  It takes a couple of days to get into the keg but it's worth it.

Ingredients for a 14Ltr batch

2kgs of pumpkin chopped into 1-2 inch square and deseeded
1kg spray malt
Dried chilli flakes (1 heaped Tsp for a tingle 3 for an amazing constipation cure....you choose)
400g sugar
300g golden syrup
30g hops (fuggles pellets)
Ale yeast (half an 11g pack S-04 Ale Yeast)

Instructions

Pre-heat your oven to 200C.  Hack the pumpkin into chunks and drop into baking trays then roast in the oven for about 30 minutes.  They should be just starting to crisp but be not too soggy.  Let them cool then cut off the skin and feed it to your pigs.  We normally time this brew for when we have the oven going anyway, roast the pumpkin then make the beer the next day.

In the biggest pan you can fit on your hob, boil 6ltrs of water and get yourself mentally prepared to add the malt.  We consider it to be very bad luck not to have a beer in your hand when making beer but that's just us, you can drink water if you want remembering that beer is mostly water anyway.  Adding malt can be a tad tricky, when the water is boiling get K standing by with the bag of malt while you stand vigilant with your long stirrer.  To start, turn the heat right down and add a fraction of malt then stir to dissolve.  Believe me, the first time we did this we added too much malt at once and watched in utter horror as it burst from the pan like a volcano.  How we smiled in a rueful manner, well Jarvo did, K used every known expletive and a few unknown ones as well, the air is still a bit blue around here and the floor is still a bit sticky as well.  It is extremely difficult to remove from any surface so avoid this scenario if you can. After the initial kerfuffle you can speed up the process of dissolving the rest of the malt.  When complete, take K to ER to have the sticky malt bag surgically removed from her hands and tablets for her Tourette's.   Then immediately proceed with the rest of the ingredients.  Drop in the pumpkin, raise the heat and get it to a low boil for 20 minutes stirring frequently then drop the hops and the chilli flakes. 

After a further 10 minutes still stirring away and after a large number of beers to alleviate the chilli smell wedged in your nasal passages, pour in the sugar and dissolve then the dreaded golden syrup whilst stirring constantly then turn off the heat. K will be sneezing like a disney character so wait for a pause and warn her what's coming next. This is a good time to clean and sterilise your keg with Chemipro OXI. Position the sieve and muslin over the keg and carefully pour the skin meltingly boiling liquid in the general direction of the opening. K will let you know if you are close using either extreme violence or a few polite words. Don't forget that the steam will remove any extraneous exposed body hair and the floor will get stickier and stickier depending on your accuracy. Resist the temptation to squeeze the liquid out. Instead be patient, have a sip and let it drip til you're bored. Lob the slops in the compost as your animals will not appreciate the chilli, heave the keg onto a suitable counter top and top up to 14ltrs with cold water. Check the temperature, if you can comfortably stick your finger in the liquid without whimpering quietly to yourself in a heroic manner, then it's ok to pitch the yeast. We use S-04 Ale Yeast which is great, all you have to do is stir the hooch, sprinkle it on top in a pretty pattern, seal the top and fit the airlock. Remember to label the keg with what's inside and the date. After a week or so depending on the room temperature it should either have stopped bubbling or indicate as being ready when you test with the Hysteriometer or whatever it's called (see Beers Ales and Ciders home page). Then you can proceed to the bottling phase.