Nuclear Jack o Lantern - American Pale Ale

Fill 5 gallon pot with water and start heating.
Once water reaches 155F, add Caramel/Crystal 60L grains. Let steep for 15-20 minutes, then remove.

Once water reaches 180F, add both malt extracts. Add Munich DME first, carefully stirring to get rid of clumps. Then add pilsener LME and stir.

Bring wort to rolling boil. Once boiling, start 60 minute countdown.
@60 minutes add 5 lbs of pumpkin puree and .25 oz of nugget hopps.
@15 minutes add 1 deseeded habanero pepper
@5 minutes add .75 oz nugget hops, cinnamon, and 1/2 tsp each allspice and nutmeg. We can add clove as well if you like.

Put lid on pot and rapidly cool wort in ice bath.

While wort is cooling, sterilize the fermentor bucket, lid, siphon, scissors, yeast packet, ect. Use 1 tbsp of bleach per 1 gallon of water and let soak for 20 minutes before rinsing.

Once wort has cooled to room temp 70-75F, transfer wort to fermentor bucket using siphon. Be careful not to suction up sludge.

Once transferred, aerate by shaking bucket back and forth. Dump in yeast from packet, then aerate further.

Fill airlock with disinfectant and put in lid of fermentor.

Let ferment about 2-3 weeks. Because this is an ale, fermentation may be on shorter side!

3 days prior to bottling day, add habanero tincture to fermentor bucket. You can taste test spice level at this point.

On bottling day: sterilize everything involved in bottling process. Place one carbonatiion tablet into each bottle before filling and sealing.

Beer is ready 2-3 weeks after bottling.

Note: if we want greater pumpkin flavor and can find it, can sub pumpkin juice for pumpkin puree.