This was an experiment that turned out well. One of my co-workers heard me talking about making a pumpkin pie mead for Thanksgiving, and sarcastically said I should make it in a pumpkin, so I did.
The batch size was limited to one gallon by the size of the pumpkins at King Sooper (grocery store).
Ingredients:
3 lbs honey (ambrosia, I think)
1 oz fresh ground nutmeg
1 oz allspice
0.5 oz cinnamon
Make a jack-o-lantern (without a face [leakage = bad], but feel free to draw a face on it). Bring two quarts of water to a boil. Add ingredients and boil for ten minutes. Cool, and pour into the pumpkin. Add water to nearly-fill the pumpkin. Ferment in the pumpkin until obvious signs of the pumpkin turning bad, such as mold growing around the cut top of the pumpkin (my primary fermentation was ~10 days). Rack into secondary (not another pumpkin).
I did not add any yeast nutrient, because I figured the yeast would have all the nutrient it needed from the pumpkin. Before bottling, I had to clear the mead with TurboKleer (two-part flocculant).
This mead went fast - I need to brew a larger batch. I'm thinking I could get one of those 100+ lb pumpkins around Halloween. I found a bottle a couple years later that I had hidden from myself; boy was that a treat!
The batch size was limited to one gallon by the size of the pumpkins at King Sooper (grocery store).
Ingredients:
3 lbs honey (ambrosia, I think)
1 oz fresh ground nutmeg
1 oz allspice
0.5 oz cinnamon
Make a jack-o-lantern (without a face [leakage = bad], but feel free to draw a face on it). Bring two quarts of water to a boil. Add ingredients and boil for ten minutes. Cool, and pour into the pumpkin. Add water to nearly-fill the pumpkin. Ferment in the pumpkin until obvious signs of the pumpkin turning bad, such as mold growing around the cut top of the pumpkin (my primary fermentation was ~10 days). Rack into secondary (not another pumpkin).
I did not add any yeast nutrient, because I figured the yeast would have all the nutrient it needed from the pumpkin. Before bottling, I had to clear the mead with TurboKleer (two-part flocculant).
This mead went fast - I need to brew a larger batch. I'm thinking I could get one of those 100+ lb pumpkins around Halloween. I found a bottle a couple years later that I had hidden from myself; boy was that a treat!