You Really Need To Start Brining Your Pumpkin Seeds In Beer

Roasting your own pumpkin seeds as opposed to buying them in bags from the dollar store is a true labor of love, or at least shows a sincere desire not to let anything go to waste. Digging the seeds out from the pumpkin guts is, not to put too fine a point on it, nasty, and can also be kind of labor intensive since the stuff doesn't always rinse off as easily as recipes will tell you. It might well drive you to drink, but if your tipple of choice is beer, maybe reserve a little bit to soak your seeds before cooking them.

Many roasted pumpkin seed recipes will start off by telling you to soak the seeds in a saltwater brine since this will not only help any remaining bits of goop to detach (hopefully) but also soften the seeds and make them more digestible. Using beer in your brine, however, will add far more flavor than water can. You needn't use beer alone, though, since a 50/50 mixture of beer and distilled white vinegar (the cheap stuff) will bring a tasty balance of bitter and sour flavors, while adding sugar will sweeten the pot (literally). Throw in some spices, too, if you like. Boil all of the ingredients together with the pumpkin seeds (boiling helps the seeds roast quicker), then let the liquid cool. Strain out the seeds and let them dry on a paper towel before you oil, salt, and roast them as you usually would.

If beer-brined pumpkin seeds sound tasty, you may be wondering what kind of beer to use. The real answer is, one that you don't plan to drink, especially if you'll be mixing it with vinegar and sugar. Even if you soak the seeds in beer alone, you'd probably need to be pretty hard up to guzzle a warm, flat brew with stringy bits of pumpkin goop floating in it. If you have any half-drunk bottles left over from last night, though, they'd be perfect for using in beer brine (you'll need an amount roughly equal to the volume of pumpkin seeds).

A stout would add some hearty flavor and maybe some sweet notes to the pumpkin seeds, especially if you choose a chocolate or milkshake variety, while a lager would play nicely with any additional spices you add to the mix. If you use an IPA, though, you might want to bump up the amount of sugar significantly to offset the bitterness, while if you opt for a sour beer, you can replace part or all of the vinegar with water. If you're truly obsessed with pumpkins, you can even get matchy-matchy with a pumpkin-flavored beer (which has probably been available since early summer, thanks to pumpkin creep) or go all-in on fall flavor by using hard cider (here's a list of great mass-market ciders).