Pumpkin Brew Day Turns into a Nightmare

This has been by far the longest, most frustrating brew day to date.

But I guess it is apropos for a Halloween beer to turn into a horror story.
I'll post the recipe and then explain what happened:

Hellish Halloween Harvest Beer
4.53 ^KG 10 ^LB Domestic 2 row pale
.43^KG1^LB Biscuit (Melanoiden) Malt
.22^KG1/2^LB Crystal Malt
2 small sugar pumpkins baked in the oven at 350 for one hour
2 orange sweet potatoes baked in the oven at 350 for one hour

I chose to mash the veggies instead of including them in the boil.
18 Grams / 1/2 Ounce Nugget Hops 60 mins
29 Grams / 1 Ounce Hersbrucker 5 mins
Wyeast 1275
(I bottled my British Mild tonight, and will rack on top of the yeast slurry)
I picked up my grains this morning and had my boys gut the sugar pumpkins and they had a great time doing it.

Everything went according to plan until it was time to chill the beer and that's where it all fell apart. The immersion chiller sprung a leak and gave the beer about 3 extra gallons of cold water. There was a lot of swearing. The only choice I thought I had was to boil to reduce back down to 5 gallons. Well, 4 hours later, I was finally able to put it in the bathtub full of cold water. I didn't dare try fixing or using the immersion chiller ( that would be just asking for more trouble).

I didn't know what to do regarding the hops or what the best method would be so I threw in 18 grams of nugget at 60 mins left in the boil and 29 grams of Hersbrucker at flameout. I wonder what the double dosing of the wort with the additional hops will lend to the beer? I tried the sweet wort and it tasted like a baby bitter but unfortunately, I didn't get any pumpkin notes. Of course, you shouldn't judge a beer on the first day so I will wait and find out.
Well, it is 4 AM and I think it's finally reached its pitchable temperature. Then, I'm off to bed. This was my first 14 hour brew day. I hope that never happens again.

Hop Harvesting

I was a little down when I realized that my hop vines were male. That meant there would be no cones for me to put in my beer and I would have to dig up all the rhizomes and try again next year. Luckily, my friend Rod had planted 2 hop varieties in May and in September, there were plenty of cones to be harvested. He also decided to donate those hops to me. I couldn't be happier.

This variety is Brewer's Gold which yielded about 9 ounces of bittering goodness and the other hops netted only 1 ounce of Willamette.
I have a concern about this though:
Brewer's Gold is considered to be a bittering hop because it's supposed to have a neutral aroma (although there is a distinct nondescript smell to these hops), but all the literature I have read about home grown hops state that since you do not know the AA of the hops, it's best to use them as aroma hops at the end of the boil. I think I might just say 'the hell to you internet' and put 2 ounces of BG at 60 minutes, 1 ounce of BG at 30 minutes and 1 ounce of Willamette at the end of the boil.
I will report back and see how that works. It won't be for a while though since I will be making a harvest beer next.

Triple Split Brew (Mild, Ginger, Pumpkin Pie)

Last weekend, I brewed 8 gallons of wort to get one 5 gallon carboy of British Mild, one 1 gallon growler of Pumpkin Pie beer, and one 1 gallon jug of Ginger beer:
British Mild
5.45^KG 12^LB Maris Otter 2 Row
.45^KG 1^LB Crystal 45 L Malt

60^GR 2^OZ Fuggles hops at 60 minutes
1275 Thames Wyeast
Nothing fancy there for the mild. It has just a little bitterness (29 IBU) but no flavour hops. I wanted to keep that end pure so when I added the adjuncts for the other beers, they wouldn't be competing with the aroma hops. This is also the first time trying Maris Otter and I wanted to see what it actually tasted like.
Ginger Beer: Near the end of the boil, I transferred about a gallon of wort into another brew pot and added a ^1/2 tsp of lime zest at 5 minutes left then about ^1/2OZ of grated ginger root at flameout.
Pumpkin Pie Beer: I mixed together^3/4teaspoon of McCormick mixed spice,^1/4teaspoon Cinnamon, 3 teaspoons dextrose into a cup with some water and microwaved that for about a minute. I put the mixture into a 1 gallon carboy and racked the British Mild into it.