sly333332003

Recipes 

It's only a week old so it should get better. I just had some of the cider I made with the same apple juice and it got better, no surprise I know but I'm impatient. The graff is only a week old so it should get a lot better. Hopefully.

sweetpoetatoe

Recipes 

Its probably just the tartness of the cheap juice, usually with the graff we'd use darker crystal malts with the cheaper juice to sort of balance that, along with the hops. 2 oz of hops it should overtake it very well though, id say at 3 weeks, even normal graff can be a bit tart at 1 week, as long as that tartness subdues quicker than in normal ciders, especially of that abv, then its a success right?

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Brindle Bear Brewing

wizang

Recipes 

Sorry to resurrect and old thread, but did you ever try this OP? Would be super curious what ratio of sorghum/amber etc you used and how it all turned out!

bpm2000

Recipes 

Not yet. I finally got around to getting the candi sugar and sorghum syrup recently and it is in line to be my next brew. I will probably be putting it together (in the method that dorklord laid out) this weekend if a window opens up. I've been sorta busy stockpiling the graham's cider so I don't have to worry about session drinks for a while.

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Primary:
-5gal Gluten free graff
Secondary:
-nada

jimmystewart

Recipes 

I finally found some time to give this a try... I scaled things down to one gallon. If the end product is decent, I'll try a 5 gallon batch.

Ingredients:
.6 pound sorghum syrup
1.6 ounces homemade roasted gluten free oats
3 cups water
3 grams Hersbrucker hops (2.4%AA)
apple juice to a total volume of one gallon
US-05 yeast

What I did:
Steeped the oats in 3 cups of water @ ~150*F for 30 min, strained
Boiled hops in the water for 30 min
Added sorghum syrup at flameout, let cool
Added apple juice to make total volume of one gallon
Pitch US-05

Starting sg is 1.064.

I'll try to remember to follow up and post the results. I typically do 4 week fermentation and I try to do 4 weeks in the bottle before tasting, so it'll be a while...

bpm2000

Recipes 

Finally got around to making this - wort is cooling as we speak.


.5 lbs dark candi sugar
4gal Treetop apple juice
1gal water
2 lbs sorghum syrup
nottingham yeast
saaz pellets
black tea
yeast nutrients

Will report once drinking.

__________________
Primary:
-5gal Gluten free graff
Secondary:
-nada

Tex60

Recipes 

I'm new around here, but I've brewed one batch of GF beer with sorghum syrup and got what tastes like hard lemonade so this recipe looks interesting but wondered what you would get if you put honey or maple syrup in instead of the sorghum so you didn't get that strong "twang" from the sorghum?

muench1

Recipes 

Bump because I'm thinking of mashing some oat malt for my next cider batch today or tomorrow. I'll post results if I man up and try it.

Anybody have any results to share? Hoping I catch the attention of jimmystewart or bpm2000!

Honey or maple will just ferment out like other added sugars and like the natural sugar in the juice. The sorghum has the more complex carbohydrates and nutrients that the other sugars don't have. Sorghum syrup is, at least from the yeasties' perspective, pretty much barely malt. Using simple carbohydrates (and their effects) is what graff was made to avoid.

jimmystewart

Recipes 

Thanks for the reminder. After a month in the bottle, my attempt at gluten free graff turned out pretty decent. Now, I can't really speak for how it compares to regular graff because I've never made that, but you get the gist, right?

I didn't really 'mash' oat 'malt' for my batch. It was more like steeping specialty grains... If you want to duplicate what I called my 'LIGHTer GF roasted oats' here's how:

Start with gluten free steel cut oats. (Either Bob's Red Mill or Arrowhead Farms should both offer GF steel cut oats. Oh, and I started with 8 ounces.) Rinse them off and put them on ungreased aluminum foil spread on a cookie sheet. Use multiple sheets if you need to get it all spread out to a very thin layer. Bake at 300*F for 30 minutes, remove and stir a bit and turn them over. Bake at 350*F for 15 minutes and repeat the stirring/turning action. Bake at 400*F for 15 minutes and then stir/turn and allow to cool.

Now, the trick, and I've read this here on HBT somewhere.... You really should put the oats in a brown paper bag, roll down the top and let them sit out for at least a week before using them. It's my understanding that this allows harsh aromatics to waft off. For this reason, I usually just roast some oats every now and then when I'm beered up and bored and just let them sit and waft until I'm ready to use them. It's usually between 1 and 6 weeks.

Oh, and FWIW, I disagree on the honey fermenting out completely. I've used honey in very simple GF beers along with nothing more than sorghum syrup and a small amount very low AA hops. You can certainly tell the difference in the batch with the honey. To get the most out of honey, it should be added either very late in the boil, right at flameout, or after cooling.

I can't speak for maple because my GF GF is allergic to maple too, so I haven't tried it yet. I have found a non-maple maple syrup imitation, so I might try it someday, but I reckon that may be a year or more off.

Candi syrup would likely give a much more noticeable difference in the end result when compared to either the honey or maple syrup, methinks, but I haven't had much opportunity to play with it yet beyond Gluten Free McGee which a quick search should turn up.

Best of luck to anyone who makes use of what little I have been able to share!

muench1

Recipes 

Interesting. I was going to make some GF Graff with Fawcett oat malt- all reports and indications are that gluten content should be and/or is minimal to zero; I'm still trying to get Colorado millet malt without success. I'm considering adding some oatmeal-type flavor (that's what I imagine your oats would do?) to get a little of the apple-pie effect. Did you get oat flavor to come through with your method? I've never had normal Graff either, but compared to normal cider, is it particularly malty, darker, heavier? That's not much sorghum, was it noticeable? How did the color turn out? What was your fg?

The comment about honey fermenting out was mostly about the idea behind Graff (as I understand) being to add some starch for some more complex carbohydrates and yeast nutrition... honey is still pretty much just a sugar. My first cider (just bottled) I had very little idea what I was doing, and decided honey is tasty so I put in a couple pounds. The first 2 days of primary my brew box was exploding with a delicious honey smell; after that, I never smelled or tasted any. Decided to prime with honey to see if I can lock in some of the flavor/aroma.