My Thoughts While Brewing Graff

Tonight was the night, for Graff that is. This was to be my first experience with specialty grains, which is where I ran into some trouble. I set the grains in a muslin bag and suspended them in a pot of warm water, which I proceeded to heat to 150*F. Even though I was watching them I over-shot my temperature mark and they got steeped as high as 175*F, which was eventually brought back down to 150*F over about 10 minutes off the heat. I finished off my steep at 150*F... I used Northern Brewer for my hops, slightly less than 6% AA at 5.7% AA. I funneled the wort into my better bottle full of cider, which had been hit with campden tablets 24 hrs. prior to adding the wort. I pitched Nottingham straight into the carboy and airlocked it. Some of the sanitizing solution I put in the airlock got sucked into the carboy as I moved it into a cooler room... feck... I doubt it'll have any effect on those robust yeasties though.

Lessons learned include:
- let your steeping water reach the desired temperature before adding the grains, and make sure it's stable at that temperature.
- use tinfoil over the mouth of the carboy for the first couple of days.

Specifics:
- Cider SG 1.046
- Cider + wort SG 1.056
- Hops Northern Brewer
- Estimated FG 1.008
- Estimated 6.3% ABV

DELICIOUS

Bottling mine tomorrow, will report back with taste notes

I'd really appreciate that armorshell. The guys at the LHBS were really intrigued by the recipe and I couldn't tell them much about it as I've never had anything quite like graff. It'll be a very long 5 weeks for me before I can try the stuff!

did you change anything up or is it stock? 2lbs DME and all?

I made a half-volume batch, only because I don't have a pot large enough to do a full volume boil. Other than that everything was the same. I'm at about 24 hours after pitching the yeast and I'm not seeing any evidence of fermentation as of yet, which leads me to my next lesson learnt.

- Properly re-hydrate the yeast (if recommended by manufacturer) and use the damn tinfoil so you don't leak sanitization solution into the carboy and consequentially retard the fermentation process...

you don't have a pot big enough for one gallon boil?

I love my 16 gallon pot, works great.

I'm spending a few weeks at the parent's house and they don't have anything big enough to do the full 5 gallon batch. Also carrying 8L of cider on my back during a 1 hour motorcycle journey way enough for me I had hoped for a higher SG, although the gravity readings I took we not at 60*F so I would have to adjust them and my SG may be higher.

SeamusMac said:

I'm spending a few weeks at the parent's house and they don't have anything big enough to do the full 5 gallon batch.

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wait, the "full boil" for Graff is only 1 gallon - you don't boil the apple juice

p.s. I just ordered the ingredients to make this. Thanks for the recipe Brandon!

I'm anxious to try mine, I'm bottling weekend after next. My brother, on this site as yeastluvr, already has his in the bottles and is moving on to a second batch. This recipe is proving to be popular. All I know is, I've never tasted a hydro sample so delicious. I can't wait to sample my first ice cold and carbed bottle of this stuff!!!

I just started batch #2 two days ago. I'm doing 2 1/2 gallon batches and added 1 lb hopped DME so I didn't add any extra hops. With my first batch I steeped the grain "my first time at steeping grain" and didn't crush it up....it was whole. Well, after talking with SHOOTER who is a grain guru.....I crushed it this time and after steeping looks like I got a lot more goodies out of the grain. My first batch has another week or two before its ready to test out......I'm getting antsy though.....I almost took a sample to taste today after day two in the fermentor. Damn this stuff is tasty right after mixing up.

Maybe a Graff soda????

SeamusMac said:

I'm spending a few weeks at the parent's house and they don't have anything big enough to do the full 5 gallon batch. Also carrying 8L of cider on my back during a 1 hour motorcycle journey way enough for me I had hoped for a higher SG, although the gravity readings I took we not at 60*F so I would have to adjust them and my SG may be higher.

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Holy Jesus, on the back of a motorcycle? THAT is dedication.

AZ_IPA said:

wait, the "full boil" for Graff is only 1 gallon - you don't boil the apple juice

p.s. I just ordered the ingredients to make this. Thanks for the recipe Brandon!

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Dude, you are gonna love this cider. It's really good. I am kegging a batch today in which I substituted 1 gallon of blueberry juice for one gallon of apple juice.

I left out the hops, didn't think it would help the blueberry.

also, blueberry juice is pricey.

heres a pic of it.

Brandon O said:

Holy Jesus, on the back of a motorcycle? THAT is dedication.

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OK... this thread rules. Prost!

Brandon O said:

Holy Jesus, on the back of a motorcycle? THAT is dedication.

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Once the graff is done I'm sure it'll be worth hauling the cider all that way! The blueberry graff looks fantastic. I checked out a 500mL bottle of blueberry juice, which would be appropriate for adding to my next batch and it was about $11.30 CDN, YIKES. I'm thinking that'll be something I'm going to have to hold off on.

Thinking back to my brewing process and wondering why I didn't achieve a high enough SG to get the 9%ish ABV that I thought I would I soon realized that all of my ingredients were halved EXCEPT for the .75 gallon of water and .25 gallon of sparge water, DOH! I brewed the stuff from 12am-2am after working a 10 hour day in the warehouse, what else could one expect? Oh well, I'll have slightly watered down graff with an ABV that is low enough for me to drink a 650mL with dinner ha ha ha.

The upside to this is that I now have an excuse to brew a true to form half-batch of Graff with .375 gallon of water and .125 gallon of sparge water, which is much easier to measure in metric

Update: After about 36 hours there is constant airlock action taking place. It seemed to be slow to start but I believe that was because I'm using a better bottle for something that's only 3 gallons, so there is a lot of head space to fill. It smells fantastic, I must have spent 2 or 3 minutes just sniffing the airlock ha ha.

I think it ends up being about 8% or so. I have yet to take hydro readings, I'm going to make a batch tonight I believe and I'll make sure and check it out.

Brandon O said:

I think it ends up being about 8% or so. I have yet to take hydro readings, I'm going to make a batch tonight I believe and I'll make sure and check it out.

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Great, I look forward to hearing what the SG should be on a proper batch of Graff.

I believe SG on my batch was 1.066. So, probably somewhere either side of 1.070 is close.

My last batch was a bit shy of 8% PA. Using Nottinghams yeast on the first batch got it down to 1.006 so its probably going to be around 7-7.5% if it stays close to the first batch.

PS...that cat looks like its already knocked back a few

I was expecting some krausen form the Graff, similar to what a person might see on beer but there has been no such activity. Perhaps it's just off to a slow start because I didn't re-hydrate the yeast although I have never had a problem pitching dry yeast as is in the past. It's definitely fermenting, just not very aggressively. I'm going to take a hydro reading this evening and see how it has come along during it's first 96 hours under the air lock.

SeamusMac said:

I was expecting some krausen form the Graff, similar to what a person might see on beer but there has been no such activity. Perhaps it's just off to a slow start because I didn't re-hydrate the yeast although I have never had a problem pitching dry yeast as is in the past. It's definitely fermenting, just not very aggressively. I'm going to take a hydro reading this evening and see how it has come along during it's first 96 hours under the air lock.

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I wonder if it's slow because of the nutrient load? Wort has so much nitrogen and other stuff that yeast need, whereas things like wines and meads don't. I'm wondering where apple juice fits in the mix?

AZ_IPA said:

I wonder if it's slow because of the nutrient load? Wort has so much nitrogen and other stuff that yeast need, whereas things like wines and meads don't. I'm wondering where apple juice fits in the mix?

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Adding yeast nutrients to the next batch is certainly something worth trying. Although I have brewed hard cider before using only yeast and apple juice, which resulted in a small but respectable krausen from Wyeast 3068.

My gravity is now at 1.050 from 1.056 after 4.5 days... I'm going to re-pitch tomorrow afternoon unless anyone else has an idea?

did you aerate everything?

I find that helps a lot.

After two batches I've had Krausen on both of them. I did aerate both, although the second batch I forgot and had to shake up the fermenter after adding the yeast and closing it up. By 24 hours I had plenty of light brown foam on top. Both batches have slowed significantly by day 4, I've never had to add any nutrient.

I've also never had to use nutrient.

Last night I performed a little experiment to determine whether or not my brew was indeed regularly fermentable. By that I mean that there wasn't anything that might hinder but not altogether halt fermentation (sulphates perhaps?). The cider was labeled as non-pasteurized and without preservatives but who really knows... I pitched a tsp. of bread yeast into a cup of my brew that I had siphoned form the main carboy.

It went from 1.050 to 1.022 in less than 24 hours. I aerated the hell out of the sample I took and after only dropping 0.006 gravity points I think that re-aerating is alright. Time to re-aerate and re-pitch it seems!

sounds like you found the solution.

be sure to sanitize the hell out of everything, it would be a shame to come this far and have an infection.

Brandon O said:

sounds like you found the solution.

be sure to sanitize the hell out of everything, it would be a shame to come this far and have an infection.

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I'd say! I'll aerate it and re-pitch some rehydrated Nottingham tonight, by the time I get home tomorrow around 10pm I'll know for sure if it has worked.

Success! My Graff is bubbling away happily. There really isn't any krausen although there is a bubbly layer of activate fermentation on top of the brew. I'm going to test the gravity 2 weeks from today.

glad to hear it. brewing a batch myself tonight

Here's an update:

I've transfered the batch of Graff to a 11.5L secondary, something I bought to suit my new tendency towards half batches. Anyways, after 2.5 weeks since I pitched for the second time my SG is now at 1.020 in a room at 65*F. It smells great and although I haven't tasted it I bet it's superb. The gravity reading wasn't what I expected and so I've left my hydrometer in the carboy so I can observe any changes in SG over the next week or so. If the SG doesn't continue to fall I'll start looking into way to re-start a stuck fermentation.

I'm not very pleased with the cider I bought from the local farm market. I'm convinced it must have small amounts of preservatives in it even though it was labeled as "no preservatives" and non-pasteurized. Re-pitching a full packet of Nottingham ale yeast into a 10L batch of Graff with a starting gravity of only 1.056 should not have been required...

In secondary. I'm not sure if I like leaving it with so much head space...

SeamusMac said:

In secondary. I'm not sure if I like leaving it with so much head space...

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I think you'll be just fine.

you can always warm it up to about 70f and swirl it around.

That would probably help get it going again.

Brandon O said:

you can always warm it up to about 70f and swirl it around.

That would probably help get it going again.

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Thanks for the suggestion, I'll do that before trying any of the more extreme means of restarting a stuck fermentation, ie re-aerating.

After 8 hours at 70*-72* and a little bit of agitation via brewing spoon I placed it back in my 65* fermentation room and took off on vacation for 5 days. Unfortunately there was no change in the SG of my Graff upon returning home.

It tastes pretty good as is, and I considered just clearing it like a wine and bottling it still... Although I'm pretty damn stubborn when it comes to things like this and I'd sooner risk infection before giving up on my desired FG. So I racked my Nottingham Ale Yeast IPA into a carboy for a prolonged secondary and racked the Graff on top of the yeast cake, which is supposedly a sure fire way to re-start a stuck fermentation.

Although my IPA has practically stalled now that it has reached 1.044 (from 1.075) after 9 days; consequentially I'm not very pleased with Nottingham Ale yeast... It must be me.

SeamusMac said:

After 8 hours at 70*-72* and a little bit of agitation via brewing spoon I placed it back in my 65* fermentation room and took off on vacation for 5 days. Unfortunately there was no change in the SG of my Graff upon returning home.

It tastes pretty good as is, and I considered just clearing it like a wine and bottling it still... Although I'm pretty damn stubborn when it comes to things like this and I'd sooner risk infection before giving up on my desired FG. So I racked my Nottingham Ale Yeast IPA into a carboy for a prolonged secondary and racked the Graff on top of the yeast cake, which is supposedly a sure fire way to re-start a stuck fermentation.

Although my IPA has practically stalled now that it has reached 1.044 (from 1.075) after 9 days; consequentially I'm not very pleased with Nottingham Ale yeast... It must be me.

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Wierd man, Nottingham goes nuts everytime for me. It's what notty is known for, I don't even rehydrate the stuff.

Brandon O said:

Wierd man, Nottingham goes nuts everytime for me. It's what notty is known for, I don't even rehydrate the stuff.

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I've been suspicious from the start that perhaps the cider I bought had some sort of preservative in it, even though it wasn't labeled as such... That could be the reason why I've been having such poor luck with Notty ale yeast as I used the same yeast cake to ferment my big IPA.

I'm going to be home on Friday night so I'll check the SG on my Graff then and update the thread.

SG on Friday July 10th is 1.016 and airlock activity is very slow, but steady! I'm glad to have this show back on the road...

Brandon O said:

Wierd man, Nottingham goes nuts everytime for me. It's what notty is known for, I don't even rehydrate the stuff.

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Yes, I'm trying my first batch of Graff, and Nottingham isn't taking off like it does with a batch of beer. It's been over 30 hrs. since I pitched (and this is a whole 11g packet into a 2.5 gal. batch), and I have NO action. Oh, well, I'll probably wait until the weekend -about 72 hours- before I think about repitching. Don't have any more Nottingham, but I have a packet of Red Star Champagne Yeast that will probably do.

I followed all the recipe directions to the letter (except, obviously, for cutting everything but the yeast in half). I'm using Mott's AJ from Sam's Club, which say it contains only apple juice and Vitamin C (ascorbic acid), which latter is a preservative, but isn't supposed to bother yeast.