Graff (Malty, slightly hopped cider)

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I used fresh pressed juice, no preservatives and unpasteurized. Most of the orchards around where I live have a homebrewer's discount. I used half a tablet of campden per gallon of juice, so 2 tablets total, to kill off the wild yeast and bacteria. A lot of people are using fresh pressed juice in their graff. My batch gave off lots of sulphur (rhino farts) and I'm still waiting for the sulphur taste to totally dissipate. I wonder if the processed store juice wouldn't make such a stink.

I used treetop brand apple cider for my graff and it completely reaks of sulphur as well. my brew corner smelled like an apple orchard yesterday, but today it is all fart. any ideas
 
I used treetop brand apple cider for my graff and it completely reaks of sulphur as well. my brew corner smelled like an apple orchard yesterday, but today it is all fart. any ideas

The "rhino farts" come from the liquid that the yeast are fermenting. The Apple juice doesn't have the right nutrients like a full out beer would have. Therefore, they produce that sulfur smelling stuff.
 
I just brewed five gallons of this a week ago and decided to pull a hydrometer reading. I hate to waste the sample so I tried it. I hope it gets better with age. I did a wheat beer that got an infection once and it tastes just like this. Here's to three more weeks in the fermentor:mug:
 
I just brewed five gallons of this a week ago and decided to pull a hydrometer reading. I hate to waste the sample so I tried it. I hope it gets better with age. I did a wheat beer that got an infection once and it tastes just like this. Here's to three more weeks in the fermentor:mug:

mine tastes pretty terrible after a week and a day in the primary too. I was told by someone the other day that after 8 weeks of aging his batch was AMAZING. Unfortunately he drank his last bottle at that 8 week mark.


Currently my graff is very bitter with a slight sour apple taste at the finish. If I cool the sample down with some ice cubes the flavors blend a little bit better but its still not tasty. I plan on aging it for at least 3 weeks once the fermentation is finished. I'm at about 1.02 SG @ 74*F and the airlock has slowed considerably. Hopefully I can rack and keg and let it age sometime this weekend.
 
My Graff tasted really good at bottling time (4 weeks in Primary). Very apple-y and good. I have been tasting a bottle a week after priming and bottling, and so far from week 1-5 it tastes a little too malty and less apple-y for my tastes. Also didn't seem to carb up as much as I had hoped..maybe because basement temps dropped quickly after bottling.
 
I saw someone asked this already but it didnt really get answered other than to say dry yeast is cheap why bother.

Has anyone washed the yeast from this and reused? My thought would be that you would have better more vialble yeast if you washed and reused. It's not a financial question but more of a quality question.

Has anyone had an experiences with reusing this yeast.
 
I saw someone asked this already but it didnt really get answered other than to say dry yeast is cheap why bother.

Has anyone washed the yeast from this and reused? My thought would be that you would have better more vialble yeast if you washed and reused. It's not a financial question but more of a quality question.

Has anyone had an experiences with reusing this yeast.
If you were to use it in another batch of graff it should be fine. I wouldn't use yeast from this in beer though, the yeast will be acclimated to fermenting fructose.
 
If you were to use it in another batch of graff it should be fine. I wouldn't use yeast from this in beer though, the yeast will be acclimated to fermenting fructose.

What would happen if you used it in a beer? What kind of flavors would that kick out? Pardon the ignorance I've nerver done a cider before.
 
I started a batch loosly based on Brandon 0's recipe last night.

-I used the yeast cake from my Amber Ale along with the bottom inch of beer that was left in the carboy (secondaary) It is wlp-029.
-4.5 gallons Store bought apple juice
-1.5 gallons water
-1/2 oz Cascade hops
-2lbs of light DME

Boil One gallon of water, and add hops for a 30 minute boil.
Add 2lbs DME and the nutrient at the 15 minute mark.
Cool wort and pour it into the carboy.
Swirl the carboy to get the good stuff in suspension.
Transfer to the 7 gallon bucket and add the juice.

I am now 20 hrs in and hoping the yeasties are making sweet sweet love in that bucket. I didn't realize the juice was cold from being in the back seat of my car and poured it on top of the wort (temp was at 56*f). I know this will eventually take off, but I am sure it will take a bit longer.
 
I've seen several people posting saying that they've made their Graff with Safale S-04. How did those brews come out? I have a packet on hand and have liked it for other ciders, but if it didn't give a good effect to the Graff, I'll pick up a packet of Notty or S-05 when I inevitably start my batch.
So.. Results from S-04? Yea or nay?
 
brew day. finally. so long as I can find some juice.

planning on 3lbs amber DME. 1/2 lb crystal 120L, 2 oz wheat flakes, 3 gallons cider, water to make 5 gallons. boiling DME and grains (after steeping) uk progress hops (acid 4.0) , 1/2 oz. 30 mins and a 1/2 oz for the last ten minutes.

looking for a bit more malt and beer flavor than I think brandon's graff recipe gives, hope this does the trick.

will report back with my findings.

Edit: got distracted and tossed in 1lb of crystal 120 instead of 1/2. also ended up using 4 gallons of cider. 2 of zeiglers and 2 of mussleman's. i was a bit worried about the potassium sorbate in the zeiglers so found the other stuff to help it along. uncorrected for temp the gravity of this was about 1.074 at about 75F give or take a few degrees. the malt was awesome, and it tasted pretty good with the apple juice too. it is about to start bubbling in the airlock.
 
Not very hard to do so. The OG on my batch wa 1.060. I'm assuming that it will finish around 1.015 (just from my experience with nottingham). I will take a sample soon, but if it's around those numbers I'm guessing it will be around 6% give or take a few points depending on where my yeast craps out.

I brewed mine last Sunday following the recipe to the "T" and it was bubbling away until this morning. I looked at my better bottle and the krausen has fallen, so I immagine that the primary fermentation is nearly done. I'll leave it in the primary @ 63 F for another couple of weeks and then I'm going to transfer to secondary till a keg opens up. My experience with cider is that it's best after about two or three months and I imagine this will be the same way.
 
cool thanks. that's a lower abv than I thought this would have been.

Can't wait to brew this.
 
Just brewed up my second batch of Graff the other day. I strayed a little from the recipe by adding 1lb clover honey at flameout and an ounce of apple cider spices in a grain bag thrown into the primary. OG was 1.066 and it is bubbling away like crazy thanks to a packet of Nottingham. Can't wait to try this one!
 
no bubbling so far, although there was a little pressure buildup in the fermenter (you could see the lid bulging up a bit). the beer I made same time yesterday has been bubbling all day today, so I pitched in 4 teaspoons of yeast nutrient and added some more nottingham yeast with some vigorous stirring. hopefully it will take off now.

smelled great when I had the fermenter open.
 
I have a batch of this in a carboy that was brewed four days ago. It's pretty murky still, will this start to clear? If so, how long does it take generally? Thanks.
 
Could one boil the grains in, say, half a gallon of apple juice? or maybe a bit less, and use other juice for sparging? I ask because I live in a dorm room at university; as such, space and money are both in high demand, and so I only make 1 gallon batches of brew. In such a small batch, the amount of water that could be used for boiling and then added into the juice mixture is pretty minimal. If the juice wouldn't work for boiling, would it be better to use the recommended amounts of water for both steeping and sparging the grains, then heating that water up to boiling temp and letting some of the water boil off? I really want to get some Graff going in a couple days when I get a carboy freed up!
 
Could one boil the grains in, say, half a gallon of apple juice? or maybe a bit less, and use other juice for sparging? I ask because I live in a dorm room at university; as such, space and money are both in high demand, and so I only make 1 gallon batches of brew. In such a small batch, the amount of water that could be used for boiling and then added into the juice mixture is pretty minimal. If the juice wouldn't work for boiling, would it be better to use the recommended amounts of water for both steeping and sparging the grains, then heating that water up to boiling temp and letting some of the water boil off? I really want to get some Graff going in a couple days when I get a carboy freed up!

I would use a small amount of water to gently steep the grain at 155 Deg F. Once complete remove the grain from the water add the hops and boil. Then I would not worry and have a homebrew and continue the process. I would avoid boiling the juice as it will lead to haze and may have a cooked flavor. Good Luck!
 
Alright, thanks a lot for the advice. I was probably going to not even bother with the hops anyway on such a small batch, so if I would only have to steep the grains in a bit of water, that'd be doable, I'm sure. Thanks again!
 
I've made two batches of this so far using Mott's apple juice. The first one I followed the recipe to a T and used Mt. Hood hops. I found out that it is very good but has some tartness on the end of it and not as much head retention as I would like. So, for my second batch I still used the Mt. Hood and the 1/2 lb crystal 60 but also added another 1/2 lb of aromatic and one more ounce of torrified wheat. I threw in some cinnamon sticks for a little extra Holiday cheer as well. From the first taste of it while bottling I like it more already, real nice flavor and very smooth when going down.
 
4 gal juice
1 gal water
1 oz wheat
2 lb dme
10 oz c60, steeped.
S-04

SG 1048
FG 1004

carbed @ 3 weeks @ 35 psi for 48 hrs, im guessing 2.8-3 volumes?

still a tart/dry finish. next time i will go a full lb of crystal i think.
 
What would happen if you used it in a beer? What kind of flavors would that kick out? Pardon the ignorance I've nerver done a cider before.
The biggest problem would be underattenuation. When yeast ferment monosaccharides they lose the ability to make the enzymes to break down disaccharides and will have a hard time fermenting the maltose.
 
I'm very excited to try this cider out. I'm steeping my crystal as I type this!
I helped my dad with a couple beer kits in the last few years but this is my first brew on my own with my own equipment. Thanks to Brandon for the recipe and to everyone who posted in this thread for their input.
:)
 
I'm very excited to try this cider out. I'm steeping my crystal as I type this!
I helped my dad with a couple beer kits in the last few years but this is my first brew on my own with my own equipment. Thanks to Brandon for the recipe and to everyone who posted in this thread for their input.
:)

long shot here, but are you a member of cigarsmokers.com?
 
long shot here, but are you a member of cigarsmokers.com?

Sure am! Not that long of a shot really, I'm the only pyrofish online as far as I know. I haven't been posting much there lately but I'm still smoking. How have you been?


*To keep my post on topic, I've got about 10 minutes left in the boil. I'm using some fuggles (4.8% AA) I found at the brewshop earlier today. From what I've read I think these will work out much better for the graff than the cascade I already had.

EDIT: I've got everything together now. My OG ended up at 1.054 (I used 2.2lbs LME and another .5-.75 lbs DME so I figured it'd be higher). It turns out all 4 of my 5 gallon carboys are actually 6.5 gallon carboys!
I used Sun-Rype "fresh pressed opalescent apple juice", it's not from concentrate and it's just juice and vitamin c. It was a little pricey at $15 for 10.88L but it seems like the highest quality juice I could find. Maybe next batch I'll cheap out and see if I can tell the difference.
 
Sure am! Not that long of a shot really, I'm the only pyrofish online as far as I know. I haven't been posting much there lately but I'm still smoking. How have you been?

Been pretty good. Still have a ton of cigars as I haven't had time to smoke much lately. Too hot here in Florida.
 
Looking forward to brewing a batch of this on the weekend!

The boy is about to brew up a batch of Dark Saison, and has some White labs Saison 565 yeast left over - I think this will be a good fit as an alternative to Nottingham - any thoughts on that? Any feedback appreciated.

Probably going to use either progress or hallertau hops, depending on what the LHBS has when I drop by today :)

Will keep you posted on the progress!
 
So, I experienced a first for me. I cooked this up the other night (just a few, small tweaks). I used Safale US-05, didn't hydrate it, sprinkled it right in, it was bubbling through my blowoff tube in under an hour.
 
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