Belgian Graff

I originally posted this in the gluten free forum since that is what I primarily brew but no one had much to say so I thought I'd share it in the cider forum. I made this up spur of the moment so I hope it tastes good. It is currently bubbling away in my basement.

3 1/2 gallons of apple juice poured in the primary bucket

30 minute boil
At 30 add 1lb 5oz Brown Rice Syrup
At 30 add 1oz Saaz
At 10 add .5oz Saaz
At 5 add .5oz Cascade
At 5 add 3 teaspoons coriander and peel of 1 orange
1lb of Belgian Candi Syrup (Golden) at flame out

Pour into the apple juice

When cool pitch S-33 yeast

After 2 weeks transfer to secondary and dry hop 1oz centennial

Did you taste the syrup after boiling the hops in it? I'd be very curious to see what the hop utilization was when boiled in only rice syrup. Sounds interesting.

Whoops, I guess I left something out. I boiled the hops and added the syrup in 2 gallons of water.

I did a similar--though not GF version of this and am just now, tonight, taking the first sip of it; so this is a pretty providential post.

Here was my recipe:

Steeping grains:
1 lbs flaked wheat
1lb belgian biscuit

The rest:
4.5 lbs liquid wheat malt extract
.5 oz magnum
1 oz cascade
1 tbls orange peel powder
1 tbls coriander powder
4 gallons apple juice

Belgian Abbey yeast. (1214?)

I did the normal deal and added the coriander and Orange right before bottling. OG was 1.060, FG 1.012, ABV: 6-7%

It tastes good, but I definitely used too much hops. So, from looking at your recipe, you might be in a similar boat. Don't get me wrong, I L.O.V.E. hops, but they just aren't blending as well with the cider--sort of like drinking apple juice after you brush your teeth.

It smells like rising bread mixed with orange and hops, and has a decent overall taste, despite the hops. VERY belgian beerish-- with the fruity, slightly sour yeast. I think it needs another month or so in the bottle to both dissipate out the hops and let the flavors meld a bit.

I made a graf using cascade and had the same experience. It just seemed to clash with the apple juice. Saaz might be nice or even something like Northern Brewer.

I also think when I make another one, I'll only use late additions for mild flavor and aroma. I think it might be the bittering additions that I didn't like.

Unferth said:

Steeping grains:
1 lbs flaked wheat
1lb belgian biscuit

Click to expand...

You really shouldn't steep flaked wheat, especially a pound of it. You're not really supposed to steep biscuit malt either, but you will get flavor out of it along with a bunch of starch. Steeping flaked wheat will only add a bunch of starch to the beer. I did the same thing with a graf when I first started brewing. I think I steeped like 5oz of flaked wheat in a 2.5 gallon batch. The finished beer was REALLY cloudy but then after a while in the fridge it cleared and formed about a half inch of congealed starch goop on the bottom of the bottle. It tasted much better after the starch dropped out but it was pretty gross to pour. If you want flaked wheat you need to do a mini mash with enough base malt to provide enzymes to convert the starches to sugars. Anyway, that was a little off topic.

The graf I did was also with a Belgian yeast (WLP530 I think) and I lightly hopped it with Saaz. It turned out pretty good after the starch fell out. Yours sounds pretty good to me. I'm not sure about the dry hopping, but who knows.

The dry hopping was actually the initial idea; the rest was really spur of the moment as I tried to use up some other hops. I made a 3 gallon cider that I dry hopped with about .5oz of cascade. It came out really nice with time.

Oh really? So you just dry hopped a regular cider? I've never thought about doing that, but it sounds like it could be very interesting. It would probably be even better in a graf. Hope it turns out well!

Yes, this was the original one: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/dry-hopped-cider-263143/

Would dry hopping make the cider have a longer self life?