Graff (Malty, slightly hopped cider)

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From what I've seen, all you need is 24 hours. Mind you, I'm no expert. In fact, I have used apple juice just once, to make this version of graff:

4lbs Colorado pale 2-row malt
0.5 lbs caramel malt 80L
1oz flakes wheat (LHBS was out of torrefied)

4 gal unpasteurized Safeway organic apple juice

8 lb frozen sweet Oregon cherries

0.5 oz Tettnang

1pkg Safale US-05

I mashed at 154 for an hour, mashed out for ten minutes, then sparged.
My boil was about 30 minutes. I added the cherries just after flame-out when the wort cooled a bit. After cooling, I added the wort and cherries to the juice and pitched.

Two weeks later, I bottled it up. I'll have to make another batch someday without cherries to get the regular flavor, but I had twelve pounds of the things that needed to go somewhere! The graff is excellent. My wine friends love it!
 
Dear God, I came out with an OG of 1.074!

I used .4 oz Fuggle. 1 lb amber. 1 lb extra light. 4 gal Mott's.



This afternoon, I found a 22ozer *that's all I bottle in* of my Imperial Stout that I brewed for Christmas last year. Thing sports a 8.92% ABV. WOOOOOWEEEEE!! ROSCOEEEEE P. COLTRANE!!!
 
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1.074? That sounds high, but hey, no complaints, right? I've been getting 1.06x, but perhaps we're using different brands of DME.

Did you use any Crystal?

I used Northwestern Light Syrup and Northwestern Extra Light Dry.
I did you .5 lbs of 60 Crystal, sorry. I love the way 60 steeps, let me tell you.

She is fermenting right along at 74 degrees. One question: I'm getting a pungent smell out of the airlock. Is this normal?
 
I made a version of this with 5 gal aj 1 lbs light dme 1 lbs amber dme and threw is .5 oz goldings. O.G. was 1.058 and. F.G. was 1.000. Its about 2 months old and has a nice apple flavor with just a slight bit of malt and hops. But does have a sour or dry finnish. This is my first cidar so not sure if its supposed to be as sour/ dry at the finnish. Any thoughts?
 
I made a version of this with 5 gal aj 1 lbs light dme 1 lbs amber dme and threw is .5 oz goldings. O.G. was 1.058 and. F.G. was 1.000. Its about 2 months old and has a nice apple flavor with just a slight bit of malt and hops. But does have a sour or dry finnish. This is my first cidar so not sure if its supposed to be as sour/ dry at the finnish. Any thoughts?


It'll be pretty dry if you let it drop from 1.058 to 1.000 - you can avoid that next time by either catching it before it drops that low (cold crashing, racking a few times, sulfites), or backsweetening it.

When you say it's sour, do you mean tart? Again, with the low FG it'll be dry and tart, because of the lack of sugar. I've used various juices and ciders and noticed that some start out a little sour but mellow over time. If it's "sour", then you may have experienced a little contamination, but assuming you drink it fast enough, it's likely nothing lose sleep over. ;)

The yeast you use influences the final body and flavor, too, of course.
 
The sourness could also be from you apple juice if it has added Vitamin C (ascorbic acid).
 
Just made my first batch of Graff. I followed the recipe loosely, and used carapils instead of torrified wheat, and used Centennial hops for the boil.

I didn't have any apple juice around but since it is apple season here, I went out and got 10 lbs of "drops." They were all in good shape, so I just sliced them about 3-4 mm thick and put them in the finished wort. The yeast should break down the sliced apples and should leave them as a pulpy mess that I can strain out. That's the plan anyway. Has anyone else tried something like this?
 
The sourness could also be from you apple juice if it has added Vitamin C (ascorbic acid).

Yeah, wow, that's something to think about.

My graff is chillin at 69 *wooohooo* degrees! :mug: Gonna bottle her on Monday - it'll be 12 days at that point.
 
Weeeellll, if my calculations are correct *S.G 1.074 and F.G. 1.010*, my Graffe came in at a hefty 8.4%!

...and boy does she taste good. Just bottled her tonight. Not too tart. :wiggles:
 
My Graff just got racked into secondary. I had added 10 lbs of sliced apples from a local orchard rather than AJ. As part of racking, I pureed the apples and strained/pressed off the juice. It is sitting at a gravity of 1016 right now and tastes really good. Lots of apple aroma. I think I'll probably let this ferment out for another week and *might* back sweeten if I feel like it before bottle conditioning.
 
My Graff just got racked into secondary. I had added 10 lbs of sliced apples from a local orchard rather than AJ. As part of racking, I pureed the apples and strained/pressed off the juice. It is sitting at a gravity of 1016 right now and tastes really good. Lots of apple aroma. I think I'll probably let this ferment out for another week and *might* back sweeten if I feel like it before bottle conditioning.

I was going to ask you about this when you posted last weekend... so how much wort did you have before adding the sliced apples? 1 gallon? Or did you substitute the 4 gallons of juice with 4 gallons of water?
 
May this thread never die... Just made my second batch of graff. Last year I made it with unpasteurized cider from a local orchard. I was expecting some sweetness in the end product, but it came out very dry. Still had some apple aroma, though, and despite it being drier than I thought it would be, it was very good. This year, I used 4 gallons of pasteurized cider from the store, and tossed in a tablespoon of cinnamon with five minutes left in the boil. We'll see how the 2011 vintage turns out!
 
Portland Patrick,

I added the 10 lbs of apples directly to the wort recipe that BrandonO specifies. I adapted aa apple wine recipe from Jack Keller's wine site. I strained the liquor when I racked it and then put all of the solids in an food processor and then into an old towel I had previously boiled. Twisted the towel up like I was wringing out water and got about 1 gallon of juice to end up with about 3.5 gallons... Worked pretty good actually.

I ended up this weekend at 4 brix again, or about 1.016 s.g. Not enough complexity for my taste so I added a gallon of AJ from the local BJ's and I'm waiting it out... So far so good!
 
PortlandPatrick said:
Good question, I wonder what other folks prefer, too. I like it straight out of the fridge.

I don't like any of my stuff super cold, I keep my kegerator right around 45
 
This stuff is a real hit. I love it, and my BMC drinker friends love it too. I think my next batch will be with 120L instead of 60L just to see the difference.
 
I like it best after it warms a tad from the fridge. Honestly, as I drank the flat, warm sample, I told my brother I could drink the stuff that way it's so good.

I had (and really enjoyed) a pint of it at 65 degrees (and uncarbonated) today when I took a large gravity sample... clearly I don't stick by my "straight from the fridge" statement.
 
I am very new to brewing (3 batches so far) so forgive me if this is a stupid question. I've read almost all 100 pages of this thread and can't remember if I saw this. I just brewed this tonight and can't wait to try it! My question is when I am bottling in a couple weeks, do I just use regular priming sugar like I have for the past 3 ale kits I brewed?
 
Looked in on my graff again today. I took a full hydrometer sample and it settled out at 1.1018. I drank the sample after, and I like where it ended up a lot. I'd like to try doing this with other juices, basically whatever is on sale at the local BJ's. Anyone done any experimenting with other malt based fruit juice fermentations?

I really think the suggestion I read somewhere to begin fermentation with just wort and then add in juice as the fermentation slows has a lot of merit with this method to get more of the fruit character in the final drink.
 
Hey guys two quick questions. I am planning on making 3.5 gallons due to the amount of bottles I have.

1. I am going to use safale 05. Will pitching the entire packet be overpitching?

2. Per my calculations to 3.5 gallons the recipe calls for 1.4 lbs DME, what happens if i go with 1 lb? Or is there a way to use LME? as my local homebrew shop pours it by the pound
 
Spazzy:

1. I am not sure what cell count your Safale US-05 would have per packet, but I pitched a full packet of Safale S-04 into my Graff and it is fine. Don't worry, relax and have a homebrew.

2. I would use more DME rather than less when I brew up my next batch. More body and more fermentables. Then again, you could buy two pounds and then make the recipe as you calculated and use the left over 0.6 lbs to make yeast starter or canned wort or culture plates, etc... The list goes on and on.
 
Use 1.75lbs LME. Most DME is 45 points per gallon. Most LME is 36 ppg. Therefore it is a 4 to 5 ratio. 1 pound DME is 1.25 LME. 1 pound LME is .8 DME. This isn't 100% correct all of the time but is close enough for most brands.
RDWHAHB.
 
Just brewed an adjusted version today, can't wait to try it.

5gal cider
1# 60L crystal malt
3.3# briess amber lme
1oz spalt (5%AA)
S-04 yeast

OG 1.065

Going to try to keep it in the low 60s during fermentation.
 
MrOH, sounds delicious. I'm going to be doing a variant myself. Let us know how yours turns out.
 
Has anyone determined the best carbonation level for Brandon's Graff? Getting ready to throw into a keg shortly and wanted to see if anyone had experimented with different levels of PSI in their kegs as I know it can affect different kinds of beers. For instance I have Porter that needs to be at a much different PSI than my wheat beer
 
I was doing some reading and just had a question. Does anyone get the dreaded "rhino farts" with this Graff recipe?
 
Just did a batch of this last night with a somewhat modified recipe based on what I had on hand.

4 gallons Mott's Natural apple juice
5 oz Belgian Aromatic Malt
2 oz Flaked Wheat
1 gallon water
2lb light DME
0.3 oz UK Kent Goldings
Nottingham yeast

Ended up doing sort of a mini-mini-mash since the Belgian Aromatic was the only other malt I had laying around. 45 min at 153 degrees in 3/4 gal water and then sparged with the other 1/4 gallon at 165. Maybe not the best idea but I'm interested to see how it turns out.
 
I just tasted my first Graff and it was great! This is only my 4th batch of brewing anything, and my first attempt at brewing without a recipie kit. I let it sit in primary for 3 weeks then in bottle for 12 days now. It was super easy, and tastes good even this early! Thanks Brandon for the recipie. I see myself brewing this quite often! Now the question is do I share when everyone comes over for Thanksgiving tomorrow, or keep it all to myself?! I plan on giving some away, along with a couple other homebrews for Christmas.
 
After 14 days, I took gravity readings three days apart on my batch of graff and it was at 1.010 each time. Gravity appears stable, and it seems like it's time to bottle, but I wonder--what makes some batches of graff drop close to 1.000, and others stop at a higher FG? Every batch is made mostly of apple juice, so it seems like mash temp, etc. would have less of an impact. Is it the yeast? I used 1272, American Ale II, and at 1.010 SG I've already exceeded the stated attenuation range for that yeast by about 8%.

I've never made any king of cider before, so I thought I'd ask for advice before bottling. Do you think my graff will continue to drop?
 
After 14 days, I took gravity readings three days apart on my batch of graff and it was at 1.010 each time. Gravity appears stable, and it seems like it's time to bottle, but I wonder--what makes some batches of graff drop close to 1.000, and others stop at a higher FG? Every batch is made mostly of apple juice, so it seems like mash temp, etc. would have less of an impact. Is it the yeast? I used 1272, American Ale II, and at 1.010 SG I've already exceeded the stated attenuation range for that yeast by about 8%.

I've never made any king of cider before, so I thought I'd ask for advice before bottling. Do you think my graff will continue to drop?

I'm not sure about how the FG is lower sometimes than others, my first back of graff is still in the primary. But as far as yeast attenuation, I would say that since most of the sugars in this recipe are really simple (like from apple juice) then almost all yeast strains are going to eat it up pretty easily, and leave very little residuals sugars. The attenuation range given for yeast is calculated using some standard malted grain wort, not something full of simple sugars like in apple juice. This has definitely been my experience with cider/juice-based fermentations. My first try I did a split batch with highly attenuative yeast, and one with a much lower attenuation, and they finished at the same FG.
 
So everyone is stating that it tastes pretty good right off the bat after carbing it and aging around 2-3 weeks. I brewed it on Oct. 31st and kegged it on the 18th of Nov. So it has only been in the keg about a week and a half but it is no where near good yet. I'm hoping I didn't do anything wrong but I don't how as it's a pretty easy recipe to follow. I used Safale us-05 for it if that matters. It has a really tart and tangy finish and isn't very good at all in my oppinion.
Is it just still too young or did I do something wrong possibly? I plan on letting it just sit in my kegerator for another 2-3 weeks and then taste it again and hope for the best.
 
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