/graff hybrid

Hello all,

I was browsing the forums and found Brandon O's graff recipe but I would like to alter this a bit. I'm looking for something more along the lines of a snakebite (half glass of perry or cider with guiness floated on top). Would be hard to replicate but I was thinking maybe a combination of a light and dark malt for color and flavor with some roasted barley for a heartier beery flavor. I would use a fresh pressed cider for this. Would any of you beer folks have a suggestion for what types of grain/malt to use and how to prep it for fermentation.

I would use the graff recipe and just sub in the speciality grains from a stout recipe... roasted barley is a great start.

I did my graff with some wheat malt and rye malt. Turned out great.

And the guiness should be on the bottom of the glass in a snakebite. higher FG = bottom

K so here is what I want for ingriedients:

.5 lbs of Crystal 80L (Briess)
1 oz of torrified wheat
4 Gallons of apple juice.
1 gallon of water
2 lbs of Amber DME
0.25 oz Goldings, East Kent
? light roasted barley

How much barley should I add, I'd like to have the flavor of the barley come out but only a little bit. Also how should the wort be prepped/cooked? I do not really know much at all when it comes to brewing so would any tips would be appreciated.

I would probably run a batch with 4 to 8 oz for a 5 gallon batch. I would follow the directions for graff in that recipe... just soak the roasted barley with the crystal and wheat as instructed (IIRC it is an hour at 152ish).

If I were you, I would just brew stout and make snakebites... I think your recipe will be good... but it is going to be different. It sounds so good, that I may try a batch when I run out of the 10 gallons I have!

Does that help? If you are REALLY unfamiliar with brewing, I would reccomend reading howtobrew.com and following his instructions for an extract kit.

If you have a fermenter and a carboy, get a stout kit and make a batch of apfelwein.

You can use fresh pressed cider, but it costs alot and I would reccomend playing with apple juice for a while. But who am I to say? I used fresh cider on my first batch!

Ya ive started a batch or 3 of various types of cider just gotta wait and see how they taste..........I'd pretty much also drink anything that doesn't taste like butt aka old E. I'm positive I can follow the graff cooking steps no prob I've been reading the crap out of these forums and have watched a vid on making the graff wort, my only concerns were really just how much barley to use and if I needed to change temps or anything. I can get 4 gallons of flash pasturized cider straight from the local orchard for under 20 bucks so its not like its expensive at all.

d510addict said:

I can get 4 gallons of flash pasturized cider straight from the local orchard for under 20 bucks so its not like its expensive at all.

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Then rock it man... I pay 5 a gallon here when I can get it... so I use it then. My experience is that it has more sugar/higher ABV finished than apple juice.

Treat that roasted barley just like the crystal and you are good to go.. you are just getting color and flavor out of it, so it just needs to steep.

and send me a bottle to evaluate, of course!