Graff (Malty, slightly hopped cider)

herc1354 said:

Mine too was a bit sour, not sure if this is typical of this Graff or not, really i do not detect any maltyness at all. I don't care for the ciders currently on the market, I find them to be way too sweet, so even with the sourness I like it as do all my friends. Oh and I used white Labs English Cider Yeast, next batch will be fermented with what the OP suggested.

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I didn't notice either batch being too sour but I used fresh pressed cider for both batches. The first, pear, the second, apple. That may have made a difference.

Loved this recipe. The first batch we brewed stayed 15 or 16 days in the primary (I have to admit, we didn't take very good notes). The second, I racked to a secondary after only 8 days because of a distinct yeast flavor that I didn't care for in the original batch. Just from gravity readings, it made a considerable difference. I can't wait to taste this one after a couple of weeks of bottle conditioning/carbonation!!

In my next batch, I would like to try steeping a mild (maybe slightly spicy) hop for flavor/aroma after the boil. Has anyone tried this and what were the results?

Making a Graff has been on the list for quite some time. So has making a mead with a bit of caramel malt. I decided to combine the best of both worlds here to make a summer thirst quencher.

Cyser Graff - Day 0
Steeped 2 oz Caramel 20L in 1 liter water at 170 F for 20 minutes. Removed grain bag after draining excess liquid.
Added 500 ml apple cider for extra volume.
Added 6.6 oz Golden Dry Malt Extract, 1/2 cup honey, 1/2 tsp Beer Nutrient.*
Boiled 15 minutes.
Added 0.5 oz Fuggles whole hops for 8 minutes additional boil time.
Cooled in ice bath.
Poured into 1 gallon glass jug.
Added cold apple cider up to 1 gallon.
Pitched 11.5 g of US-05 rehydrated in GoFerm for 15 minutes.
SG 1.074
IBU 10

Also added 1/2 tsp pectinase.

Post Fermentation Plan
Carbonate with 3 ATMs at bottling.

Day 1
Gravity 1.054. I'll update as I can!

Day 3
1.014

Day 4
1.004. Very tasty already. Kind of apple tart with a beer fullness.

My Spanish friends tasted it and called it Pulque. My brother calls it Apple Beer. I also call it delicious.

I'm planning on starting a batch of this this weekend. Which of these hops would be best? 1/2 oz Cascade-6%, 1/3 oz centennial-9.7%, or 1/2 oz cluster-7%? Also, would harvested wyeast 1056 - american ale - work for this? I'll be using cheap store brand juice.

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Went with the cascade... 1 gal juice w/o vitamin c, 3.5 gal. With it.-- 5.5 batch gal total.... Did the Crystal 120 and 2 lbs breis amber DME. Reusing wyeast 1056.

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had about 3/4gal of extra wort from brewing a Traditional Bock, OG 1.072 that I just poured into a carboy with 3gal organic apple juice and a vial of WLP001

excited to try this

I don't have temp control yet. How will this ferment being at room temp. I'm in San Diego

Finally going to brew a batch of this up today! My only question is with a 5 Gallon batch in a 6.5 Gallon glass carboy, am I going to be ok with just an airlock or should I put a blowoff hose on for the first few days of fermentation?

I'm doing 5.5 gal in a 6.5 gal bucket without needing a blowoff. Fermenting in 65-68 degree room since Saturday night.

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Excellent! That's right about where I'll be for fermenting temp. Thanks for the quick reply CJ.

After 65 pages, I give up. How well does this recipe scale down? Could I just cut everything in half to do a 2.5 gal batch? Does someone have a tested scaled down recipe in the 2.5 to 3 gal range? Thanks

I just bottled my first batch and can"t wait until it carbonates ! I did my recipe in 1 gallon test batches and from the taste of the pre-carbonated graff it is going to be great .





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Bstacy1974 , the recipe transfers very well to smaller batches . I did mine in 1 gallon batches dividing the beer ingredients and water by five ,then adding apple juice to fill the carboy to the proper level . It seemed to work well for me .


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steveusmximus said:

Bstacy1974 , the recipe transfers very well to smaller batches . I did mine in 1 gallon batches dividing the beer ingredients and water by five ,then adding apple juice to fill the carboy to the proper level . It seemed to work well for me .


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Thank you. I was thinking of halving the recipe, brewing, bottling and throwing it in the garage to condition until summer.

Been fermenting away for a few days now. Smells amazing! Can't wait to rack it to secondary so I can steal a sample

Had something interesting happen to my batch this week.....

I started a batch in late November and everything about it went great. OG 1.052, fermented to a FG of 1.006 with Nottingham, and moved to a secondary in late December.

About a week ago, I was getting concerned that my basement was getting too cold for my beers (dam you, polar vortex) and moved my carboys upstairs. Since then, I have been seeing lots of activity in the airlock (a bubble every minute or or two) and bubbles showing up on the surface of the graff.

Any idea what's going on? I was going to bottle this week, but now I'm not so sure.


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MMAniacle said:

Any idea what's going on?

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It's warmer, so it could've started again
Or
You shook the liquid and it released co2

Check gravity, wait a day or so and check again. If it's the same, bottle.

At first I thought it was just CO2 being released, but it's been going on pretty steadily for a few days. Now I'm leaning towards it starting back up again, but what is being fermented if the gravity is at 1.006? Sort of low for Notty, isn't it?


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I just had my first couple of bottles of the graff , this stuff is delicious !


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Cold liquid hold more co2. So its warming up and releasing it. It will be fine. Bottle it.

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That was my thought. Isn't a week kind of excessive, though?


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After about 2 weeks in primary, it looks like things are pretty well settled down. I'm planning on racking to secondary for at least a week, maybe adding some cinnamon, then bottling this up. I had a question about using AJ concentrate for priming instead of Corn Sugar. I read through a TON of posts and didn't see anything about how much concentrate to use. I want to get somewhere in the 2-2.5 Vol range for carbonation on about 4 Gallons of Graff. If anyone has experience using concentrate for priming and could help me out that would be awesome. Cheers!

Im stoked to try this over the weekend. I started reading about mead and got excited for that(I live down the street from Ken Schramms and B. Nektar) but honey is expensive so I decided on cider instead. Sadly I dont feel like messing around with backsweetening so the thought of just mini mashin for a nice malty sweetness is EXACTLY what I am looking for.

Has anyone tried a little rye in this?
I feel like it has a lot of possibilities.

Tried my first bottle of this and it wasn't exactly what I was expecting. Not that it was bad just had in mind it was going to be more angry orchard like but came out not as sweet with a little less apple flavor. This is a much better start then the apple juice with champagne yeast garbage I made before that nobody including me drank. I need to figure out how to use apple juice to carbonate instead of corn sugar and it should be a winner.

could someone take a look at this all grain adaptation based on making one gallon batches and limiting myself to what I can get, in the portions that make sense from my lhbs?

2 lbs 2 row malt
2 lbs Amber malt
.6 lbs Crystal 60 - 120 depending on the type of juice to be used.
1.2 oz Carapils
.6 oz hops of <6% AA or lower depending on preference (waiting to go to the LHBS to see what type I'd like, maybe mt. hood.

Mash grains for 1 hour at 155F in 1.5 gallons (5.67 litres) in grain bag
remove bag with grains, drain, and sparge with .56 gallons (2.11 litres) at 170F to replace water loss to grains.

Boil for thirty minutes with hop addition at the beginning of the boil.
Assume .3 gallons (1.13 litres) water loss to boil-off
Target volume is 1.2 gallons (4.54 litres)
Chill
Split into 750 portions, bottle any portions not being used immediately to keep as sterile wort for future batches.

Put one 750 ml portion in a one gallon container, top up with 3 litres apple juice, or apple cider. pitch notty, s-04, or s-05 and shake the heck out of it.

attach a blowoff tube. ferment at 60-65F until done, bulk prime with .75 oz table sugar or turbinado, or equivalent dextrose boiled in the least quantity of water I can. Or even 1.58 oz (~50ml) thawed apple juice concentrate to shoot for 2.5 volumes with the bottling temp at 60F

Bottle Condition.

This should give me enough wort to do 6 one gallon batches of graff using what I think might be a good all grain adaptation of Brandon O's recipe.

That being said, I've not brewed any beer, extract or otherwise, and have been cobbling this together from what I can figure out.

How far off did I stray in trying to scale this down and account for a stovetop biab recipe?

sorry for the horrible mishmash of Metric and US measurements.

MMAniacle said:

At first I thought it was just CO2 being released, but it's been going on pretty steadily for a few days. Now I'm leaning towards it starting back up again, but what is being fermented if the gravity is at 1.006? Sort of low for Notty, isn't it?


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have you transferred yet? usually notty will crash at that low of grav if transferred.

I'm now at 3 weeks in Primary, and have this thin layer of Krausen that just won't settle back into the beer. The airlock stopped bubbling almost a week ago. I'm not sure if I should rack to secondary, or keep waiting for this Krausen to settle. Anyone have any ideas?

Loodachris said:

Tried my first bottle of this and it wasn't exactly what I was expecting. Not that it was bad just had in mind it was going to be more angry orchard like but came out not as sweet with a little less apple flavor. This is a much better start then the apple juice with champagne yeast garbage I made before that nobody including me drank. I need to figure out how to use apple juice to carbonate instead of corn sugar and it should be a winner.

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four containers of frozen aj concentrate will carb you up give it three weeks to prime but don't expect it to clear…

Just got my ingredients today but altered it a bit, I wanted it fairly sweeter but will this be too sweet?

4oz Caramal 60
4oz caramel 90
2oz Honey Malt
2oz Carapils.

Its not a huge difference. Also I have safale 04 and Notty, unsure what one I want to go to go with att, probably Nottingham for this 1st one.

JRapp said:

Just got my ingredients today but altered it a bit, I wanted it fairly sweeter but will this be too sweet?

4oz Caramal 60
4oz caramel 90
2oz Honey Malt
2oz Carapils.

Its not a huge difference. Also I have safale 04 and Notty, unsure what one I want to go to go with att, probably Nottingham for this 1st one.

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for yeast, ive used S-05 and t-58. S-05 i enjoyed more. Trying out s-04 now, its in the fermenter.

This is cool, can't wait to try it!


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I have only done two batches and am no expert, but a word of advice for new grafters. For the record, I think I invented the word "grafter." Anyhow . . .

Heed the warning about using hops sparingly. Hopheads will have a hard time with this, but 0.5 ounces is too much for most modern bittering varieties. I love bitter beers, but the bitter/sour combination is not tasty.

Use plenty of crystal malt, but not the dark stuff. 80L crystal and higher adds a flavor note that is a bit like vomit. Add that to a bitter/ sour graff at your own risk.

Go with a low attenuating yeast. The residual sweetness will improve the balance.

Consider using an adjunct that will add astringency without bitterness or tartness. A cup of strong tea might be good.


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oregonbrew541 said:

four containers of frozen aj concentrate will carb you up give it three weeks to prime but don't expect it to clear…

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I bought a 3 gallon carboy dedicated to making cider and I would assume the 4 containers is for 5 gallons? so I'll just have that and see what happens. Thanks for the input

I just brewed up 5 gallons of this. Used Wyeast 1056. Cant wait to taste

Just made a 1/2 batch of this last night. Tasted great going into the fermenter although I tasted mainly Apple Juice with a slight hint of malt. Did not really detect any hop presence at all. I have high hopes for this and my SWMBO is anxiously waiting as well! Pretty much followed OP's recipe. Used Mt. Hood hops @ 6.1, whole food's organic apple juice (in bonus 1 gal jugs -- my soon to be 1gal batch fermenters). Used 1/2 tsp of irish moss for lols.

My OG was around 1.065 ... A little on the high side from what others reported but my wort volume was questionable because of big pot / small volume (to do: get smaller) evap issues. Had a longish lag. Pitched an entire packet of US-05 took about 18 hours to get going... It's fermenting away and produces some serious apple smell in my brew room.

Just my experience so far, I will be sure to check in once I crack a taste!

wish I had attached a blow off tube instead of just an airlock. woke up this morning(day 2) to quite a mess. Little cleanup and everything was fine.

I think i'm going to give this one a try for a good summer drink. Recipe sounds awesome!

I am trying my first full 5 gallon batch today , kind of changing the recipe slightly by doing half 120 crystal and half chocolate malt . Trying for a slightly stronger beer flavor.


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New guy here. After reading every post on this thread, I decided I should register. I've got 2 batches of Graff at about 1 week in the primary, 1 batch I used whole foods unfiltered apple juice, and the other I used whole foods spiced cider. O.G. Was 1.062 on both, using Nottingham Ale Yeast. Can't wait it try this stuff!


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