Graff (Malty, slightly hopped cider)

j1laskey said:

<img src="https://www.homebrewtalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=57391"/>

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Nice! That is about the color my was. What type of Crystal did you use.

ZombieBrew83 said:

Nice! That is about the color my was. What type of Crystal did you use.

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I followed Brandon's original recipe. I used 0.5# C60.

This recipe is so good, I had to dedicate a Home brew Wednesday to it.
Hope you enjoy the Vid

Does this krausen up like beer or could I brew 5 gallons in a 5 gallon carboy like cider?

Well the video I shot last night, was exactly 5 gallons in my 6.5 gallon fermenter. The air lock is going crazy right now with some foam coming out of it. So I guess to answer your question, you need a 6.5 gal fermenter for a 5 gallon batch. The aroma coming out of the airlock actually smells like apple pie!

Just brewed up a batch of this. I altered it a little to match what I had laying around the house though.

What I brewed-

2.5 lbs Munich LME
8 oz crystal 120L
4 oz honey malt
.25 oz willamette 9.6% AA

3 gallons apple juice
1 gallon apple juice concentrate

OG 1.088

Now comes the waiting.

Made a batch of this on April 8th (so 14 days ago).

Its down to 1.006 so I was going to bottle it today along with a beer that needed to be bottled up. (half mini-keg, half bottles). While I was doing the beer I noticed the Graff was still bubbling (once every 45-60 seconds).

I should wait on that right? I'll check the SG tomorrow night and Tuesday to be sure, but just making sure I am not being silly waiting.

Tastes great out of the hydrometer. Quite cloudy, but I don't think I care. Rather drink than wait.

LyonsAudio said:

Made a batch of this on April 8th (so 14 days ago).

Its down to 1.006 so I was going to bottle it today along with a beer that needed to be bottled up. (half mini-keg, half bottles). While I was doing the beer I noticed the Graff was still bubbling (once every 45-60 seconds).

I should wait on that right? I'll check the SG tomorrow night and Tuesday to be sure, but just making sure I am not being silly waiting.

Tastes great out of the hydrometer. Quite cloudy, but I don't think I care. Rather drink than wait.

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Wait to bottle if it is still bubbling. You're hydrometer is the only way to tell if it's done or not. Although, at 1.006, you are probably finished. What was you're SG? What yeast did you use?

I bottled at 1.008....didn't want to get too cider dry. Having yet another pint now....so good

I used nottingham, and started at 1.06 (I think, maybe 1.065).

LyonsAudio said:

I used nottingham, and started at 1.06 (I think, maybe 1.065).

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You're probably good to bottle, but if you can stand to wait a couple more days then you should do so. Looks like you'll have a pretty dry final product. Let us know how it turns out after you bottle. Mine was pretty good after only a week. About three weeks grain to glass. Not bad. It has been getting better too. This weekend it was a little less tart and tastes more like a light dry champagne. Took some to a barbecue and folkies were enamored with it.

Took a gravity reading of mine today, 6 days after pitching the yeast. It's down to 1.010. I'm guessing after another 4-5 days it will final out at about 1.008 or so. We'll see..

My first batch was just ok, it was really dry. I had to dump loads of splenda in it. It was just a 5% Apfelwein, and the funny thing is that I liked the Apfelwein better.

So whats the moral of the story? Lets experiment! So I made another batch with a stronger beer component (Lots of Amber DME and lots of 120 Crystal). For the Apple component I used 3 gallons of 100% juice and about 6 cans of concentrate to bump my OG to ~1.08, I'm hoping to get about 10% alcohol content.

I suppose I should go into more detail.

Beer Component
1.25 Gallons of Water (1 gallon after boil)
1# of 120 Crystal
4oz Wheat
2# of Amber DME
.5 oz Hops (BC Golding)

Juice Component
3 Gallons of Juice
6 Cans of Concentrate
Pectin and Yeast Nutrient
US-05 yeast

Its currently going crazy... The wort tasted great... It currently smells really good too

Brewed a batch of Graff 6 days ago and just took a test of it tonight.

.5# of Crystal 90l
1.5 oz flaked wheat
1# each sparkling amber and light DME
.5 oz Fuggles
4 Gal Indian Summer AJ
Safale US-05 rehydrated in some AJ before mash started

It's been fermenting at 66-68f and the smell from the airlock has been good. Almost 3 inches of krausen still sitting on top.
Gravity reading was 1.018 today, OG was around 1.06

Light apple aroma and taste today. Slight yeast/malt taste but not unexpected with gravity reading. No hoppiness or tart taste. A little thin on the mouthfeel, but does hint that it could have a nice finish with just a hint of dryness. Did notice a little haze dropping out as it settled in the thief, but I may have dipped a little into the trub which could have also accounted for the yeast/malt flavor.

Will give it another taste in a week when I hopefully bottle it. May add just a touch of lactose in a small side batch before bottling.

csoko said:

May add just a touch of lactose in a small side batch before bottling.

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I got some lactose too, I tasted it, it seemed weird.... I know it suppose to be be 10 times less sweet but it seemed to have 0 sweetness, I couldn't see how it would help at all...

AGadvocate said:

Well the video I shot last night, was exactly 5 gallons in my 6.5 gallon fermenter. The air lock is going crazy right now with some foam coming out of it. So I guess to answer your question, you need a 6.5 gal fermenter for a 5 gallon batch. The aroma coming out of the airlock actually smells like apple pie!

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I made something simlar to this graff (see my wiezensidre thread) and I had to finally cave in and fashion a blowoff tube on my alepail...jammed a piece of hose from my racking cain into the airlock hole, other end is in a jug of water.

Hi, i'm new to this, and just brewed and bottled a batch of this. Its been sitting in the bottles about 4 days, and there is a white film starting to form at the bottom of the bottles, what is this? should i be concerned?

wonnlov said:

Hi, i'm new to this, and just brewed and bottled a batch of this. Its been sitting in the bottles about 4 days, and there is a white film starting to form at the bottom of the bottles, what is this? should i be concerned?

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Should just be a layer of yeast nothing to worry about

The first time around was really good. Time for 5 gallon brew number two!

is it normal for the grains and everything to boil down to roughly 2/3rds of the input water, or should i have it boil covered?

Anyone doing an all grain version of this? I don't want to spent money on sms when I have tons of two row at home.

I do it all grain. Mash real high

I tried a little varient on the recipe with materials I had on hand.

Basically,
Steeped 90l in a gallon of water I steeped it at around 150f for 20 minutes, brought it up to 170 and removed. (Muslin bag)
I then brought this wort to a boil and addeed 2lbs of dark DME and.5 oz of cascade hops. boiled for 30 minutes.

Cooled wort. Sanitized carboy, added 2 gallons America's Choice applejuice, (the only one without citric acid) added the wort, added another 3 gallons of applejuice, and pitched the yeast. Saf-05

In a day it bubbled and foamed like beer. It's been a week and a half, and most of the foam has fallen in. may bottle at the end of this week, maybe secondary.

Either way, I'm very excited to try it. (And make another batch closer to the original recipe) I figure if I use 5lbs of 2 row, mix it up with the crystal malt, mash 45minutes, vorloff and sparge out 2 gallons, boil 40 mins add hops. Cool and add to Sanitized carboy. then Add enough apple juice to bring it to 5 gallons. pitch yeast and shake.

CA-LT1 said:

I do it all grain. Mash real high

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+1, I didn't mash high enough when I did it.

I finally drank this today. It's nothing like I expected. It's better. :rockin:

It's better than anything commercial I've tried. The hops give it a different style. I'm going to try it again with pear juice.

Can I give it my own special name? Slyko's Graff Perry?

Champagne is for suckers. Here's to wedding graff!

Just made some Graff about three weeks ago, I was going to bottle it this weekend, but now it has a strange whitish film on top. Is this some kind of infection? The film was more uniform and clear, until I stuck a wine thief through it (didn't even notice it except for the trapped bubbles before that). Don't know if I should just go ahead and drink it now, or wait it out and see what happens, but I don't really want this to turn to vinegar as it's pretty taste right now.

I vote you drink it soon. It won't get much better with time. Start another batch while draining that one. Welcome to the forum!!!
Keep the carboy out of the sunlight to avoid skunking your graf. Artificial light is ok.
Cheers!!!

WOW! this is by far the best recipe i have tried to date, and thats after 1 week in primary after i reracked

its almost like a hefeweizen (i LOVE pyramid hefeweizen)

it even tastes good flat and warm, cant wait for it to be cold and bubbly

and all this with just a 2 week fermentation time and a few weeks to bottle carb (or instant once i get my keg setup)

kewlio250 said:

WOW! this is by far the best recipe i have tried to date, and thats after 1 week in primary after i reracked

its almost like a hefeweizen (i LOVE pyramid hefeweizen)

it even tastes good flat and warm, cant wait for it to be cold and bubbly

and all this with just a 2 week fermentation time and a few weeks to bottle carb (or instant once i get my keg setup)

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My super malty, 10% alcohol version tastes great still as well. I bottled 4 of the 5 gallons and poured the rest into a 1 gallon glass jug in the fridge. I've been drinking a glass every time it settles. I got much more apple flavor in this batch. I still need to add two scoops of splenda to get it sweet enough to counter the sourness though. I'm not sure its possible to make a batch as sweet as I want it without back sweetening. I do know that lactose was not the answer, after tasting it there is no way I'm putting that in anything I drink, except milk...

Good times. Like a cider, like a beer.

On my third glass, a little wobbly.

Very smooth drinking. I'm ordering provisions to start the next batch.

Made a batch of this on the weekend.

Hit an OG of 1.060 so should turn out pretty good I'd say

Hej, got this on the stove just now( minus AJ of course).
Just wondering how I'm going to work out my abv.
I'm going to take a sample of the wort and measure OG and also a sample of AJ and measure OG.
Finally a sample of the wort/AJ mix for OG.

Which OG do I go by in 2weeks time to determine ABV. Confused!

Pablosanjari said:

Hej, got this on the stove just now( minus AJ of course).
Just wondering how I'm going to work out my abv.
I'm going to take a sample of the wort and measure OG and also a sample of AJ and measure OG.
Finally a sample of the wort/AJ mix for OG.

Which OG do I go by in 2weeks time to determine ABV. Confused!

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Add the juice to the wort. Then take gravity. In order to determine alcohol you need to know how much sugar you started with and how much is left at the end. That is what these two measurements do for you. Make sense?

Jewrican said:

Add the juice to the wort. Then take gravity. In order to determine alcohol you need to know how much sugar you started with and how much is left at the end. That is what these two measurements do for you. Make sense?

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Yeah awesome, thanks!

Was just a little unsure, first time breaking away from ale.

Feel stupid now haha but better safe than sorry.

Slainte!

I just did this last night:

9.5 lbs marris otter
2 lbs crystal 80L
1 lb crystal 120L
Mashed at about 155 degs for an hour

1oz hallertau (4.4% AA) @ 60 min

Added 5 cans apple juice concentrate after wort was cooled (equal to about 2 gallons of juice).

Water to 5 gallons.

OG was at least 1.065 (maybe higher because I didn't go all out trying to mix the juice in).

Bubbling away this morning with US-05.

After 16 days sitting in the pantry my batch is only down to 1.016 and bubbling away. Looks like I won't be bottling it for a wee bit longer..

I followed the OPs recipe excluding torrified wheat.
2 weeks later I've hit 1.012 and looking at 6% ABV
Gonna let it ride out another week to see if I can squeeze some more alcohol out of the us-05.
Tastes ok, not super appley but quite well balanced so far. Hopefully the apple will become more pronounced after aging a couple of weeks.

Slainte

I just bottled this...

6 lbs Amber LME
3 gallons Apple Cider
1 lb Honey Malt Steeped
8oz Hallertau
London Ale III yeast

planning on a long aging process...

FiddleTilDeath said:

I just bottled this...

6 lbs Amber LME
3 gallons Apple Cider
1 lb Honey Malt Steeped
8oz Hallertau
London Ale III yeast

planning on a long aging process...

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8oz of hops? That seems like a lot to me.