Graff (Malty, slightly hopped cider)

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Right now I'm kicking myself because I just brewed some apfelwein like a week ago. I also have an Irish Stout 3 weeks in primary as well. I would have totally made this if I had seen it sooner! Oh well, once I bottle ye old dry hooch (apfelwein), I'm making a batch of this with high expectations.

Poor man's Black velvets are one of my favorite drinks.(Stout and cider rather than stout and champagne)

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So brewing and fermenting a graff just seems like a flavor I'd love. I'm interested to try and make more of a stout rather than the typical ale ingredients used before. Maybe by using some barley, caramel, and darker steeping grains. Anyone try this yet? I know it would be much darker in hue, but the flavors just seem like they would be wonderful.

A lot of people complain about this recipe being too dry, but the whole point of a poor man's black velvet is that the stout really combats the dryness of the cider really well. The two flavors co-mingle in a delicious malty cidery explosion of flavor. It's also a killer drink to have with fish and chips or other fried and typically salty british/irish foods.

Anyone else make a batch of graff with stout ingredients? I know mixing two completed drinks together once they are completed is one thing. I wonder how they would co mingle if they were born together in a primary fermenter. Looks like I have my next project folks.
 
Anyone else make a batch of graff with stout ingredients? I know mixing two completed drinks together once they are completed is one thing. I wonder how they would co mingle if they were born together in a primary fermenter. Looks like I have my next project folks.

I have not but would certainly be interested in doing so.. would have to be pretty moderate on the roast I think to keep from overwhelming the cider, but could be pretty good. I would also think about doing a 'black cider' using just debittered for color - just to throw people for a loop w black cider
 
Danny and batty, search for Gunslinger's Graff on here. It may be what you are looking for.

Tim, yes you can just use 20-25 percent more (based on ppg).
 
I checked out the gunslingers graff. Looks like it is exactly what I was looking for.
 
Having a brew session in a week, I'll be brewing this up for sure. I plan on doing a 10 gallon all grain batch that I will be pitching #1 onto a SA-04 cake, and #2 will get a smack pack of 4184. I am super excited to get a malty / mouthfeel expression from a cider type beverage. I have no contacts for fresh cider, so I guess I'll go with Sam's club AJ. I also plan on bulk aging this at least 3 months. (i am way ahead of myself now in terms of pipeline, with 3/4 kegs spoken for, and no kegging system at the moment!!!) Anyone have any thoughts on the 4184 or the sa-04?
 
Just bottled my first batch of the original recipe using centennial and Notty. Used Kirkland sig. AJ and they didn't charge me for 2 gals so looks like it was a $25 batch woo! Anyways I remembered Costco has a really good apple, peach, passion fruit juice that is very mellow and delicious, was thinking it would be something worth trying instead of straight apple juice. Heard of others mixing other fruit juices with their apple I'm wondering if 4 gals of this stuff would be overboard? Anybody ever try this juice or have successful apple/other fruit proportions?
 
Somehow I haven't seen this addressed yet. During the boil I lost a full 1liter. That means I need up with 18l instead of 19, did I miss a step? I ended with an OG 1.169!!
 
Just bottled my first batch of the original recipe using centennial and Notty. Used Kirkland sig. AJ and they didn't charge me for 2 gals so looks like it was a $25 batch woo!

Assuming you sampled at bottling. . . .

How was the taste on the Kirkland AJ? How's the overall sweetness? Hop aroma? Bitterness balance? What was the AA% on your Centennial, and how much did you use? 5 gallon batch? How much are you carbing? OG/FG? Okay, that's all I can think of for now. :)
 
SilverZero said:
How was the taste on the Kirkland AJ? How's the overall sweetness? Hop aroma? Bitterness balance? What was the AA% on your Centennial, and how much did you use? 5 gallon batch? How much are you carbing? OG/FG? Okay, that's all I can think of for now. :)

Yes was a 5 gal batch, The Kirkland AJ was good (100% juice, no Vit. C or anything else). The graf tatstes nice and appley already with a beautiful color. still a tad tart but after the first couple sips that wore off, I'd imagine that will age out, but most cider has a slight tartness. OG was 1.062, FG was 1.010 the level of sweetness is perfect in my opinion. Can't even tell it has the 6.8% abv. I do prefer some sweetness vs a dry cider at a FG of 1.000 like some others have been reaching, so I was happy to see that steady FG at 1.010.
I could barely pick up some citrusy aroma from the centennial (1/2 oz @ 8.7% AA), the cider was extremely balanced for being so young (3 weeks of fermentation). Id bet an inexperienced beer drinker wouldn't know there was hops in there, I love hops so might use a higher AA% or more next time. Hard to perceive the bitterness with the tartness currently present.
Used just the regular 5 oz dextrose as I use for a typical beer to prime.
Id prefer my warm flat sample to most of the commerical ciders Ive had, I'll definitely make this at least once or twice a year!
 
My next brew! Looking forward to getting this in the fermenter on Sat:mug:

Cheers!
 
thinking of throwing cinnamon sticks in the fermenter when I brew this in a few days? Any suggestions on how many I should. Do you guys think it would compliment the cider? I guess theres only one way to find out.
 
After reading random sampling of this thread I'm going to give this a try for sure. I don't want it to be too tart though, is it advisable to go with more crystal to accomplish that or should I look at attenuating yeasts?
 
Made a batch according to original recipe on Sunday. Used 120L, as per suggestion, because I used cheap juice. The wife is really looking forward to giving this a try since she has a thing for cider.
 
I made this over the weekend but I replaced the DME with LME but because I followed the recipe, I boiled it for 30. I've read that boiling LME will cause it to finish very, very dark?
 
I tried a recipe from a diff website....the cider tasted great however I bottled too soon as i had 2 cases of bottles explode so dont bottle until the fermentation has settled...it was a rookie mistake!!! Wont do that again
 
Tried my hand at making graff today. Got 2 lbs extra light DME, .5 lb crystal 120, and 2oz torrified wheat from my local homebrew shop. Got 2 gallons of cider and 2 gallons of apple juice from Target, just their store brand stuff. Used .5oz of US Fuggles and fermented it with Lallemand BRY-97. Never used dry yeast before but i just threw it in when I got the temp down to what I wanted. So far, it's really dark. Much darker than I thought it would be. I'm actually wondering if they gave me chocolate malt instead of crystal 120. I guess I'll see. Currently fermenting at 66 degrees in a water bath. I'll let you know how it turns out.

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New brewer: I want to try this recipe today. However I can only store it in an area that is 74. Will this cause me problems?
 
Oldskooler said:
New brewer: I want to try this recipe today. However I can only store it in an area that is 74. Will this cause me problems?

Can you set up a swamp cooler / water bath with ice jugs? If not, go with a temperature-resistant yeast. I'd use Notty, but I use that for everything. :)
 
New brewer: I want to try this recipe today. However I can only store it in an area that is 74. Will this cause me problems?

That's a little high, but if that's the best you can do, that's the best you can do.

You could try to set up a swamp cooler for a better fermentation temperature.
 
I was going to use Notty, and I guess I'll have to figure someway to cool it down about 10 degrees. Thanks guys for the quick reply.
 
I just picked up my grain bill, going to brew this tomorrow for a ten gallon batch.

6lb two row
1lb special b
4 oz honey malt
4 oz flaked wheat
8 oz carapils
1 oz us fuggles

I really want some body, residual sweetness and head retention here....

+8 gallons of sam's club AJ

Poured onto safeale-04 cakes... I will do one up as quick as the recipe calls for , the other will bulk age.
 
Bump since I didn't get answer on this.

In my experience, the amount of boil off depends a lot on the size of your pot, temp/humidity/elevation of your surroundings, and just "how vigorous" your boil was. If you were using grains, you also need to account for absorption.
 
timcadieux said:
Somehow I haven't seen this addressed yet. During the boil I lost a full 1liter. That means I need up with 18l instead of 19, did I miss a step? I ended with an OG 1.169!!

OG of 1.169 for the 1 gal boil or of the 18 liters? That is a massive OG, 4 gal of cider should be around 1.050-1.070 or something. if DME contributes 43 pts/lb/gal, the 1 gal boil would have a gravity of around 1.086 correct? So combing 4 gal of 1.060 with one gal of 1.086 would result with something in between those correct? still learning so please correct me if Im wrong. Was the reading from hydrometer or refractometer?
 
Ok, what did I do wrong? I followed the recipe as it was posted at the beginning of the thread. For juice I used cider from a local farm. I fermented for a couple of weeks and then kegged it. It been in fridge under Co2 for about a week now. I realize I might need to be a little patient but I must say it looks terrible and is currently undrinkable. Do you think my problem is that I used cider rather than juice from the grocery store? It just looks like poo in a glass! And it tastes just awful. Sort of a mix between a bad beer and apple juice.
I wont dump it for at least a month or so but was wondering if I should start another batch using normal juice. Any thoughts?
 
OG of 1.169 for the 1 gal boil or of the 18 liters? That is a massive OG, 4 gal of cider should be around 1.050-1.070 or something. if DME contributes 43 pts/lb/gal, the 1 gal boil would have a gravity of around 1.086 correct? So combing 4 gal of 1.060 with one gal of 1.086 would result with something in between those correct? still learning so please correct me if Im wrong. Was the reading from hydrometer or refractometer?

From my Hydrometer...ok, so did everyone else just 'know' to add an extra litre to start the boil?
 
I'm getting ready to make this, so I follow this thread closely, and now as a newbie I'm a little confused about the one liter loss, do I add an extra liter of water?
 
I understand that the boil causes this.but most recipes gave a preboil volume to account for this. This one does not so I was just wondering if its.normal and just an oversight ?

I can easily add additional water to cover the loss if necessary.
 
Ok, what did I do wrong? I followed the recipe as it was posted at the beginning of the thread. For juice I used cider from a local farm. I fermented for a couple of weeks and then kegged it. It been in fridge under Co2 for about a week now. I realize I might need to be a little patient but I must say it looks terrible and is currently undrinkable. Do you think my problem is that I used cider rather than juice from the grocery store? It just looks like poo in a glass! And it tastes just awful. Sort of a mix between a bad beer and apple juice.
I wont dump it for at least a month or so but was wondering if I should start another batch using normal juice. Any thoughts?

My guess is that the aj did not ferment and you ended up with aj flavored beer. Take a gravity reading and see if it is down below 1.01 at least.
 
I haven't tried the OP's graff recipe yet but did do up a batch of "Gunslingers Graff" from the brewing TV episode. It turned out pretty good although a bit "sour" for my taste, almost like a Lambic. Looking forward to trying another graff in the near future
 
LAbrewer said:
My guess is that the aj did not ferment and you ended up with aj flavored beer. Take a gravity reading and see if it is down below 1.01 at least.

I only got it down to 1.014. That being said the flavor is improving daily. It still looks terrible but besides that I am starting to really like it
 
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