Apple Ale

Want to try to make an apple ale, any ideas?

 

That is what I was wanting to do when I started brewing. SWMBO loves it, so I wanted to see if I could make it. When it's all said and done, it's a pretty tough undertaking, and darn near impossible without kegging. Do some searching in HBT and there are a couple threads out there. OR - check out Brandon O's Graff. That's pretty fun to make.

 

Brandon O's Graff is a good one for sure, one of my favorite HBT recipes.

However it tastes more like a well-balanced cider (not too sweet, not too dry, decent amount of apple flavor) to me than it does a "apple beer".

I've been toying with the idea of increasing the beer-to-juice ratio a bit to make it more "apple ale" tasting. But the original recipe is so good I haven't actually tried making any changes to it yet.

 

Hey thanks for the info. I'll let ya know how it turns out.

 

Also, if I were to take a stab at an apple ale, I would make sure to ferment it cool and cold crash it to keep estery-ness to a minimum. Also, I would do S-04 for yeast. And I would back sweeten with a non fermentable sweetener to get the sweetness that would get you closer to Redd's style.

 

Hi,
So I was brewing my first batch of Apple ale. Instead of adding cider once fermentation started, I mistakingly added it right away into the fermenter along with 3 gallons of wort and 1 gallon of water. It's been 48 hours and no fermentation has taken place. Will this be a problem?
Nate

 

If the cider is pasteurized or raw, it will ferment fine. Only if the cider had preservatives in it, will it impede fermentation. I often make apple ales in summer, when tap temperature is to high to get 4 gal. of wort under 80 degrees. 1 gal. of chilled apple juice will get it under 70 degrees easy, and give it a lighter/crisper taste.
--Mark F.--

 

Not sure I agree with Loeks in post # 2. Apple ale is incredibly easy to make and since beer is inherently sweet (that's why you add hops, isn't it - to balance the sweetness), you can ferment dry and still have a significant amount of unfermentable sweetness and so prime. I sometimes make apple ale by adding the pressed juice to the wort and sometimes blending beer and cider. The better the cider the better the apple ale.

 

Awesome. This makes me feel better. Thanks for the reply I appreciate it.
Nate

 

I make an apple ale that's more beer with a hint of apple in the back end/aftertaste. It's a clean cream ale that comes out about 5.5% thats femented on top of 2 gala apples. It's in the data base as apple bottom cream ale I believe. I do a few changes to the original recipe posted though.

 

My last batch of apple ale was made using 2 gallons of orchard pressed apples designed for hard cider (low pH (3.4), good SG (1.052) and with 17 % tannin rich apples ). To this I added 1 gallon of wort made with Maris Otter LME and 60 minute Cascade hops (I boiled the hops in the water and then added the LME at flame out). Then pitched Nottingham yeast. So this is far more cider than ale (2:1)...

 

I based my Apple Ale from BrandonO's Graff Recipe, but went all grain and scaled the ale portion up to 2.5 gal wort/3 gallons apple juice. I screwed up the Caramel Malt weight in BeerSmith and ended up using much less than needed to get the result that I was aiming for - however SWMBO and everyone else who has tasted it loved the end product. I personally prefer the maltier and deeper colored version with additional C60, so will probably adjust for my 'happy accident' on the next batch. Also, I used Cluster hops for bittering, as it is one of my favorites. It worked very well for balancing with the apple and malt flavors.

 

Actually bottled an Apple Ale just recently. Came out really tasty. Think I might want to try apple juice in place of apple cider next time just to see the difference:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/apple-brown-ale-506213/

While I guess it's technically a graff, it's much closer to an ale than a hard cider.