Apple Beer

[mattbeer]

I was asked to make a walnut/apple beer for a wedding. I was thinking of making a typical pale ale but substituting apple cider for water for my mash and sparge.
I will bake and boil the walnuts to get the oils out and add to secondary. I'm not too worried about the walnuts.
Can anyone give me any tips on using Apple cider instead of water?

 

[madscientist451]

If you boil and then ferment the cider, it's unlikely there will be any apple flavor left when its done, but some of the flavor loss is dependent on what yeast you use. If I use WLP 002, some apple flavors remain along with some sweetness, but yeast that ferments more dry leaves very little apple flavor.
How much lead time do you have?
I let my ciders age 4-6 months before drinking. I'd let them sit for a year, but my cider doesn't stay around long once I start drinking it. Some people turn ciders around and drink in 3-4 weeks, but I don't use any chemicals and don't like the taste of the young ciders I make.
Everyone's taste is different, maybe young cider would be ok for you.
If you don't have much lead time, you can add frozen concentrate to the finished beer to get apple flavor. There are numerous apple ale and "Graff" recipes available, check them out and see how they came out.
I would also experiment with walnut extract so you can get the exact walnut flavor you want.
For a wedding, you want it to come out right, so I'd make a small batch, make some changes on small batch #2, then make a larger batch for the wedding if you are happy with it. Get friends and family to try out the test batches and get feedback on changes.

 

[mattbeer]

Thanks for the reply. I was thinking about just making a cider. I had a feeling that the apple would fall out due to the boil and yeast. Back to the drawing board.

 

[mattbeer]

I have about a month until the wedding.

 

[bernardsmith]

Brandon O has a great recipe for what he called Graff which is a mix of beer and cider. He uses DME rather than all grain and the ratio of beer to cider is (if I recall correctly, 1 to 4). The recipe solves the problem of heating apple juice (and so setting pectins) and IMO you could change ratios and change ingredients while still producing a very drinkable brew.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f81/graf...-cider-117117/

 

[madscientist451]

With a month to go to the wedding, I'd say brew a beer ASAP and blend in some frozen apple concentrate and walnut extract for flavor right before serving so the yeast doesn't kick off again. You could use apple juice, but that could water down your ABV. New glarus makes an apple beer using brown ale as a base. I'd use a base beer with low hops and neutral yeast impact. Have 6-10 12 oz beer samples and add different amounts of walnut and apple concentrate and see what combination works best.

 

[Bosh]

Yeah with just a month sneaking in some apple concentrate right before serving sounds wise.

 

[hunter_le five]

Brandon O has a great recipe for what he called Graff which is a mix of beer and cider. He uses DME rather than all grain and the ratio of beer to cider is (if I recall correctly, 1 to 4). The recipe solves the problem of heating apple juice (and so setting pectins) and IMO you could change ratios and change ingredients while still producing a very drinkable brew.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f81/graf...-cider-117117/

+1 I've made this recipe a few times, and it's pretty damn good.