Graff (Malty, slightly hopped cider)

[Miraculix]

Throughout the thread, only a couple of people have added flaked oats or oatmeal to their rendition.
Asking for general "in a recipe" advice. Not necessarily this recipe.
How, at what point, or how much/gal would one incorporate oatmeal for some frothy head retention and what possible issues, from using it, would I need to watch out for?

Oats do not increase head retention. After a certain threshold, they even decrease head retention.

More on oats: A Case for Brewing With Oats - Scott Janish

 

[JordanfromOK]

Oats do not increase head retention. After a certain threshold, they even decrease head retention.

More on oats: A Case for Brewing With Oats - Scott Janish

Ohhhh. Ok. I couldn't find much on the subject. Thanks.

 

[cmac62]

Oats do not increase head retention. After a certain threshold, they even decrease head retention.

More on oats: A Case for Brewing With Oats - Scott Janish

Thanks Miraculix, that was a great read. Very informative. I may have to get some oat groats and give it a try at say 20% in a stout or something.

 

[cmac62]

I remember hearing flaked barley can increase head retention, but I don't know why or how. LOL

 

[Miraculix]

I remember hearing flaked barley can increase head retention, but I don't know why or how. LOL

During the malting process, proteins are broken down, which are still present within the flaked barley. These should theoretically increase head retention. However, I couldn't confirm this personally, based on my limited experience. Wheat and wheat malt seems to work. Also chit malt should work, but I never tried it on my own.

 

[Miraculix]

Ohhhh. Ok. I couldn't find much on the subject. Thanks.

I had a times when I included ten percent oats per default in every beer, because of this article. I ran some test batches with and without oats in parallel and oats really increased yeast health and fermentation speed significantly. Then I started hunting an reoccurring off flavor and ditched the oats and never picked them back up again. The off flavour was obviously not related to them. Next brew, they might be included again .

 

[JordanfromOK]

Thanks Miraculix, that was a great read. Very informative. I may have to get some oat groats and give it a try at say 20% in a stout or something.

What are groats?

I remember hearing flaked barley can increase head retention, but I don't know why or how. LOL

What kind of flavor would barley add to a cider though?

 

[cmac62]

I believe groats are unprocessed, ie, not rolled. they are usually cut as steal cut oats or Scottish oats.

 

[rgregoryirving]

It's been awhile since I've made this recipe.

I'm already planning to brew this week for Christmas and I was curious if anyone has ever just scaled up a normal homebrew batch and used 1 gallon as the wort component in graff. The batch of beer I'm going to make falls within the hop guidelines as far as bitterness is concerned. The beer is below, with a post boil volume of 6.25 to allow me to steal 1 gallon into a separate fermenter for the graff.

Mash additions:
80.9% 2 row
8% Crystal 80L
.9% Black Malt
.9% Special B

Hop additions:
.9 oz of Cascade (6.8%) at 60 min

Flameout:
2 Cinnamon sticks
1oz ginger
.5 oz orange peel

Thoughts? I'm happy to post back an update too. Currently hoping to brew on Thursday night.

 

[AntDoctor]

It's been awhile since I've made this recipe.

I'm already planning to brew this week for Christmas and I was curious if anyone has ever just scaled up a normal homebrew batch and used 1 gallon as the wort component in graff. The batch of beer I'm going to make falls within the hop guidelines as far as bitterness is concerned. The beer is below, with a post boil volume of 6.25 to allow me to steal 1 gallon into a separate fermenter for the graff.
...

Thoughts? I'm happy to post back an update too. Currently hoping to brew on Thursday night.

Interesting! I recently did the opposite: I made a beer with extra apple juice and some of the "second runnings" (soaking the pulp in water and re-pressing). So far it smells INCREDIBLE, especially compared to my nasty-ass-smelling ciders that are brewing alongside it. So I'm hopeful!

 

[FromZwolle]

i've made so many gallons of graff. play around with the recipe all you want, they all end up pretty tasty!

i find the store-bought juice always needs a little juice concentrate to offset the tartness, but that's easy enough if you keg.

 

[Ronald C Gregory]

So I'm looking to make a batch with Apple Cider over Apple Juice. I have 2 gallons of cider already and was looking for a 3-4 gallon batch. Can go either all grain or extract for the ale side. Would just over 1 gallon of wort be the right ratio for this recipe. I can add Irish moss to the wort for some extra clearing of the brew. and is there anything else I should watch out for? was trying to read through but with 80+ pages it was just easier to ask

 

[cmac62]

So I'm looking to make a batch with Apple Cider over Apple Juice. I have 2 gallons of cider already and was looking for a 3-4 gallon batch. Can go either all grain or extract for the ale side. Would just over 1 gallon of wort be the right ratio for this recipe. I can add Irish moss to the wort for some extra clearing of the brew. and is there anything else I should watch out for? was trying to read through but with 80+ pages it was just easier to ask

Ron, it really depends on what you want to stand out. I've made this only once, and I think I did a 50/50 split, but if you want the cider to stand out maybe 1 gal of wort would be a good starting point. Cider is pretty mild flavor so I wouldn't do too may hops, but some for sure. Also, I would stabilize and back sweeten with frozen AJ at packaging for more apple flavor. Good luck.

 

[Ronald C Gregory]

Ron, it really depends on what you want to stand out. I've made this only once, and I think I did a 50/50 split, but if you want the cider to stand out maybe 1 gal of wort would be a good starting point. Cider is pretty mild flavor so I wouldn't do too may hops, but some for sure. Also, I would stabilize and back sweeten with frozen AJ at packaging for more apple flavor. Good luck.

Ended up with more Fresh cider then expected. So I did a 3 gallon mash and had just over 2 gallons after boil. going to back sweeten with Cider once its done fermenting. Currently fermenting nicely should be done with primary this weekend. I plan on racking to a secondary and lowering the temp slightly as we are getting a nice cold streak were I'm at. Since my keg isn't empty for my Kolsch that's ready to bottle/Keg I will be putting this in a keg in a few weeks and carbonating it in there. I'm thinking mid December it should be ready to go

 

[cpd520]

Brewed it primarily for the wife. She doesn't like cider that is too tart. What has everyone found to be a good backend sweetening to take care of a little of the tart.
Just put my first batch in the fermenter. Can't wait to try this.

 

[Cruiser78]

Hi everyone, Newbie here!
I brewed this recipe up last night and it is bubbling away. But it has an inch of sediment at the bottom of the carboy that looks like the DME. I followed the recipe to a T and was wondering if I need to try and shake the hell out of it or just leave it be?
Thanks

 

[Rish]

Did you check your OG? If the sediment is DME, you're OG should read lower than expected. Giving it a good shake at this point won't hurt it but the yeast will find the DME and take care of it if you don't.

 

[Cruiser78]

Did you check your OG? If the sediment is DME, you're OG should read lower than expected. Giving it a good shake at this point won't hurt it but the yeast will find the DME and take care of it if you don't.

Thanks Rish, I didn’t check the OG. I had company coming over for dinner and I was rushing to try to get everything together and I forgot (I know better). It must have been the DME because I did shake it and the yeast ate it up pretty quick. Thanks again!

 

[Cruiser78]

I’ve made some wines in the past but never anything like this. Two weeks old today and it’s delicious!!!

 

[Dangeruss]

Brewed a batch did 1 1/2 gallons water of pm w/ .5lb 80L, 3oz rye, 3oz honey malt and 1 oz cara pils. w/ dme light and amber used 12 grams of northdown hops and pitched us-05

 

[Dangeruss]

I would highly recommend adding the rye malt in here. it gives it a nice element hard to describe but falls in the line of anise/fennel/licorice note. I've added fennel seed in a vodka tincture before and that's what it reminds me of but doesn't have the aroma of fennel.

 

[Beer666]

I am planning on doing a small 8 liter batch. 4 liters of water and 400g of light spraymalt + 4 liters of cloudy apple juice. I can get the clear stuff but its from concentrate. Aiming for 10 IBU with saaz and Lalemand New England yeast. My question is can i add pectolase into thye juice bottles 24 hours before i start fermentation or can i add it at the start? I know the juice wont clear on its own as i have made vinegar from it. Should i add protofloc to the spraymalt as well?

 

[Dangeruss]

doing another batch this time doing 1oz of chocalate malt, .5 80L, 4 oz flaked maize and 3oz of rye, 1# amber and light dme

 

[inanium]

A few weeks ago my wife mentioned going to a local cidery and having brewed in the distant past this got me thinking it was time to restart the hobby. I've long had issues with ciders giving me hangovers before even finishing the drink and I attributed this to poor yeast nutrition resulting in congeners and side-products. I decided to try adding some malt, of course thinking I was doing something new(despite knowing that in brewing, there is definitely nothing new under the sun) and a few internet searches later, here I am.

So now I'm on day 5 of a 5 gallon batch of Kirkland AJ, 1lb CBW Golden Light DME, 1 gal H2O, 2.2g Fermaid O, 1 packet of Lalbrew Nottingham and a bag of kirkland mixed berries. Temp is sitting at the high end, around 69F-71F. So far it smells amazing. The plan is to keg it, dry hopping half with a yet-to-be-chosen hop.

Fermentation was quite vigorous for 3 days and has finally slowed to a steady rate. I expected Nottingham to work a bit faster but I think it is finding more sugars as the berries' cell walls break down. Normally I'd let this sit on the yeast for a couple of weeks after primary fermentation but I haven't done much cider or wine before(only some pomegranate wine and a batch of cider a looong time ago). If I want to preserve more of the fruity/berry notes, should I keg and refrigerate the graf sooner vs later? I am worried that sitting at 70F for a couple of weeks will let some of those volatile aromas dissipate. I'm going to keg into a 2.5 mini-corny and some 2L bottles so that I can fit it into an unconverted fridge and might see some conditioning take place there I suppose. Any advice?