Graff (Malty, slightly hopped cider)

[Chaos_Being]

My graff is in the primary. I ended up not using any honey malt, as I thought it would draw the taste too far away from "cider." I did, however, boil down the 1lb of light DME until it was a nice caramelized syrup while I was steeping the crystal malt, and then added that to the main pot with the amber DME for the 30 minute boil. I'm hoping that may lend to a somewhat sweeter end-product, and if not, I'll consider using lactose.

 

[HalfPint]

My graff is in the primary. I ended up not using any honey malt, as I thought it would draw the taste too far away from "cider." I did, however, boil down the 1lb of light DME until it was a nice caramelized syrup while I was steeping the crystal malt, and then added that to the main pot with the amber DME for the 30 minute boil. I'm hoping that may lend to a somewhat sweeter end-product, and if not, I'll consider using lactose.

I think that may work b/c caramelizing that wort creates much more unfermentable sugars than doing a standard dme boil. Also, I'm not sure if you've brewed this stuff before, but if you haven't, this stuff is much sweeter than say Ed's Apfelwein b/c your using a standard ale yeast rather than a wine yeast that will drop the gravity down much more. I wouldn't back sweeten, but if you want more of a mouthful, lactose may do it for you. I find this to be thicker on the palate than Apfelwein, but still thinner than a beer of the same gravity due to the lack of proteins in the apple juice.

 

[Chaos_Being]

I haven't brewed this exact recpie before, but I've tried to do something similar before, twice - https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/caramel-apple-cider-61257/ I think ultimately both of my attempts at "caramel apple cider" turned sour and undrinkable because I steeped the grains, but did not boil the resulting wort (since I was steeping in juice.) I tried adding caramelized DME on my second attempt for exactly the same reason- to hopefully leave more unfermented sugars- and I think it may have worked. At least, I could discern a carmelly background before the sour nasty taste hit

I'm hoping that this time, my boiling the aftermath of the steeped grains, the addition again of caramelized malt, and my use of a higher quality juice without added asorbic acid will result in a less tart product. I liked the idea of using a little bit of hops to balance it out too...I'm definitely impatiently waiting for the end result

 

[jim4065]

I'm sure this question has been asked many times before - but it's just too hard to wade through 70 pages right now. Apfelwein can be fermented with almost no headspace - maybe because of the wine yeast? Is this Graff the same or should I ferment 5 gallons in a 6 gallon carboy?

Side note: what's a "Graff"? I can't find the word in the Wiki or my dictionary.

 

[Daddymem]

She can ferment pretty vigorously. Last one was 5 gallons in 6 gallon Better Bottle and it still needed a blowoff-that was Nottingham.

I believe the name came from Stephen King's Dark Tower.

 

[hroth521]

I've got a great thick mat of stuff that appeared on top of my graff within 24 hours of initiating fermentation (presoaked the nottingham yeast in 2 -3 cups cider). Should I just leave it alone, break it up, skim it off?

Thanks

 

[Rowdy]

just leave it its called krausen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krausen
it is good sign

 

[hroth521]

just leave it its called krausen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krausen
it is good sign

Thanks. I'll leave it alone. I brewed a few extract brews about 20 years ago and am now exploring ciders. This "graff" is kind of a hybrid and steeping grains is kind of new for me.

 

[hilohwn]

All my fermentors are being used and was wondering who made a one gallon batch, using what recipe and the results..
thanks..
oh yeah i'm sure someone posted, but i read through 20pages and didn't find it.

 

[jcobbs]

All my fermentors are being used and was wondering who made a one gallon batch, using what recipe and the results..
thanks..
oh yeah i'm sure someone posted, but i read through 20pages and didn't find it.

Back when I first started homebrewing, I put a pound of extra light DME in a gallon of apple juice and pitched a pack of ale yeast (no hops). That's pretty much stretching the definition of graff, but it sure made a tasty brew!

 

[Rage]

Went down to the local homebrewing store to get the stuff for this, last night. They weren't carrying any Amber DME, so I ended up getting two pounds of the light DME instead. Should this work relatively well, or should I wait a week or two to get the Amber?

 

[Lunarpancake]

My graff has been "aging" in the refrigerator for a total of 3 months now and I tasted yesterday, boy has the flavor changed!! This stuff went from tart and over-hopped to exactly what I would want a beer/cider hybrid drink to taste like.

 

[hilohwn]

Went down to the local homebrewing store to get the stuff for this, last night. They weren't carrying any Amber DME, so I ended up getting two pounds of the light DME instead. Should this work relatively well, or should I wait a week or two to get the Amber?

It'll be perfectly fine..

 

[Rage]

Well, just made my first five gallons of Graff. Ended up using two pounds of light DME, and apart from that, I only made one other error. Boiled it for 60 minutes instead of 30. I'm not sure how I managed to do that, but we'll see how the batch turns out.

*crosses fingers*

 

[paint_it_black]

Well, just made my first five gallons of Graff. Ended up using two pounds of light DME, and apart from that, I only made one other error. Boiled it for 60 minutes instead of 30. I'm not sure how I managed to do that, but we'll see how the batch turns out.

*crosses fingers*

Hey! Bham??! That's where I'm from. Only moved down to Vancouver in September. Nice to see I'm not the only 'Hamster round here

 

[Rage]

Yep! Moved up here a couple years ago to attend WWU, though whenever I end up graduating I'll definitely be sticking around for a while. Might move down to Portland or Hilsboro in a few years though.

 

[gicts]

I brewed it as the recipe said to this morning. The wart smelt so delicious I felt awfully weird adding the apple juice. I can't wait to give it a try!

I've got a little leftovers, maybe I'll make a beer from the wheat and crystal. Hmmm..

 

[Daddymem]

I wanted to try some commercial cider and ran into Woodchuck Oak Aged and figured I'd give it a shot. This isn't about rating that cider, but the oak flavor did lend itself well with the apple. Think I might throw some chips on a gallon the next batch I do. Anyone try oaking their graff?

 

[gicts]

I wanted to try some commercial cider and ran into Woodchuck Oak Aged and figured I'd give it a shot. This isn't about rating that cider, but the oak flavor did lend itself well with the apple. Think I might throw some chips on a gallon the next batch I do. Anyone try oaking their graff?

Hmmmm. I haven't tried that, but I may give a smoked extract a shot

 

[shmoab]

Just made my batch. I followed it to a T. I used apple juice from a health foods store. It cost a considerable amount more but they came in 1 gal jugs, so that help me justify the expense. It is fermenting like nothing I have made before. Smells great too.

 

[Stuntman]

12-01-09 was brew day on this one. Today I had 4 bottles left (2 months 2 days later).

After drinking half a bottle, I had to post, this gets so much better with age. I now have apple smell, perfect sweet on top of tongue, with sour on sides of tongue. After taste reminds me of the old Jolly Rancher Green Apple hard candy.

This is a refreshingly fruity very enjoyable drink. I had to give some away as I was literally losing time, whenever I drank too much of it in one sitting.

I attribute it to the fact that it goes down like a beer, screws with your brain like a wine! My SWMBO is so forgiving.

I sure am glad I had these four bottles left. Will definitely do a batch and sit on them for 2 months before cracking the first one.


Thanks Brandon O.

 

[psychedelic_brew]

^^^ posts like this make me very hopeful.

i've been so busy w/ school these last couple weeks I haven't even paid attention to my graff. I think it will end up in primary for a little over a month. part of me wants to get started on something else, part of me wants to age this longer, and part of me asks wtf are you doin, you should be in class!

 

[mrgreen4242]

Well I brewed a batch of Graff (first brew other than a couple gallons of cider right in the gallon jug) on 1/28. Popped it open today (8 days later) to do a hydro reading and make sure it was closing in on the FG. Had some trouble getting a good reading (think I need to get a little test cylinder to go with my hydro and thief) but it looked to be not much over 1.002-1.003. So another 6 or sven days then I suppose I will bottle it up.

Drank the hydro sample... lots of apple flavor. A little watery. Distinct hops aftertaste. Looking forward to see what this is like in a month or two!

 

[barnettcb]

Picking up ingredients for this today. Going with Danstar Nottingham yeast, Willamette pellet hops, and Crystal 90 (figured I would split the difference between the two suggestions). Looking forward to the results!

 

[jldesign]

has anyone used the coopers 7g yeast packs (that come with their kits?) i have 2-3 laying around....any thoughts? anyone try these? mostly thoughts on taste i think its a clean yeast.

thanks i did a search but found nothing

 

[hellbender]

I've brewed several batches of Apfelwein. For low cost and simplicity it's hard to beat. It is an acquired taste though and I wanted to try a cider which might have more immediate and uiversal appeal. I found this recipe interesting and brewed up my first batch 4 days ago. I stuck with the original recipe. I cooled the wort before pitching Notty. I added a half of a whirlfloc tab during the boil.

Fermentation started withing the first 8 hours and is substantially over after 4 days. I had a day or so of "rhino farts". A sniff of the airlock now reveals a clean apply aroma. The krausen dropped nicely. The cider has a muddy water appearance right now. It reminds me of a honey-wheat I brewed last year. I plan on leaving it in the primary for 10-14 days and letting it clear in a secondary for a week or so before bottling. I will post my impressions when I crack the first one. Thanks Brandon for the recipe.

 

[wscott823]

Alright everybody, I'm planning on heavily tweaking the recipe. I've seen others on the forum use graff as a style, so I'm intending on doing this with a heavier portion of beer blend. I really desired more maltiness out of this the first go round, the apple flavor was well in balance, but definitely wanted more beer characteristic.

My intention to achieve strong malt character is to build the recipe on a bock beer. My blend will probably be 2:3 ratio of beer to cider. From this batch I'll probably set aside a portion of the fermented product to experiment with a sort of EisGraff. To avoid hijacking this thread I've started a new thread to document my findings.

Munich Graff/EisGraff

 

[Chaos_Being]

I just checked my Graff at the 3 week mark- I'm at 1.008. The hydro sample was promising...nice apple aroma, apple taste at first, then a little malty, followed by a bit of an acidic bite (but not nearly as bad as my other malted cider attempts.) So long as the SG doesn't change in the next few days, I'll rush this one into bottles and then forget about it for a while.

 

[289tiger]

Getting ready to do my first batch of cider and had a few questions:
-To use apple juice or cider. Which works best?
-How much hops? The recipe says .5 ounce 6AAUs. Is that a total of 6 AAU's in the batch or .5 ounce of 6AAU hops?
-Should I bag or strain out the hops before putting it in the primary?

Thanks in advance!

 

[smokinghole]

Brewing up my third batch today. Only change to the recipe is my .5oz hops I have left are Hallertau from making a Belgian Wit. So I'll use em up.

Also right now I have one bottle of each my previous recipes poured. One with Motts brewed back in the beginning of December, the other with Costo 100% juice not from concentrate nothing added. I have to say the better juice makes a MUCH better drink. The Motts juice has well more than a month of conditioning on it and it is way tart compared to the smooth tastes with slight hop bite from the Costco brand juice.

 

[eelpout]

well after looking at this thread for months, I finally have one in primary.

 

[jm_brewer]

Mine's currently close to 1 week of fermentation, the smell started to become nicer again. first day and a half not much airlock activity but the third and fourth day the smell was somewhat over powering. I can't wait to taste this!

~JM

 

[rocketcrab]

has anyone used the coopers 7g yeast packs (that come with their kits?) i have 2-3 laying around....any thoughts? anyone try these? mostly thoughts on taste i think its a clean yeast.

thanks i did a search but found nothing

Good question. I have a ton of those things in the beer refrig. Hate to throw them away! If I can use them in some graff, I'd be a happy camper, cuz graff is next on my cider list.

 

[Semo]

Ive bought all the ingredients minus the juice. Anyone in North Carolina that's tried the original recipe? Tree top isn't available in my area, so whats the best option regarding juice?

I love the commercial hard ciders and would be awesome to find a recipe that I like as much.

 

[Semo]

another question....I am new so bare with me..

Since your boiling a gallon of water for an hour or so, how much water would be decent to start with to end up with a gallon...any safe recommendations?

 

[rexbanner]

another question....I am new so bare with me..

Since your boiling a gallon of water for an hour or so, how much water would be decent to start with to end up with a gallon...any safe recommendations?

Just add water to the boil as necessary. The surface area of your boil is different than mine, so I couldn't tell you. You can calculate it, but I don't bother. 15 minutes of boiling is needed for sterilization, but I used to just pour distilled water into my wort back when I did partial boils.

This recipe seems really intriguing to me. I've brewed apfelwein with cotes and splenda and I've always been pleased with the results: a 12% abv drink that doesn't taste like **** and is cheap as hell.

I'm a little hesitant to try adding crystal and hops. I like spritzy light cider, and I don't want to spend extra cash.

I was thinking I'd try using light LME and see how that goes. Maybe amber lme. What are your all's thoughts on wyeast 3068 by the way?

 

[Stuntman]

another question....I am new so bare with me..

Since your boiling a gallon of water for an hour or so, how much water would be decent to start with to end up with a gallon...any safe recommendations?

I would just start with the gallon and add a little to the previous mark on the boiler, make sure that all gets boiled at least fifteen minutes. On the juice....a previous thread stated to get any juice that is no additives I believe. Make sure to read the first three pages or so to make sure. I noticed the last few bottles were the best! I did ten gallons, three went at a party. So My house, just with friends comming over, we drank seven gallons of it. Different for sure, very drinkable, and I did loose time I can't account for when drinking more than 6 pints or so. So beware.

 

[Recluse]

You can make up some volume if you use additional sparge water for the crystal as well. OF course this is pre-boil, so you still have to guesstimate.

@rexbanner: I made this without any hops and it turned out great. Took awhile to condition so it tasted more like a Cider than a beer, but I really like it. I also like Apfelwein and at first I ranked it way above Graff, but once the Graff conditioned for a month or two, it was a pleasure no matter which bottle I opened!

 

[jm_brewer]

I put mine into a keg earlier, so with this being my first homebrew I'm rather nervous. I've liked the taste in every stage especially the brewing of the wort but after the fermentation it seems to taste like larger to me. Is it normal for it to taste bitter and like a larger? Probably sound paranoid, i've been told it'll mellow out but just curious.

Thanks

 

[Stuntman]

I put mine into a keg earlier, so with this being my first homebrew I'm rather nervous. I've liked the taste in every stage especially the brewing of the wort but after the fermentation it seems to taste like larger to me. Is it normal for it to taste bitter and like a larger? Probably sound paranoid, i've been told it'll mellow out but just curious.

Thanks

Keep brewing, this Graff gets sooo much better with age. I had used (the one time I made it) too many IBU's in my hops. It settled down and really was smooth after two months, just the perfect apple aftertaste. I will be making more of this one and getting the IBU's right next time.:rockin: