Graff: substitute ingredients?

[muench1]

You mentioned how it was "not particularly malty," but there's nothing you included that'd give you malt flavor. The oats do convert like others malts somewhat but do not provide maltiness. I loved to see a picture of it too.

I didn't say it wasn't malty. I don't even know how I'd identify a particularly malty flavor, it's just kind of its own taste. Prior to bottling at least, it was definitely in between cider and beer. It didn't taste like any cider I've ever had, but had a noticeable beerlike flavor. I suspect some time in bottles will change the character quite a bit.

The big takeaway message for me in this is that I can use those oats without my girlfriend reacting- YMMV. I really should do some single-variable testing to see just what each contributes.

 

[bpm2000]

Finally got around to making this - wort is cooling as we speak.


.5 lbs dark candi sugar
4gal Treetop apple juice
1gal water
2 lbs sorghum syrup
nottingham yeast
saaz pellets
black tea
yeast nutrients

Will report once drinking.

Sorry for sucking at life and never updating this one everyone.

Here it is after 6 months. That glass was just barely carb'd, but I tend to force most of the carb I want through the tapadraft these days.

First things first, it is definitely not a weak drink! All that extra sugar and fermentables, I guess. I didn't measure gravity or any of that.

It started a little on the warm side, and that with the addition of all the sugars made it pretty gross when it was just finished. Super hot, almost medicinal, just not something I wanted to drink. I bottled three tapadrafts and a couple of 12ozers and left it alone for a while.

month 1 - undrinkable.

month 3 - starting to get better. Apple flavor started coming back on the finish, and the hotness subsiding. The medicinal taste still lingers but is quaffable at this point. Still a little "rough" around the edges.

month 6 - where we stand now. I just had this glass yesterday and was really surprised how much apple flavor there was on the back end. Made me wish I used some nicer juice rather than treetop. I can taste a little sweet/malty? note from either the sorghum or the candi sugar, and it colored up the juice nicely. It's a bit darker than the pic shows with all that sunlight lighting it up. I can't detect the hops at much or at all if I know what I'm talking about (which is highly possible I don't!) but there is a nice bitter/throaty taste component as well. It's pretty nicely balanced right now and tastes like a "beery cider" although neither really much like a cider or beer as well.

When I make this again I might hop it a little more, use better juice, and make sure the fermenting temps are under control.

 

[muench1]

BPM2000, that sounds really odd that it's that hot and cough-syrupy. My apple wine (made with just treetop juice and treetop concentrate) is in secondary right now, it's pretty dry and I'm pretty sure it's higher gravity than your graff, and while it was a bit raw after a lengthy primary it was still all right.

Did you control or monitor your fermentation temperature?

Also are you able to identify the saaz and black tea? I was originally going to use some black tea and other a few other things to aim for a spiced holiday apple wine, but I got lazy and just decided to leave it alone.

 

[bpm2000]

Nah I'm pretty sure its the fermenting temp too - I've done apfelwein with the same juice and had the same experience as you. Also did a cider with S05 that started out with a similar medicine taste due to high fermenting temps. IIRC I had to do this one in a different room due to space issues and paid the price.

I've come to appreciate the tannic note the black tea can give since I've been using it in the graham's english cider in so many batches (seems to help with the thin dryness of the treetop fermented out) but like I said the saaz however I am not really sure if I can tell. I feel it must be contributing to the bitter/bite to some degree but I also am aware saaz isn't the most bittering hop in the world. Just not experience enough with hops to say with much confidence there I'm afraid.

 

[thanantos]

Anybody else have some Graff experiments/results to report?

As I sit here drinking an Angry Orchard cider (very nice BTW) and contemplate/research how to make a good, sweet, carbed cider I am thinking this might work better than a pure cider.

It helps that I have the ingredients laying around for a light GF ale including some hops that would work nicely with a Graff (fuggle, golding, etc.) a jar of BRS and a bag of RSS.

Hmmmm, might be off to the grocery store tomorrow for juice.

 

[thanantos]

Well, I'll throw my hat in the ring here as I brewed this today:

1lb Rice syrup solids
22oz. bottle of Lundberg's brown rice syrup
3/4lb of Bries Sorghum syrup (about 3/4lb...I just poured a little out of the 3.3lb jar)
2/3oz of Fuggle hops (4.7AA)
4 gallons of cheap azz apple juice
Nottingham Yeast

The wort is cooling in the freezer right now. I'll update this when it's ready.

OG ended up 1.062
I will give it two weeks and bottle it up.

 

[thanantos]

Bottling day update.

I tried this when I did my first hydrometer reading about a week after brewing and it was not good at all. It had some really sharp alcohol flavors and very little apple flavor. I was afraid it was going to go the way of my other failed cider attempts.

However, I bottled this last night and I have to say it was actually pretty darn good now. The apple flavor comes through nicely. It was pretty dry so I added a cup of Splenda, but that's personal preference.

I'll post back once it is carbed up with a review.

P.S. FG was 1.006 and it is VERY cloudy. If I did it again I would use a secondary.

 

[thanantos]

Well, the Graff is carbed up nicely now and it is pretty darn good!

It still quite dry with an interesting flavor. Not too apply, but there is some apple flavor still there.
I think I might try adding some apple extract in the bottling bucket next time, but I will be brewing this again tomorrow!

In fact, I think I will try adding maybe a gallon of blueberry juice if I can find it. I think the tartness of blueberries or raspberries would go really well with this recipe.

 

[thanantos]

I brewed essentially the thing again, but I added 1lb of crushed blueberries to the primary, and I have a 5lb bag I intend to add in secondary.

I also picked up some apple extract. I'm going to try adding that during bottling.

 

[thanantos]

Racking this to the keg now. Very dry, kind of flavor less. Here's the color though:



I intend to backsweeten with this after a cold crash in the keg:



I didn't get much from all those blueberries except color. Next time I may just try making cider from that blueberry concentrate I bought.

 

[Safa]

I read over in this thread:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/results-juice-yeast-sugar-experiments-83060/

That the guy stops fermentation around 1.010 because all of the fruit juices are 100% fermentable.

This is exactly what happened with my cider, not a lot of flavour at all. So I think next time I try this I'm going to try and stop it with a cold crash a little early and see how it goes. If it works I'll give it a bash with some fresh fruit, but if not I'll just keep backsweetening because I know it works!

 

[platipuss]

Just curious if anyone else tried this, or if the original owner has tried it again. Did anyone try to add any hops? I know it is an old thread but figured other had to have found this too.

% LB OZ
76% 4 0 Oats, Malted (Thomas Fawcett)
19% 1 0 Golden Naked Oats
05% 0 4 Oats, Flaked

White Labs English Cider (love the stuff!)

Mashed and boiled down to 1 gallon. Combined with 4 gallons of quality organic unfiltered pasteurized apple juice (mostly because the fancy juice costs an extra dollar but comes with a great 1 gallon jug).

? days primary
? days secondary
(Will update these when I have my notebook handy)

Bottled today and primed with honey. When I sampled it this morning it was delicious: neither sweet nor tart, with lots of apple flavor and some beer-like flavor as well. No off-flavors or odd aftertaste at all. I would say it's an overall better (though obviously different) product than any commercially available cider I know of. My girlfriend (the gluten-sensitive one) had probably 2-3 oz, thought it was delicious and had no reaction at all.

I was a little when I put it into primary and so have no OG, and didn't bother with FG this morning. I can tell you that my juice was 1.045, for all the good that does you. My original projections were OG of 1.064 and FG of 1.010, but I highly doubt I was that efficient. I'm sure this will go pretty fast and I'll do my homework properly next time.