My Thoughts While Brewing Graff

[SeamusMac]

Tonight was the night, for Graff that is. This was to be my first experience with specialty grains, which is where I ran into some trouble. I set the grains in a muslin bag and suspended them in a pot of warm water, which I proceeded to heat to 150*F. Even though I was watching them I over-shot my temperature mark and they got steeped as high as 175*F, which was eventually brought back down to 150*F over about 10 minutes off the heat. I finished off my steep at 150*F... I used Northern Brewer for my hops, slightly less than 6% AA at 5.7% AA. I funneled the wort into my better bottle full of cider, which had been hit with campden tablets 24 hrs. prior to adding the wort. I pitched Nottingham straight into the carboy and airlocked it. Some of the sanitizing solution I put in the airlock got sucked into the carboy as I moved it into a cooler room... feck... I doubt it'll have any effect on those robust yeasties though.

Lessons learned include:
- let your steeping water reach the desired temperature before adding the grains, and make sure it's stable at that temperature.
- use tinfoil over the mouth of the carboy for the first couple of days.

Specifics:
- Cider SG 1.046
- Cider + wort SG 1.056
- Hops Northern Brewer
- Estimated FG 1.008
- Estimated 6.3% ABV

DELICIOUS

 

[armorshell]

Bottling mine tomorrow, will report back with taste notes

 

[SeamusMac]

I'd really appreciate that armorshell. The guys at the LHBS were really intrigued by the recipe and I couldn't tell them much about it as I've never had anything quite like graff. It'll be a very long 5 weeks for me before I can try the stuff!

 

[Brandon O]

did you change anything up or is it stock? 2lbs DME and all?

 

[SeamusMac]

I made a half-volume batch, only because I don't have a pot large enough to do a full volume boil. Other than that everything was the same. I'm at about 24 hours after pitching the yeast and I'm not seeing any evidence of fermentation as of yet, which leads me to my next lesson learnt.

- Properly re-hydrate the yeast (if recommended by manufacturer) and use the damn tinfoil so you don't leak sanitization solution into the carboy and consequentially retard the fermentation process...

 

[Brandon O]

you don't have a pot big enough for one gallon boil?

I love my 16 gallon pot, works great.

 

[SeamusMac]

I'm spending a few weeks at the parent's house and they don't have anything big enough to do the full 5 gallon batch. Also carrying 8L of cider on my back during a 1 hour motorcycle journey way enough for me I had hoped for a higher SG, although the gravity readings I took we not at 60*F so I would have to adjust them and my SG may be higher.

 

[bob1852]

I'm spending a few weeks at the parent's house and they don't have anything big enough to do the full 5 gallon batch.

wait, the "full boil" for Graff is only 1 gallon - you don't boil the apple juice

p.s. I just ordered the ingredients to make this. Thanks for the recipe Brandon!

 

[Shooter]

I'm anxious to try mine, I'm bottling weekend after next. My brother, on this site as yeastluvr, already has his in the bottles and is moving on to a second batch. This recipe is proving to be popular. All I know is, I've never tasted a hydro sample so delicious. I can't wait to sample my first ice cold and carbed bottle of this stuff!!!

 

[yeastluvr]

I just started batch #2 two days ago. I'm doing 2 1/2 gallon batches and added 1 lb hopped DME so I didn't add any extra hops. With my first batch I steeped the grain "my first time at steeping grain" and didn't crush it up....it was whole. Well, after talking with SHOOTER who is a grain guru.....I crushed it this time and after steeping looks like I got a lot more goodies out of the grain. My first batch has another week or two before its ready to test out......I'm getting antsy though.....I almost took a sample to taste today after day two in the fermentor. Damn this stuff is tasty right after mixing up.

Maybe a Graff soda????

 

[Brandon O]

I'm spending a few weeks at the parent's house and they don't have anything big enough to do the full 5 gallon batch. Also carrying 8L of cider on my back during a 1 hour motorcycle journey way enough for me I had hoped for a higher SG, although the gravity readings I took we not at 60*F so I would have to adjust them and my SG may be higher.

Holy Jesus, on the back of a motorcycle? THAT is dedication.

 

[Brandon O]

wait, the "full boil" for Graff is only 1 gallon - you don't boil the apple juice

p.s. I just ordered the ingredients to make this. Thanks for the recipe Brandon!

Dude, you are gonna love this cider. It's really good. I am kegging a batch today in which I substituted 1 gallon of blueberry juice for one gallon of apple juice.

I left out the hops, didn't think it would help the blueberry.

also, blueberry juice is pricey.

 

[Brandon O]

heres a pic of it.

 

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Holy Jesus, on the back of a motorcycle? THAT is dedication.

OK... this thread rules. Prost!

 

[SeamusMac]

Holy Jesus, on the back of a motorcycle? THAT is dedication.

Once the graff is done I'm sure it'll be worth hauling the cider all that way! The blueberry graff looks fantastic. I checked out a 500mL bottle of blueberry juice, which would be appropriate for adding to my next batch and it was about $11.30 CDN, YIKES. I'm thinking that'll be something I'm going to have to hold off on.

Thinking back to my brewing process and wondering why I didn't achieve a high enough SG to get the 9%ish ABV that I thought I would I soon realized that all of my ingredients were halved EXCEPT for the .75 gallon of water and .25 gallon of sparge water, DOH! I brewed the stuff from 12am-2am after working a 10 hour day in the warehouse, what else could one expect? Oh well, I'll have slightly watered down graff with an ABV that is low enough for me to drink a 650mL with dinner ha ha ha.

The upside to this is that I now have an excuse to brew a true to form half-batch of Graff with .375 gallon of water and .125 gallon of sparge water, which is much easier to measure in metric

Update: After about 36 hours there is constant airlock action taking place. It seemed to be slow to start but I believe that was because I'm using a better bottle for something that's only 3 gallons, so there is a lot of head space to fill. It smells fantastic, I must have spent 2 or 3 minutes just sniffing the airlock ha ha.

 

[Brandon O]

I think it ends up being about 8% or so. I have yet to take hydro readings, I'm going to make a batch tonight I believe and I'll make sure and check it out.

 

[SeamusMac]

I think it ends up being about 8% or so. I have yet to take hydro readings, I'm going to make a batch tonight I believe and I'll make sure and check it out.

Great, I look forward to hearing what the SG should be on a proper batch of Graff.

 

[Shooter]

I believe SG on my batch was 1.066. So, probably somewhere either side of 1.070 is close.

 

[yeastluvr]

My last batch was a bit shy of 8% PA. Using Nottinghams yeast on the first batch got it down to 1.006 so its probably going to be around 7-7.5% if it stays close to the first batch.

PS...that cat looks like its already knocked back a few

 

[SeamusMac]

I was expecting some krausen form the Graff, similar to what a person might see on beer but there has been no such activity. Perhaps it's just off to a slow start because I didn't re-hydrate the yeast although I have never had a problem pitching dry yeast as is in the past. It's definitely fermenting, just not very aggressively. I'm going to take a hydro reading this evening and see how it has come along during it's first 96 hours under the air lock.

 

[bob1852]

I was expecting some krausen form the Graff, similar to what a person might see on beer but there has been no such activity. Perhaps it's just off to a slow start because I didn't re-hydrate the yeast although I have never had a problem pitching dry yeast as is in the past. It's definitely fermenting, just not very aggressively. I'm going to take a hydro reading this evening and see how it has come along during it's first 96 hours under the air lock.

I wonder if it's slow because of the nutrient load? Wort has so much nitrogen and other stuff that yeast need, whereas things like wines and meads don't. I'm wondering where apple juice fits in the mix?

 

[SeamusMac]

I wonder if it's slow because of the nutrient load? Wort has so much nitrogen and other stuff that yeast need, whereas things like wines and meads don't. I'm wondering where apple juice fits in the mix?

Adding yeast nutrients to the next batch is certainly something worth trying. Although I have brewed hard cider before using only yeast and apple juice, which resulted in a small but respectable krausen from Wyeast 3068.

My gravity is now at 1.050 from 1.056 after 4.5 days... I'm going to re-pitch tomorrow afternoon unless anyone else has an idea?

 

[Brandon O]

did you aerate everything?

I find that helps a lot.

 

[yeastluvr]

After two batches I've had Krausen on both of them. I did aerate both, although the second batch I forgot and had to shake up the fermenter after adding the yeast and closing it up. By 24 hours I had plenty of light brown foam on top. Both batches have slowed significantly by day 4, I've never had to add any nutrient.

 

[Brandon O]

I've also never had to use nutrient.

 

[SeamusMac]

Last night I performed a little experiment to determine whether or not my brew was indeed regularly fermentable. By that I mean that there wasn't anything that might hinder but not altogether halt fermentation (sulphates perhaps?). The cider was labeled as non-pasteurized and without preservatives but who really knows... I pitched a tsp. of bread yeast into a cup of my brew that I had siphoned form the main carboy.

It went from 1.050 to 1.022 in less than 24 hours. I aerated the hell out of the sample I took and after only dropping 0.006 gravity points I think that re-aerating is alright. Time to re-aerate and re-pitch it seems!

 

[Brandon O]

sounds like you found the solution.

be sure to sanitize the hell out of everything, it would be a shame to come this far and have an infection.

 

[SeamusMac]

sounds like you found the solution.

be sure to sanitize the hell out of everything, it would be a shame to come this far and have an infection.

I'd say! I'll aerate it and re-pitch some rehydrated Nottingham tonight, by the time I get home tomorrow around 10pm I'll know for sure if it has worked.

 

[SeamusMac]

Success! My Graff is bubbling away happily. There really isn't any krausen although there is a bubbly layer of activate fermentation on top of the brew. I'm going to test the gravity 2 weeks from today.

 

[Brandon O]

glad to hear it. brewing a batch myself tonight