Monday, November 5, 2012

Graff - is it cider or is it beer?

I've tried my hand at making hard cider the past few years, but have never really hit on anything I've absolutely loved. So, when I read about "Brandon O's Graff" over at HBT I thought it would be cool to try out. This is something of a hybrid between cider and beer - I'm looking for a cider-like drink with more body and residual sweetness. Instead of using just malt extract and steeping some crystal malts like the original recipe, I decided I would brew up a small batch of amberish beer and add it to a couple gallons of local cider.

I had some leftover grain from my last batch (minus the crystal 120 and chocolate malt I added there), so I threw that into my small 2-gallon cooler that I used to use for doing partial mash batches, batch sparged, and collected about 2 gallons of combined runnings. I added some amber DME I had lying around and threw in some crystal hops and boiled for about 30 minutes. Once it was chilled I tossed it into the carboy and dumped in 2 gallons of fresh-pressed, pasteurized but preservative-free, cider. I had an old vial of Scottish ale yeast in the fridge and decided to forgo making a starter (since I didn't plan ahead like I should have) and just threw it in there. I was nervous about the viability of the culture, but fermentation has been chugging along nicely (hopefully it works ok).

I brewed this up while home with the kids during Hurricane Sandy and it was completely a spur of the moment endeavor. I rushed through everything, only paying attention to getting my mash temp somewhere in the 150s and calculating the hops so as not to exceed 5 IBUs. I have no idea what the original gravity ended up being, though I imagine it was close to 1.050. I'm excited about the potential this has, but really have no idea how it will end up.

Hurricane Graff
brewed on 10/29/12

Recipe Specifications
Batch Size: 3.5 gal
Estimated Color: 8.8 SRM
Estimated IBU: 5.0 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
OG: 1.050ish SG
FG: TBD
ABV: TBD

Grist - this is a complete extrapolation based on some leftover pre-mixed and crushed grain from a previous recipe
1 lb 5 oz Pale Malt - 53.0%
4.0 oz Pilsner Malt - 10.1%
2.0 oz Crystal 60 - 5.1%
2.0 oz Munich I - 5.1%
2.0 oz White Wheat Malt - 5.1%
0.3 oz Roasted Barley - 0.1%
0.3 oz Acidulated - 0.1% (for mash pH)
8.0 oz Amber Dry Extract - 20.2%

Hops
14 g Crystal[2.80 %] - 30 min

Misc
2 gallons of apple cider

Yeast
Edinburgh Scottish Ale (WLP028)

Mash Schedule
Single Infusion, 153ishºF, batch sparge



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