BeerBorg

Apparently one of my uncles has an orchard now, so my mom brought me more granny smith apples than we could ever eat. I'm not really interested in going the cider route, as I am still figuring out beer making. No chemicals of any kind were sprayed on these babies.

I am thinking about this like the pumpkin beer I made. It will be difficult to get the apple flavor through, so I want to use apple pie spices to give the impression of apple pie flavor. This will be a LBK sized batch by the way. I am guessing this will need to condition for a while, that is okay.

So I have some questions:

Would roasting/caramelizing the apples carry through that flavor?
I would probably use extra light or pale UME for a base, but what should my malt/apple ratio be? I don't mind long conditioning here, Ideally this would be ready for next summer.
Steeping grains, crystal malt would help give me a caramel flavor, right?
If I wanted to add some apples after the primary fermentation slows down, would I need to blanch them to kill any bugs?
Would that kill their flavor?
Which hops would work best here(something neutral that stays out of the apple's way)?
Am I crazy?

Have you heard of Graff? Graff is a lightly hopped malted cider. It's mighty tasty, and is really easy to make. Due to unfermentable sugars from steeping grains and DME, it doesn't finish as dry as plain cider (usually around 1.010), and is ready to drink much quicker. You can definitely add some apple pie spice to it as well. Here's the recipe I used:

Graff (5-gal)

4 gallons apple juice
2# amber DME
0.5# Crystal 60L
2 oz Carapils
0.5 oz of Kent Goldings (or another low-alpha hop)
1 tsp yeast nutrient
Fermentis S-04 yeast

The process:
- Steep grains in 1 gallon of water @155F for 30 min
- Add DME, bring to boil
- Add hops, boil for 30 min
- Add yeast nutrient @5 min
- Cool wort and mix with apple juice
- Pitch a pack of rehydrated S-04

Ferment for 2-3 weeks in the mid-60s, then rack to secondary and leave until clear (optional), then bottle. Prime to about 2.5 vol of CO2.

Because the pumpkin had such a high water content I roasted them in the oven first and they did taste much sweeter so I think that if you bake the apples first they might have a sweeter flavor. I did get some good pumpkin flavor in a bottling day sample.

I used C-40, C-60 and Special B for toffee/caramel flavors in the Praline beer I did.

On the pie spices I would warn that that yeast was very sluggish in my pumpkin ale and I wonder if there were preservatives in the spices so you might consider adding them late just in case.

Granny Smiths are kind of tart aren't they? I could see two different beer styles here- one would be the apple pie/caramel/sweetish and another where you pair the tart apple with Amarillo or Cascade for a hoppy brew.

To add them to the fermenter I would make an apple sauce (mush) and heat to sterilize in a double boiler and cool in an ice bath that should not mess up the flavor.

One word of advice if you decide to cook the apples - make sure to add some pectic enzyme to your wort, otherwise you may get a pectin haze that will not clear.

Hey russki - I read that with cider id you bottle you need to heat pasteurize the bottles after they carb to mitigate the risk of bottle bombs.

Does the same apply to Graff?

ssorck wrote:Hey russki - I read that with cider id you bottle you need to heat pasteurize the bottles after they carb to mitigate the risk of bottle bombs.

Does the same apply to Graff?

No, it ferments out, leaving only unfermentable sugars. You prime and bottle just like you would with beer. It's not as sweet as commercial cider, but not dry. It's an interesting combination of apple and malt flavors.

Sounds good, I'll be giving this a shot.

add lactose for sweet.... and as far as an apple pie ale.. I wonder if the apple pie spice would do the trick for a wheat beer.

@Russki. I have this old can of the Bewitched Red sitting around that I've been trying to figure out what to do with. I believe that thing is around 12IBUs, and it's got a good bit of C60-C80 in it. 1.2#.

I'm thinking of just tossing that and 2 gallons of Apple Juice and nutrient into one of my LBKs with some S-04.

Should make a pretty decent Graff with hardly any effort I would think.

Any reason you can think of that it would not?

That might be my next easy mode brew.

mashani wrote:@Russki. I have this old can of the Bewitched Red sitting around that I've been trying to figure out what to do with. I believe that thing is around 12IBUs, and it's got a good bit of C60-C80 in it. 1.2#.

I'm thinking of just tossing that and 2 gallons of Apple Juice and nutrient into one of my LBKs with some S-04.

Should make a pretty decent Graff with hardly any effort I would think.

Any reason you can think of that it would not?

That might be my next easy mode brew.

I've not brewed the old Bewitched Red, but it sure sounds like a great base for a graff! Give it a try.