Amazing Graf

So for those that don't know Graf if a fictional drink described in Stephen King's Dark Tower series of books. There's not a ton of detail about the drink in the book only that it is a specialty drink of Mid-World where orchards are plentiful. It's described as a strong apple beer.

Graf

Many people have made versions of this drink including a couple local breweries and cideries in my area. The owner of one such cidery dropped in to our homebrew club meeting last night and brought an very interesting version of a Graf that I thought was amazing. I've heard of people making beer and cider and blending them for Graf but this is the first time I'd heard of anyone substituting cider for all the water to make a beer, good idea really. What made this Graf unique is that it tasted just like a beer with a slightly tart finish.

I didn't get his exact recipe but this is the information I gathered from our conversation.

ABV: 8.9%
Water: 100% Apple Cider
Recipe Type: Extract w/ a portion of wheat extract- I feel this is key, I'm not sure you could get a mash to convert starches using cider in place of water.
Yeast: Hefeweizen

So the Hefe yeast worked exceptionally well in this beer/cider. When I make a wheat beer it tends to attenuate to 1.002 but this beer had more body. This seems strange when you consider most ciders ferment out to .999 depending on the yeast used.

The books warn to take it easy with Graf as it is a strong apple beer, I think 8.9% abv qualifies for this warning so if you make it beware, it's a deceptively easy beer to drink! You would never know it was nearly 9%.

Belgian Pale & Hefeweizen

It's been awhile since my last post, mostly because the weather in my neck of the woods has gotten so nice and the honey-do-list is in full effect. That hasn't stopped me from brewing though. I still managed to fit in several brews in the last couple of months which I'll use for the next couple of posts.

My homebrew club  signed up for club night at this year's NHC (HomebrewCon) in Baltimore (look for the SLAM booth - Western Theme) but there are only four of us going so I felt the need to bring quite a few beers plus fill my own kegerator. I received a bonus day off from work when my fencing contractor called and said he needed to see the yard and the plans so I used the opportunity for a double brew day.

The first beer was 11 gallons of a Belgian Pale Ale I made up on the fly. It's about 70% pilsner, 20% munich, 5% caramunich and 5% crystal 60. I bittered with Warrior and flavored with saaz hops. There is also bitter orange peel, coriander and grains of paradise to Belgianize the beer :). I used White Labs WLP550 Belgian Ale which I've used several times and absolutely love.

The second beer was another 11 gallons of a German Hefeweizen that I've brewed before. The recipe is the same but I swapped the Safale Hefe yeast out for White Labs WLP 300 which is supposed to have more banana characteristics. I'm not competing with this beer so rather than balance I wanted it to stand out a bit more. I also added coriander and orange peel to this beer only I bagged it after clogging the kettle valve on the Belgian Pale ;-).

These beers are currently fermenting and both Hefe fermentors exploded on me. One was a bucket and the lid blew clean off. The other oozed all over my hardwood floor. Ahhh the price we pay for good beer.