Crazy idea

OK, so I had this crazy idea a while back: brew a beer, substituting apple cider for ALL the water. It was an idea that just wouldn’t leave me alone, and so, after stumbling across the Wampus Cat recipe from “Doin’ The Most” on YouTube, I decided to go for it. I modified the recipe a bit, and this is what it ended up looking like (5 gallon batch size):

Grain bill:
1 lb honey malt
6 oz Special B

Honey:
4.5 lbs clover honey
1.5 lbs buckwheat honey

Cider:
5 gallons fresh apple cider

Hops:
1.5 oz Centennial (60 min)
1.5 oz Calypso (5 min)

Yeast:
Kveik Lutra

OG: 1.090
FG (After primary): 1.010

Racked into secondary and added 1 lb of buckwheat honey

FG: 1.013
ABV: 10.11%

This was an experiment. Honestly, it’d been a long time since I’d made beer, and the last time I did, it was with an extract. This was my first all-grain brew, and my first time doing a mash (even a small one like this) AND BIAB. But, the result was really good. Surprisingly good, actually. Nice, crisp appley flavor, that goes in like a cider, tricks you into thinking it’s a light mead going down, then whispers, "Beer"on the light, hoppy exhale. It’s an interesting experience, but I have to say, I was disappointed with it. Why?

Well…It’s too much of a cider. I know: surprise surprise, right?

After doing a LOT of studying, I realized that what I was hoping for was a LOT more beer character. Specifically, I wanted a strong, malty flavor and a LOT more hops bitterness to balance out all that cider. On top of it, I wanted a bit more of the honey character to come through - ESPECIALLY that buckwheat honey which is really…well, it’s an astounding honey. Very molasses-like, strong, and DARK. I find it delicious.

So. I’m going to brew it again. Because, of course I am. But, this time, I’m making some changes.

First of all, my grain bill is going to be that of an American Robust Porter. We’re looking at 12.5 lbs of grain this time, rather than the measley 1.6 I put in last time. However, I do NOT want the coffee and chocolate and burnt notes that come from the dark roasted malts that go into a porter, so I’ll be substituting those with Special B and Crystal 120. Haven’t quite nailed down the percentages yet, but I REALLY want those caramel and toffee notes, which should go well with the cider, instead of the burnt, coffee, and chocolate notes, which I think will clash. Also, I want a substantial bready/biscuity note to it, so I’ve got to figure that out. I’m pretty sure that getting rid of the dark malts takes me straight out of porter territory into…God only knows what, because who’s ever heard of a porter without dark malts? But hey: this whole thing is experimental, so…

Incidentally, if you’ve ever heard of a porter without dark malts, let me know, because now I’m thinking I might just brew that to see how it is.

For hops, I think I’m going to go with 2 oz of American Goldings (60 min), then 1.5 oz of Goldings (30 min), and 1.5 oz American Fuggles at flameout (I’ll let it sit for 60 - 90 min while the beer cools).

Finally, I’ll use a full 6 lbs of buckwheat honey in the primary fermentation. That will give this beer a nice buckwheat honey funk, and the color should make up for the absence of dark malts.

I fully expect OG on this thing to approach 1.100, and maybe higher, so I’m going to add quite a bit of yeast nutrient up front, and I’m going to stick with the Kveik Lutra, because I liked how it worked out on the last one, and I don’t want much yeast character in the beer. I want all of the flavor to come from the ingredients.

My only real concern is that, even with the nutrient, the yeast might not be able to make it through all of that sugar. If that’s the case after a couple weeks, I’ll rack it into secondary and add more yeast. Even then, I don’t expect this to ferment to 1.000, and I really don’t want it to. I’ll be quite happy with 1.010 - 1.015. I DO want some of that residual sweetness to carry through. ABV will hopefully be somewhere in the 11% - 12% range, so firmly in barley wine territory.

And that’s the other thing: I don’t even know what this beverage is. Is it a barley wine? A beer? A cyser? A mead? A graff? Who knows? I don’t think such a thing has ever existed before. If you know what this is, I’d LOVE to hear it, because I don’t.

Anyway, that’s my plan. I’ll probably start on it next week. Thoughts? Is this crazy? Genius? Stupid?

Wow that is definitely outside of my realm of experience as I have neither brewed mead nor apple cider. What pH did you finally wind up with in your first batch? I suspect the apple cider pH was less than 5 perhaps considerably less. If it is less than 5 I can not understand how your mash would be effective since alpha and beta amylase are reported not work below pH of 5.0. If so, you may wind up with a lot of unfermentable sugars and/or a lot of starches. If it does not taste right, try a graff How to Make Graf: A Cider-Beer Hybrid - American Homebrewers Association

Disclaimer-hundreds of years ago, an engineer mathematically proved that large flying machines were impossible. I could be as wrong as the engineer was. Good luck and keep pushing the envelope.

Well it will be something. There is a brewery near me that makes alot of wonderful experimentals. They mostly do it by blending. They often use mead, cider or wine. Better way to control the outcome. I’ve made graff before and cyser before.

By the way what your making is a braggot i think

Brewcat does anyone mash with apple cider rather than water? I cant see how the mash would work with the low pH of cider but I could be wrong.

I’ve fermented alot of Apple Joose… but I’ve never bothered to check the pH…
Just seems to be redundant to mash with sugar-d hot liquor… You’d think… the barley would suck up some of the sugar and not give it back…
I haven’t a clue about Buckwheat honey…
Honeys are full of fermentables… and you won’t get any flavor from the USUAL honeys…
Honey malt will help add honey flavor…
Well… the Kviek yeasts seem to be unstoppable… so it may finish low…
OK… I’m done rambling… I’ll await yer results…
Sneezles61

Well i dont think it makes sense to mash with apple juice. What would work is to reduce by boiling the cider down to a syrup. Then add ot to the boil. Id ditch the honey then

I did a beer wine/hybrid like this replacing a lot of the water with grape juice. It turned out pretty well. If you are going to add all that honey I’m not sure I would bother with the apple juice. Also the looks like a long aging process might be needed to round all of this out and in that case your 5 min addition will be lost in aging

Or add apple concentrate toward the end or visa versa add malt extract to the juice.

Ive also made mead and then racked it onto the leftover crushed apple cider pulp for a secondary. You could do that and blend it back into the beer if your set on the honey.

I think you might be on to something here. A quick search indicates that the pH runs from 3-4.5 which is going to cause problems, IMHO. Not many enzymes will be active at that range. You could use extract but then you wouldn’t be mashing with cider.

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On the end everything is possible. But this case i would skip the honey. And add the cider at the end of the boil. Indeed if you add it to the mash. It might turn into a thick substance during the boil

That’s what I thought at first, but then I realized, a braggot is what happens when beer and mead play together. A cyser is what happens when cider and mead play together. But THIS…This is what happens when braggot and cyser play together. I don’t know WHAT that’s called.

I didn’t check the ph of the cider before making this. As I said, it was my first all-grain brew, and I honestly didn’t know to check the ph. The recipe I based this on didn’t check the ph either, but that’s because he was using water instead of cider as his base. Now I know that I need to check, and probably adjust, the ph, and I’ll be doing that on this version of the recipe. Apple cider has a ph between 3.5 and 4, so definitely lower (higher?) Than the 5ish I it should be for a proper mash. I’m still trying to figure out what additive I’ll need to adjust the ph. I know that that ph makes the cider slightly acidic, but I’m not sure what to add, and how much, to bring it into proper mashing range. But…it HAS occurred to me that part of the reason that this last go was less “Beer” than I wanted was that my ph was way off, so I didn’t get as much fermentables out of the grain as I would have if I’d used water.

Good point on the 5 min addition. Perhaps a late dry hopping?

That’s a good point. One possibility I’ve considered is doing a normal mash and boil, then adding chilled apple cider to rapidly drop the temperature to pitching range. That would avoid a sticky boil, as well as the ph problems. I’d just have to adjust the amount of strike water to accommodate the later cider addition.

But I’m keeping the honey guys. I really want that super high ABV and the honey taste. I actually had to go back and recalculate my ABV, because I forgot to account for the pound of honey I added going into secondary. Actual ABV of this is 14.7%. BUT IT DOESN’T TASTE LIKE IT! It’s crazy, but delicious.

So…here’s another question: if I’m going to do just a normal (water) mash with my grains, can I accommodate 12.5 lbs of grain in 2.5 - 3 gallons of water? I’m thinking no, but I haven’t tried yet. Can anyone answer that?

Dry hop and 5min are aroma additions. You won’t be able to keep aroma around with this so if you want more than the 60 min bitter I’d go with a flavor (15-20min) addition. IMO I don’t think you are going to get a honey flavor, you’ll get a mead flavor perhaps dank and musty. I’m not really a fan of mead and haven’t made one that tasted good earlier than 3 years of aging. So take my opinion about honey with a grain of salt

That is another reason not to mash with the juice. You are adding enough stuff without adjusting the pH with chalk. The dark grains are working against you as well because they lower pH as well. Many of the sugars your going to get from the mash won’t be fermentable by beer yeast. Maybe if you secondary with Brett they will eat them. I really think this brew would work better with extract.

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Your new plan of adding cider to beer is no different whether you go all grain or extract. In regards to your question on whether the grain will ‘fit’ in 3 gals- maybe. At 1:1 your looking at 3.125gals of strike water. You might be able to go a little lower, say 1:0.75 but that’s going to be really thick.
If you want honey taste stick with your honey malt. Honey is completely fermentable. Keep it in for your ABV but make sure you stick to honey malt.

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