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G'day fellow brewers,

Been meaning to brew with maple syrup for some time now and finally have a recipe made up that i'll be brewing in the near future that will be a Maple Pecan Porter. I had a theory of how to to utilize the most maple aroma and flavor without having it all being fermented, dry and flavorless and want some input on the idea, so here it is. I was thinking of cold crashing the beer for about a week after fermentation, not to clarify the ale, but to drop as much yeast as i can so after it's done i can rack it into my keg with the maple syrup and throw it in the kegerator to prevent any fermentation of the maple syrup. Do you guys think that doing this will still ferment the maple at all, a little or even fully? Any other techniques or advice on using maple would be much appreciated as well. Btw i'll be using 8oz of maple. Cheers!

Jonah

If the maple syrup is added at serving temps it will not ferment. The downside is that you'll have all of the sweetness, so adjust your recipe accordingly so as to not be cloying. I would recommend playing around with a similar known recipe, adding small amounts of maple syrup to a glass, and using this to decide on recipe formulation for your maple beer.

Here's a link with professional brewers talking about their experiences adding syrup to the serving tank: http://discussions.probrewer.com/showth ... aple-Syrup" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Doing rough math (double check it!) from the link above, i.e., 2.5 gallons in 7 bbl being too sweet, 8 oz in 5 gallons is likely overkill.

There's a few threads around here discussing the use of maple syrup. I think the consensus was that it ended up being almost undetectable flavour wise most of the time. A number of guys used fenugreek to get the maple flavour and saved the syrup for other uses.

If you don't want the syrup fermented, just put a teaspoon in your glass before pouring beer into it...

With wine you add potassium sorbate to stop all fermation, don't see why this wouldn't work for beer

Thanks Jason, that link was good help. That brewers happy medium of 2.25 gallons of maple syrup for his 7bbl ends up being 196ml for a 5 Gallon batch. I'll try 200ml and I'll let you know how it went

Hey Jonah, let me know how you make out with this. I've been contemplating a Maple beer for the last six months and finally decided to pick up a 6gal all-grain Cream Ale recipe from Everwood tonight. Dave mentioned checking out Acadian Maple in Upper Tantallon for a darker syrup. Wasn't sure what amount to use, but based on your last post, I'll probably put in around 250ml directly to my keg. Dave also mentioned that it would be best to cold crash the keg prior to the syrup to kill off any existing yeast.

Good luck with the brew!

Just a warning, that cold crash will make the yeast dormant and stop them from fermenting the syrup, and obviously that's fine too if you are keeping it in the keg and drafting pints all the way - but if you ever bottle off of that keg be prepared for bombs unless you bottle pasteurize afterwards to actually kill the yeast before they wake up.

Thanks Mitch, good to know. I'll keep it in the keg!

Torpedo Brewing wrote:G'day fellow brewers,

Been meaning to brew with maple syrup for some time now and finally have a recipe made up that i'll be brewing in the near future that will be a Maple Pecan Porter. I had a theory of how to to utilize the most maple aroma and flavor without having it all being fermented, dry and flavorless and want some input on the idea, so here it is. I was thinking of cold crashing the beer for about a week after fermentation, not to clarify the ale, but to drop as much yeast as i can so after it's done i can rack it into my keg with the maple syrup and throw it in the kegerator to prevent any fermentation of the maple syrup. Do you guys think that doing this will still ferment the maple at all, a little or even fully? Any other techniques or advice on using maple would be much appreciated as well. Btw i'll be using 8oz of maple. Cheers!

Jonah

Hey Jonah, I was wondering how this turned out? I was thinking of trying something similar with Keith's English Brown recipe, hopefully I don't butcher it, it seems pretty popular.

Scott

jeffsmith wrote:There's a few threads around here discussing the use of maple syrup. I think the consensus was that it ended up being almost undetectable flavour wise most of the time. A number of guys used fenugreek to get the maple flavour and saved the syrup for other uses.

Definitely use fenugreek for sure. I haven't done a maple, but a good buddy of mine banged out a Maple Saison, and in very small doses the fenugreek will totally get you there.

Anybody have any feedback from these recipes? Either using the maple syrup or fenugreek? I'm looking at trying a Maple Pecan Brown Ale (BIAB) in the future - so wondering what the best way to go is?
So far, consensus sounds like:
- cold crash keg to make yeast dormant before adding maple or fenugreek directly to keg,
- DO NOT bottle off keg
- if using maple syrup, add approx 200 - 250 mL / 5 G (how'd this end up in those recipes?)

Also when brewing with nuts (insert joke here), do most add nuts to mash / during boil / or to primary - post fermentation?