The grade of the maple syrup depends primarily on the color which is affected heavily by how budded the trees are when the sap was collected. Grade A syrups are very light color ranging from a straw color to dark amber. Grade B syrup is brown to dark brown. Grade C is usually only sold to food processors. I know there are other things affecting the grade so you will need to look it up.
My maple brown ale was made with 2 quarts of syrup. This syrup was also very fresh from a friend who makes his own. However there was an "accident" during the processing so the syrup was a little caramelized from over heating and there was some scorching. The syrup is quite dark but the flavor is like a light syrup with the addition of caramel. I plan to bottle it this week so i don't have any report on the results yet.
I pref. grade B on my pancackes - just enough woody caramelized taste. Grade A is too neutral. Never used it in a beer but I wonder if a little less of a lower grade ie Grade C would go a long way to contributing flavour without affecting SG too much with glucose.
TWO QUARTS?? wow!! I've never seen a recipe over 1/2 cup before LOL
Did you get that from a recipe??
Nope that was a guess by myself. The recipe I found for a maple brown used 1 quart of grade B and a recipe for a maple mead used 1/2 gallon. Since what I had was not grade B I decided to use the full 2 quarts I had on hand.
I'll update this thread with my initial tasting impressions after bottling, probably Thursday.
I pref. grade B on my pancackes - just enough woody caramelized taste. Grade A is too neutral. Never used it in a beer but I wonder if a little less of a lower grade ie Grade C would go a long way to contributing flavour without affecting SG too much with glucose.
+1, I agree completely! I really dislike the nomenclature, somehow I assumed "Grade A" to be the better product, of course until I tasted both. The "B" is much more flavorful.
Fresh Maple Syrup(???) -Tommy Knocker Maple Nut Brown
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