Maple Bourbon Vanilla Mead/Metheglen question

Working on an idea for this Maple Bourbon Vanilla recipe....

Thinking of replacing a portion of the honey in primary with a quality local maple syrup and for the bourbon vanilla flavors making a madagascar vanilla extract with the bourbon instead of vodka or other clear liquor.

maybe racking it onto some toasted or charred oak later for aging

it's still all in the concept phase of planning

My question is, and these are just random hypothetical quantities right now. If I add 1 cup per gallon of the bourbon/vanilla extract how would I factor that into figuring out what my final abv would be?

any assistance with the numbers, as well as any suggestions or tips from anyone that has tried something similar will be greatly appreciated

Not sure on the math on that but 1 cup per 5 gal should be fine. You can do the math if you wish. Figure mixing a solution of 35%-40% of 1 cup to about 14% (depending on yeast) for 5 gal or what ever your quantaty is and once you do the math you should know what about the ratio is.

I will say 1 cup per gallon of extract (even home made) is very potent. You should only need at most 1/2 cup extract for a galon of mead and that will be very potent.

I would find using bourbon for making extract to fine, may end up being very good in the flavor. I make extract with cheap white rum about 6 beans per cup. So you should be good.

As far as oaking it: I recomend using medium toasted oak, cubes or chips in the must's secondary for about a month, less for chips. Should add a good taste without over oaking it.

Matrix

Not sure exactly how strong you want the bourbon flavor to be, but I think using ratios like 'cups/gallon' might be a bit much. I'm actually thinking even less than Matrix...I do a couple of oaked beers, using bourbon soaked oak chips, and just adding the the soaked chips for a week or two gives a recognizable bourbon flavor. I think you will get plenty of bourbon flavor by using only an ounce or two to extract the vanilla, and adding that to the entire batch (assuming a 5-6 gal batch here....) (remember, you can always add more, but you can't take it out!) Sounds like a nice mead though, and a great recipe idea....

Thanks guys, like I said the numbers were just random for the purposes of explaining the idea, I have to get the bourbon and start making the extract, that'll take a little time so it'll be a month or two before this project actually comes together. I'll use that time to read the advice I get here which is great so far and put the final recipe together.

For now I am staring at a brand new pristine unopened bucket of possibilities aka a 60 pound bucket of orange blossom from dutch gold. Thinking first up will be a 3 gallon batch of traditional that I'll divvy up into 1 gallon flavored secondaries.

Another thing I thought of was about the maple...I just did a couple of versions of oatmeal stout using maple syrup. The first used one pound of maple syrup added after primary started to slow down -- there is little to no recognizable maple quality in this batch. The second only used a 1/2 pound during fermentation, but I used maple syrup as priming sugar. This still has very little maple flavor but it is more recognizable (with even less overall maple syrup addition) than the first batch.

The point being is that maple is a very difficult flavor to carry to the end simply using real syrup. For a mead, I might even consider stabilizing and backsweetening with maple syrup if I really wanted that quality to stand out.

One thing I have not (yet) tried is using Grade B syrup...this supposedly has a stronger maple flavor, and may actually be better for brewing than your more available Grade A syrup. FWIW, you can apparently get Grade B syrup from your friends at Dutch Gold.

Why can't I delete this double post I created somehow...oh well, will just add this random message...

hmmm, thanks for the heads up on the maple syrup, definetely want some of the maple to come through, have to figure out a strategy maybe add it in steps throughout the process, some primary, some secondary. I'm not big on extra chemicals for stabilizing, maybe a final late addition in the bulk aging after a few rackings.

TheBrewingMedic said:

hmmm, thanks for the heads up on the maple syrup, definetely want some of the maple to come through, have to figure out a strategy maybe add it in steps throughout the process, some primary, some secondary. I'm not big on extra chemicals for stabilizing, maybe a final late addition in the bulk aging after a few rackings.

Click to expand...

...even if you use a lower tolerance yeast that appears to have hit it's limit with your primary ferment, you might still run into the problem of restarting fermentation if you don't stabilize it...additionally, step additions can sometimes help a yeast push past it's "rated" tolerance. Either that or you'll accidentally end up with a stuck ferment. Also, I'd be afraid that you could eventually end up with a random bottle bomb. Unless you have some intolerance or allergy to sulfites, I've never found any downside to stabilizing with metabisulfate and sorbate, then backsweetening.

With my recent stout, it was surprising to me that the maple doesn't come through as well with the late additions.... I've always found in the past that later additions (end of primary) allowed the sugar flavors to come through...this definitely works for molasses in my bourbon oak vanilla porter. It just doesn't seem to work as well for maple, at least in additions of up to a pound as evidenced by my recent oatmeal stout.

I think the other possibility is that you simply need to overwhelm the process with more maple syrup, which you have an opportunity to try here that I really can't do with a stout...not sure how much honey you were willing to / wanting to replace, and how much towards an acerglyn you were thinking of. I might consider even up to 1/2 of the fermentables from maple syrup...perhaps that would be enough to get that flavor through.

I'm going to brew up my NJFB stout again one of these next few months, and I'm going to use the Grade B syrup, so I'll let you know how that hold up to the process compared to the Grade A when I do it.

sounds like this might be another good one to make in 1 gallon batches, I could make a few and see how each comes out.

1. 2# honey, 1#maple
2. 1.5# honey, 1.5# maple
3. 1# honey, 2# maple

think using a grade b maple syrup, then just a matter of determining how much of the bourbon vanilla extract to use in each, the rest of the recipe ie: nutrients, amount of water, yeast, rackings, amount of oak used later, temps will all be identical. This is shaping up to be a fun experiment. No matter what I will end up with three gallons of mead and thats never a bad thing, and way down the road decide which I like the best and develop that inter a larger scale batch.

so now, based on all conversion tables I've been able to find a pound of maple syrup is approx. 12 fl. oz., need to find myself about 54 ounces of syrup (luckily in north east US thats not to hard) and decide on the yeast, which I am leaning towards D-47, I've had good luck with it so far for other things.

Finally got some bourbon so the extract is in the making :rockin:

1. 2# honey, 1#maple
2. 1.5# honey, 1.5# maple
3. 1# honey, 2# maple

Click to expand...

Had another wild idea for a 4th gallon in this experiment...

4. 1.5# honey, 1.5# maple ....Bochet style

Finally got the maple syrup for this, got a great price from a vermont maple orchard on a half gallon of grade B. that gives me 64 fl oz (about 5 pounds worth) to play with.

The bourbon is nicely infused with vanilla, I've decided to soak some medium toast american oak cubes in it for about a week then rack onto them for 1-2 weeks down the line.

at the moment the recipe is looking like it will be a 5 gallon batch:

Primary:

4 pounds (~ 51 fl oz) of maple syrup
12 pounds of orange blossom honey
Nutrients for step feeding
water to 5 gallons
Lalvin D47

Should put me around an OG of 1.11 and right into the D47's happy zone around 14% abv

Secondary onto vanilla bourbon oak cubes fo 7-14 days, tasting every few days so that neither becomes too over powering.

Tertiary onto a final pound (~13 fl oz) of the maple syrup to boost the maple characteristics maybe give a hint more sweetness

let age there til crystal clear

Care to share your source (for the next time I do an acerglyn)?

Branon Family Maple Orchards

http://www.branonmaple.com/store/maple-products.html

$25 for a half gallon which is a little less than half of what I'd pay locally, there were a couple other places only that had it a dollar or two cheaper but their shipping costs were much less than anyone else and it was fast shipping, less than a week.