Hi everyone. I'm a relatively new brewer with about a half dozen successful brews under my belt. I'm planning on tinkering with a porter recipe kit to make a maple porter, and I've been scouring the Interwebs for advice on how to incorporate maple syrup in a way that will add a nice subtle maple flavor but won't dry out my beer too much.
I found this forum very shortly after I started brewing, and I often search through the forum archives if I have a question about something. I've never felt the need to start a new thread here, since every question I've had so far has already been asked and answered. And there are already a lot of maple syrup threads here. The problem I'm having is that the advice is not very consistent: some people say adding syrup to the boil dries out the beer without adding much or any maple flavor, while other people advise adding up to a gallon near the end of the boil. Some people say priming with maple syrup doesn't add any flavor, while others caution that priming with maple syrup will add too strong of a flavor. Some people say the way to go is adding the maple during secondary.
I realized that some of the responses I was reading were coming from people who hadn't brewed with maple syrup but were giving their best guess based on their experience and knowledge of brewing, and that that might be why I was finding so much conflicting information. So my question is: who here has brewed with maple syrup? How did you use it? How did it come out? I'm interested in hearing the details of your maple brew success stories, but I'm also interested to learn what you tried that didn't work.
Thanks in advance!
I found this forum very shortly after I started brewing, and I often search through the forum archives if I have a question about something. I've never felt the need to start a new thread here, since every question I've had so far has already been asked and answered. And there are already a lot of maple syrup threads here. The problem I'm having is that the advice is not very consistent: some people say adding syrup to the boil dries out the beer without adding much or any maple flavor, while other people advise adding up to a gallon near the end of the boil. Some people say priming with maple syrup doesn't add any flavor, while others caution that priming with maple syrup will add too strong of a flavor. Some people say the way to go is adding the maple during secondary.
I realized that some of the responses I was reading were coming from people who hadn't brewed with maple syrup but were giving their best guess based on their experience and knowledge of brewing, and that that might be why I was finding so much conflicting information. So my question is: who here has brewed with maple syrup? How did you use it? How did it come out? I'm interested in hearing the details of your maple brew success stories, but I'm also interested to learn what you tried that didn't work.
Thanks in advance!