Adding Maple Syrup to Brown Ale Recipe

Hi, all. I'm a newbie to the forum and a newbie to homebrewing. Got some hand-me-down equipment and made my first two batches of IPA in the last month. Now I'm giving a brown ale a try. I bought a kit at a local brewery. The recipe is as follows:

5 lbs light dry malt
1 lb. crystal malt
1/3 lb chocolate malt
1/2 lb. flaked barley
1.5 oz kent goldings
1 oz. kent goldings
Wyeast 1098
3/4 cup priming sugar
OG 1.048-1.053
FG 1.010-1.015

I'd like to add some maple flavor to this brown and was considering adding 32 oz of grade B maple syrup into the fermenting bucket before adding the wort. I've read several threads that touch on the maple syrup addition, but still have a little nervousness about it.

I definitely don't think I'm experienced enough to use it for priming. Sort of feel the same way about doing it prior to secondary. I'm concerned if I put it in the boiling wort it will lose too much taste. So, I decided to add it in with the primary.

So, all that said, what should I expect re: OG and FG? ABV? Will the beer need to ferment for a longer period of time? Do I need to pastuerize the maple syrup or can I pour it into the bucket directly from the package?

Any thoughts would be much appreciated. This forum is great.

I have a great nut brown recipe that is typically very nutty, malty and delicious. I decided to try and improve on a good thing and at 1# of maple syrup to the primary fermenter......it dryed my nut brown out and completely killed the body of the beer without adding much flavor. IMO, maple syrup will just dry out the beer.....maybe try to find some maple extract and add at bottling.

Thanks. I'm going to give it a shot tonight. Hopefully, I'll have better luck...I'm planning to let it sit in the primary for an extra week or two (depending on my ability to be patient).

My second beer was a brown ale with 64oz of maple syrup added. Holy crap, it was not what I expected. The OG was 1.078, with a FG of 1.011. The maple was so strong that it had this slightly gaggy roundness to it, kinda like eating too much melon at one sitting. However, after a year of aging, the weirdness of it has dropped out to make an interesting stout-like brown ale. Certainly deserves the title of "Imperial."

If you haven't made this already, I'd recommend 16oz as a starting point. OR, you may just have to do some serious aging.

Lemme guess, you read (like I did) in Papazian's book how he recommends at least a gallon but oh how that hurt$? I remember being a new brewer and thinking, "Holy crap, I can ferment ANYTHING!!!!! Let's put everything in beer!!!!!"