Maple Brew Suggestions

I'm new here, so please pardon me if I've posted this in the wrong section.

I'm a novice brewer and I just recently opened the first of my 10 growlers of maple ale (well, the last I bottled, so it was short of half a gallon). I've only got a primary fermenter, using growlers for the secondary phase, and it's only been a week since bottling, so I didn't set my expectations too high, but my main question runs thusly: The beer has a beautiful reddish color with little sediment, but there are two issues. 1st, it's a little flat without much head. Second (and most important of all), it's not toooo sweet for my tastes, but I certainly wouldn't want it any sweet, and unfortunately it isn't mapley enough for my tastes. So 1) will allowing more time for conditioning increase the head/carbonation; and 2) (most importantly) Any ideas on how I can make the beer have more maple flavor without significantly increasing the sweetness? As it stands, the beer has a sort of generic sweetness (think honey oat, etc...) with a bit of that distinct "maple flavor." Any other suggestions would be well appreciated.

The recipe calls for:

Grains:
1 lb Vienna
8 oz Belgian Caravienne
1 oz Belgian Special B

Extracts:
5 lb Light malt extract
1 pint Maple Syrup (I used only the finest pure Grade B Vermont maple syrup)

Hops:
1 oz Willamette/60 min
1 oz Styrian Goldings/5 min

Other (all for the last 5 min of boil):
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Ginger
1/2 tsp Nutmeg

In my experiences, it's really hard to get a sugar to shine through at the end. From what i've read on honey, and I would bet this transfers to syrup. Don't boil it, add it as late as possible, and possibly to the primary after fermentation has started to get the most of the flavor.

The other possibility is to kill the yeast add the syrup and force carbonate.

More syrup. I think I have seen it suggested that a gallon of B is recommended $$$$
Or if you or know someone makes syrup try getting some C grade. They are not supposed to sell it as I understand it so you don't ever see it for sale.

Even then maple is very hard thing to get the flavor of coming through. Other things you can try are priming with maple which will give you some character. The hard part about that is knowing how much to use as the syrup varies in sugar content.

Another thing you can try, and I plan on doing this myself, is collect about 10 gallons (or more) of sap and boil it down to about 5 for a 5 gallon batch and use it in place of water. By reducing it you get some sweetness but not total syrup. Take a gravity reading of the sap after reducing and then figure your grain or extract amount from there.

An interesting book to read (though I would take some of the information presented with a grain of salt) is "Beers and wines of Old New England" by Sanborn Conner Brown. I am assuming by your username you are in VT? You can get a copy of it from one of the regional libraries in VT.

Thanks for the suggestions! Yes, I am in Vermont, and I love your idea for using sap, but can you get it anywhere this time of year? Or do you have to wait until spring?

FatheadVT said:

Thanks for the suggestions! Yes, I am in Vermont, and I love your idea for using sap, but can you get it anywhere this time of year? Or do you have to wait until spring?

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No, you will need to wait until sugaring season.
At any rate your probably better of using syrup for this exercise.