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Cristin

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I was wondering if anyone had tried to do a mead like brew using maple syrup instead of honey.

If anyone has any thoughts, please let me know. I'm really interested.
 
I made one a year ago that turned out amazing, unforunately I let my airlock go dry during aging and it oxidized on me. It was probably the best batch of hooch I have made so far. This is what I did

1g
3lbs pure maple syrup
16 bags chamomile tea
Montrochet yeast
O.g. 1.080
F.g. 1.018
Put everything into a spring water (using the water too) jug minus one pound of syrup, add last pound at 1.000 and rack when clear. Then rack when needed.
 
Still aging. Mead made with maple instead of honey is called an acerglyn.
 
oldmate said:
Still aging. Mead made with maple instead of honey is called an acerglyn.

If if i'm not mistaken, acerglyn is made with honey as well. It might be just a maple wine. Or maybe we could throw out some ideas on what to call it!
 
i have 5 gallons of aceryglyn bulk aging right now that at last tasting was on the verge of greatness, but was still too yeasty to really know the final outcome.

when i was doing my calculations i found that maple syrup doesn't have enough sugar to do a straight acergyn without using a little honey to help fermentation. ended up using 1 gallon of maple syrup plus 6 lbs of wildflower honey. you also need to add a little more fermaid and DAP than usual.

i find that the maple really plays in the finish and aftertaste but the initial taste is more honey/meady. my understanding now is that the maple sugar is more easily digested by the yeast so gets used up before the honey sugars, so if i do a repeat of this, I'd probably put half of the maple in at the start of fermentation and half in as a later addition maybe one or two weeks in.

I also added three vanilla beans to the party for a subtle vanilla note that i think helps bring out more of the maple.

as to your question, use the mead calculator at gotmead to calculate out how much maple you would need for a straight maple wine, it's probably going to be close to 1.5 gallons of the stuff, and let us know how it comes out!

on that note, has anyone tried making an acerglyn out of birch syrup? in my mind a birchy/wintergreen mead (think birchbeer) would be pretty awesome.

happy brewing!
- Jones
 
when i was doing my calculations i found that maple syrup doesn't have enough sugar to do a straight acergyn without using a little honey to help fermentation.

Well, that's not really the case. I have done a few maple wines (To me it must have honey to be an Acerglyn) 1.5 gal of maple and water up to 5 gal gives you an SG around 1.100.

Honey is around 78% sugar, Maple is (by law here in VT) 66.9% sugar. So, not the same, but pretty darn close.

I guess it doesn't hurt that I get my Maple for free from a co-worker.

The maple only wines are nice, I like to back sweeten them with maple to get more maple flavor from them. I personally prefer an Acerglyn tho, I think the honey really adds to the flavor profile.

SpamDog
 
Thanks all for your replies. It was mostly an academic question because right now I can't afford the 5-6 lbs of maple syrup that I would need to actually brew it. But it is a future project.

However I plan on starting a maple porter this weekend and i'll let everyone know how it turns out in the porter forums
 
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