Calculating Potential for Grade A Dark Amber Maple Syrup

Beer Smith tells me that the potential for Maple Syrup is 1.030, and that its dry yield fine grain is 65.20%. However, I doubt these values because Beer Smith doesn't make any distinction between the different grades of maple syrup. I have some grade A dark amber that I'd like to add to a breakfast stout that I have fermenting. The label says it has 53g of sugars (mostly sucrose according to the Wikipedia) per 1/4 cup.

Beer Smith also says that plain sucrose has a potential of 1.046 and a yield of 100%. My guess is that yield refers to the mass of ferment-ables per mass of product. Therefore, I think I can pretty easily calculate the yield of a specific grade of syrup with the information on its label and a scale (mass of sugars per serving/service size * volume of syrup/mass of volume of syrup).

I need help with the potential value though. I think it has to do with the ferment-ability of the product, but I don't know for sure. Can anyone help?

Not really about your potential here, but I'd recommend not using grade A syrup for fermenting. Grade B gives you a lot more tasty maple flavor (which is mostly tannic / woody, once you get rid of the sugars). For the extract level, you could always dissolve a small amount of the syrup in a fixed volume and measure the SG of the resultant mix.

The vast majority of the gravity-adding solids in your syrup will be fermentable. Pretty sure that it's mostly fermentables and water, with a few percent of this-and-that giving the maple-centric flavor. The rest is just water.

pfooti said:

Not really about your potential here, but I'd recommend not using grade A syrup for fermenting. Grade B gives you a lot more tasty maple flavor (which is mostly tannic / woody, once you get rid of the sugars).

Click to expand...

Sure, if I can find it.

For the extract level, you could always dissolve a small amount of the syrup in a fixed volume and measure the SG of the resultant mix.

Click to expand...

Extract level?

The vast majority of the gravity-adding solids in your syrup will be fermentable. Pretty sure that it's mostly fermentables and water, with a few percent of this-and-that giving the maple-centric flavor. The rest is just water.

Click to expand...

I thought about simply specifying the mass of sugar and a volume of water according to the amount of maple syrup I'd add, but I'd rather not kludge it if I don't have to.

UPDATE: I guess the sucrose content in the various grades of maple syrup are the same. I bought some grade B at Whole Foods yesterday, and it had the same amount per service as the grade A dark amber. I think Beer Smith might have it right. The change in ABV as calculate by Beer Smith is nearly the same no matter if I use 1.87 pounds of sugar--the contents of a quart of maple syrup--or 2.80 pounds of maple syrup, the weight of one quart of the stuff according to Wolfram Alpha.