secretlevel
Well-Known Member
I have tried pretty much all of the methods to try to get maple flavor in my beers. I've done a maple as priming sugar, maple-aged oak staves, fenugreek seed beer, maple extract beer, maple in primary, maple in secondary, maple soup, maple gumbo... just kidding about the last two. You get the point, I'm the Bubba of the maple syrup beers.
To successfully add maple syrup, you'll need to make sure that the yeast aren't going to be able to ferment it. To do this, you'll need to either wait 3-6 months for the yeast to die out, OR use common brewing ingredients - potassium metabisulfite (Campden tablet) and potassium sorbate (winemaking aid). Here are the steps:
Fair warning, this process works well if you keg, or keg and then bottle. If you don't have kegging setup, the process is different, view the bottling procedure.
Base Beer/Recipe Tips:
Brew a beer a little drier then usual. My 10% adjunct stouts usually finish around 1.035 - 1.045, but in this case, I would allow them to ferment down to 1.015 - 1.025 by using US-05 as opposed to an English Ale yeast and mashing lower than usual.
A good trick is to also use some maple syrup during primary fermentation. Add 8oz (for 5 gallons) during primary fermentation to impart slight maple flavor and help dry the beer out and finish lower. Use Grade B or another darker syrup for beer, it has a much more saturated flavor that we usually associate with 'maple'.
I have my go-to recipe and more details in my blog - How to Brew with Maple Syrup.
To successfully add maple syrup, you'll need to make sure that the yeast aren't going to be able to ferment it. To do this, you'll need to either wait 3-6 months for the yeast to die out, OR use common brewing ingredients - potassium metabisulfite (Campden tablet) and potassium sorbate (winemaking aid). Here are the steps:
- Brew a beer, ferment it and let it reach its final gravity
- Cold crash if you can, then transfer into a secondary fermenter off the yeast cake and keep at room temp
- Crush up two whole Campden tablets (potassium metabisulfite) and add to the fermenter
- Add Potassium Sorbate - I used 2 grams/gallon
- Swirl the fermenter around to allow thorough mixing and allow 1-2 days before adding the syrup
Fair warning, this process works well if you keg, or keg and then bottle. If you don't have kegging setup, the process is different, view the bottling procedure.
Base Beer/Recipe Tips:
Brew a beer a little drier then usual. My 10% adjunct stouts usually finish around 1.035 - 1.045, but in this case, I would allow them to ferment down to 1.015 - 1.025 by using US-05 as opposed to an English Ale yeast and mashing lower than usual.
A good trick is to also use some maple syrup during primary fermentation. Add 8oz (for 5 gallons) during primary fermentation to impart slight maple flavor and help dry the beer out and finish lower. Use Grade B or another darker syrup for beer, it has a much more saturated flavor that we usually associate with 'maple'.
I have my go-to recipe and more details in my blog - How to Brew with Maple Syrup.