Acerglyn conundrum...

[Ty520]

So I had been wanting to do an acerglyn for quite some time.

Everyone kept saying, "it's going to be very very dry, and it's going to not taste like maple syrup"

Well, due to my stubborn curiosity, i did it anyways.

Did a 1 gal batch, with 1.75# honey, and 1.75# maple syrup; D47 yeast

came in at 1.115 OG, and stopped at 0.999 FG / %15.2% abv; took OG and FG samples at identical temp. 100% attenuation achieved

my initial thought was, "well, damn - i guess they were right"

I did a taste test, and for whatever reason, it was surprisingly sweet! If by taste alone, i would have guesstimated it would clock in at 1.015 FG. It was also very delicious, with a great balance of honey and syrup. I thought that maybe my sense of taste had been tainted, but my wife agreed that it was semi-sweet.

I figured i must have messed up my hydrometer test, so i pulled another sample - but it still read at 0.999.

Clearly, something is off. as far as i can tell, maple syrup is the same sugar composition as honey: sucrose, glucose and fructose. only difference is syrup is mostly sucrose, whereas honey is mostly fructose

my only hypothesis is that it has something to do with how D47 metabolizes sucrose? but that doesn't explain why it read as 0.999 FG...it apparently didn't struggle to break down any of the chains.

In any case, i was pleasantly surprised - we'll see how well it ages.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[LBussy]

I recently finished a Pino Noir using my favorite Lalvin 71B. The consensus was that it was "too sweet" even though it finished at 0.997. My point is there's more to perception than FG. I don't know exactly what, but it's there.