Mapfelwein

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Cheesefood

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5 gallons of apple juice
2-3 pounds of honey
1 quart of REAL maple syrup

Mix together, add yeast, let sit for 12 weeks before bottling or kegging. Let it age for a month or two prior to drinking.

STRONG STUFF.
 
I can't even imagine what this would taste like. Sounds like a high abv apfelwein. Can you taste the syrup or is it totally fermentable?
 
BIRD: no.

Kayos: At first the maple is strong, but it tones down with age. It ends up tasting like candy.

I had 1.5 pints last night before I passed out. Usually it takes twice that amount to get me lit, but I think some of the water is iced in the keg so it might be stronger.

Rhoobarb and Rdwj have sampled it, so you can PM them for their real opinion.
 
Last question, Cheese; what grade syrup did you use? Extra-fancy grade A, or did you use some of the Grade B stuff (which has a lot more flavor, actually)?

I have a couple 3-gallon carboys that have been awful lonely for too long...
 
Damn, Cheese!

This sounds rather tasty, I might have to make some here in the near future!

You said you kegged it, what PSI did you hit it with? Also, what type of apple juice did you use?
 
Cheese brought some of this stuff over when we were building manifolds.

I wasn't sure how I felt about it when drinking the first one, but somewhere along the line, I became a big fan. It's hard to describe the taste. You can definately taste the maple and it's kinda sweet, but you still really feel the warmth of the alcohol.

Oh, and trust me, this stuff will turn you into a drooling mass of flesh REAL quick!
 
I got whatever grade of syrup they had at Costco. It was like $15 for a quart. Same with the juice - some Costco 100% organic juice. And SueBee honey, also from Costco.

At first sip, it's not the best drink ever. By the bottom of the first glass, you'll be feeling it and probably liking the flavor.

The recipe I posted tones down the maple.

I put it at 15 psi. It doesn't carbonate well.
 
So did you use a Champagne yeast, or the 3068 Heffe yeast for this? You have the heffe listed in your sig, but Champagne listed in the recipe.
 
Jester4176 said:
So did you use a Champagne yeast, or the 3068 Heffe yeast for this? You have the heffe listed in your sig, but Champagne listed in the recipe.
Champagne. The hefe in my sig is reffering to a hefeweissen I made.
 
JM, I am fermenting this right now. It has been going for four days and no mess yet. Fermenting pretty steady, too! I'll let ya know if I get a mess!
 
Do you need to heat this mixture to disolve the honey and syrup or do you just stir it to disolve?
 
The fermentation wasn't very heavy at all. I just stirred it like crazy to dissolve everything. Once I was able to lift my spatula and see that there wasn't much honey and maple syrup stuck to it, I called it good. This is gonna get bottled tonight...I can't wait to taste it!
 
A week ago I put in a 1.5 L test batch of this. I mixed it at a medium-low heat (no specific temp) to mix in the honey and Maple Syrup. Then I poured it into my test fermenter (The Nightmare Engine as I call it due to some of my tests) and pitched a pinch of Champaign dried yeast.

The NEXT DAY I had a nice thick foam on it. Some great smells coming from it too.

Now, a week later there are no surface bubbles, but the air lock is still popping out a bubble every minute or too. I think tonight I'm going to bottle for two weeks. Thoughts?

Also, anyone else here tried this recently?
 
I made an apfelwein batch simlar to this (sub honey for 2.5 lbs brown sugar w/cotes des blanc yeast) and 3 cups of pure maple syrup (2 for primary fermentation, 1 to backsweeten).

I'm interested to see how it turns out.
 
I somehow managed to get some solid sugars out of my last half gallon of pure maple syrup that i bought. Would anyone know if this would give a cider the same taste as using real syrup? The sugar tastes kinda like syrup but not much.
 
I am making a batch of this right now with a buddy. We are both big fans of maple. I ended up using just 2.3lbs of honey and the one quart of the maple sugar. We didn't want it too strong so we mixed it with about 2.5L of warm water to dissolve it all which helped to bring it down. I will let you know how it goes and post pics of fermentation if I remember and there is interest. OG was 1.080.
 
Started this 3 weeks ago, and it's still bubbling slowly away (it's winter here). Can't wait till it goes clear, it smells absolutely amazing. I used Red Ironbark honey for the honey, it is the best honey I have ever tasted in my life. SO EXCITED.
 
Just bottled this stuff up, I had to cold crash it to get some yeast out of suspension instead of waiting for it to clear up on it's own to make room for some new brews coming through this week. Although it's a bit harsh, I can see this tasting pretty amazing in a few months!!
 
Cider newb, could you bottle this in glass? And im used to putting sugar in each bottle, i've done a couple batches of beer so i have an idea,but how do you put the sugar in with the cider when its time to bottle? Is cider like beer in that you have to worry about oxidizing it? I greatly appreciate any guidance given!!!

Also instead of doing a starter could you use multiple packs of yeast?
 
So this tastes like candy? It seems that with all that adjunct sugar it would be super dry. I've been brewing for a year now so I'm still a little puzzled with some things.
 
So this tastes like candy? It seems that with all that adjunct sugar it would be super dry. I've been brewing for a year now so I'm still a little puzzled with some things.

I suspect that the OG of the original batch is so high that the alcohol content of the brew is halting the fermentation before all of the sugar has been consumed.

I had a brew with an incredibly high OG that did the same thing, though mine was accidental rather then intentional..

EDIT: This sounds yummy. I'm putting it on the list of to brews. :)
 
I just don't know. One part of my loves the idea... One part of me is thinking of the maple syrup scene in Super Troopers. Might have to scale this down to a gallon and see what it's all about.
 
Just letting you know that I was going through a bunch of my empty bottles and stumbled upon a leftover one that I forgot to drink. Chilled it down and dear god, it was probably one of the best home brew ciders I have had. Judging from my previous post on this thread it was about a year and 4 months from bottling.
 

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