Maple Brown ale recipe critique please!

[bnbovey]

I put together a recipe I am thinking about brewing in a couple weeks when I bottle my Pale ale. We are doing 5 gallons extract batches right now soon to change to a 10 gallon all grain. But wanted some opinions on my recipe and if it sounds pretty good.

So I collect Maple sap and make maple syrup, but i froze 6 gallons of the sap to keep it fresh. I am going to substitute in the sap for my boil instead of water. That's the start, here is my recipe i came up with.

Extract:
3lbs Amber LME
3lbs Dark LME
1 quart (2lbs)Pure Vermont maple syrup added at last 10 mins of boil.
Grains:
1/2lb Crystal 60L
1/2lb Victory
1/2lb Chocolate Malt
Hops:
1oz Fuggle at 45mins
1/2oz Kent golding 15mins

Any critiquing would be great thank you.

 

[Carusoat]

I've never made a maple beer, but I have primed some bottles with maple syrup. I don't think you'll get much maple flavor out of adding it before fermentation since the yeast will just eat the sugars. I talked to a local brewery owner recently about his maple amber beer and he said that he adds the maple syrup into his bright tank that way since it's cold it doesn't get fermented out and it retains flavor. This would be do-able if you keg. Just add it to the keg and make sure you keep the keg cold after that and force carb. Or put some potassium sorbate in there if you can't keep it cold. Not sure you could do it with bottles though.

Using sap for the boil will be pretty cool I wonder what that will add.

 

[highplains]

I'm in the process of brewing a maple brown AG myself. Added 1# at 5 min, and will prime with maple syrup at bottling. Between the two, I hope to get some maple flavor coming through.
The other part of that is using a yeast that will leave a higher FG for just a little sweeter finish that will help brace up the maple flavor. I'm using S-04, aiming for a FG of 1.020 or so.

 

[highplains]

Update - I opened my first one last night. A little darker than I expected, thinking the calculator I used didn't take the color of the syrup in to account. Other than that, right on target. Very smooth, just a hint of residual sweetness, and a subtle maple flavor in the background. Pretty good for my first attempt, if I do say so myself!

 

[te-wa]

i am aging 5 gal of maple brown, when brewed i added 6oz syrup at the last 10 mins, then when i kegged it i poured in 4oz of syrup, then chilled right away. the lingering sweetness is (imo) withing the guidelines of say, a southern english brown and the maple flavor is spot on. im now debating on whether to add 4oz hungarian oak chips to the keg to give it another dimension of flavor.