Maple "mead" experiment - Fermentation questions

[pepindavid]

I'm putting this in "mead", even though it's not technically mead, as I believe it is likely a similar process.

My parents have a small home sugar shack (about 100 maple trees tapped). A few weeks ago, at the end of this season, there was some leftover maple sap, and with my BIL, we decided to try something.

We boiled down the sap to 15 Brix (still ways from being maple syrup). About 2 gallons of it. It tasted very good. I brought it back home, and a few days later, after a quick boil to kill any weird stuff that could have grown in the meantime, I dumped it as is in a fermenter, and pitched a rehydrated packet of Nottingham yeast (that's what I had on hands). I areated somewhat, like I do with wort, and let it be (at about 68F ambient). That's 9 days ago.

After 5 days, I was barely noticing any activity (just some tiny bubbles here and there). I took a quick sample: still very sweet, 13 Brix. So there was some fermentation, albeit slow.

After doing some reading, it looks like the maple sap by itself may have been lacking nutrients. Looks also that I should aerate/degas during the first part of the fermentation.

So two days ago, after having degased a little (a good inch of foam was created) I pitched in 2 grams of Yeast energizer, and 1 gram of yeast nutrient.

So my questions... Should:

- Aerate/degas daily until it gets to at least 10 brix?
- add other nutrients? it's a small batch (2 gallons), and the sugar level is not that high, so I don't want to overdo it.
- At what point would you consider pitcing another yeast (I have a packet of Lalvin K1V 1116 that I could use).

Any thoughts? Anybody ever tried to do such a "maple wine" (without any other adjunct)?

 

[Drewed]

1. Yes
2. No, you should have enough in there now, but next time try staggering the additions. Actually, I would have to look that up, you may have energizer and nutrient reversed. Energizer is like coffee to the yeast, while nutrient is food. You might need more food.
3. I wouldn't. It looks like your coming along, slowly, so let if go. If it sticks, or stalls, then you could try adding something to try to re-start it.

15 brix is about 1061 SG, so you are not out of normal for Notty. I think you will find that with the nutrients and energizer you will be fine.

 

[bernardsmith]

I am making a gallon of maple wine (still in primary). SG was 1.075 and I have adopted the nutrient feeding protocol used by Groennfell Meadery (to add all nutrients right at start and not use a staggered feeding process) I also REALLY feed my meads (1 T of Fermaid O per gallon). That said, you write that you boiled the syrup. That is going to remove any oxygen. I think your aeration may be less than the yeast need and you may want to whip some air into the must - many mead makers aerate several times a day during active fermentation: mead, or in this case, acerglyn ain't beer. You might find that added O2 will bring the yeast out of their stupor

 

[pepindavid]

Just a quick update: after adding nutrients two days ago (and aerating/degassing for a few days), I took a small sample yesterday and it came out just under 10 Brix. So it's coming along. According to online calculators, that would mean somwhere around 1.025 (from 1.061). I have no idea how fermentable maple sap from late in the season is (it was quite dark, after evaporating to 15 brix), so I'm not sure what my FG should be, but it seems safe to say that more than 50% of the fermentation has happened. Probably closer to 70% or 75%. It's still quite sweet, but you can start tasting the "wine-like" taste.

I may leave it alone from now on, and see where it sits in a week or so.

In any case, it's an interesting experiment.

 

[bernardsmith]

No expert but I don't think that there are any nonfermentables in maple syrup. In other words, all other things being equal (as they say) your maple syrup wine should hit 1.000 or even lower without too much of a struggle as long as you provide the yeast with all the minerals and nutrients they need and as long as the pH stays above 3 (perhaps 3.5).