How about using reduced sap for the majority of the must, with some fully cooked added into it for more flavor? Sounds like it could be the best of both worlds...
How much of maple syrup is fully fermentable sugars? Should it be treated the same as honey, or will it never finish dry?
I'm thinking of making a 3 gallon batch soon with a good amount of the sugars coming from honey (light, cheap stuff, don't care about the flavor of it at all). I'm looking to bring in the character, and flavors, of maple syrup though.
Rossnaree, how do you usually make yours? OG? FG? Do you use nutrient like you would with mead (assuming you probably would)? How long does the batch go before it's getting good (at what ABV)?
First, most of what I've made HAS been from maple syrup diluted to an OG of between 1.115 and 1.130. FG is usually around 0.999-1.002, once it went to 0.998 and nope, there was nothing wrong with the hydrometer or my reading of it as far as i can tell.
One of the reasons I'm thinking that sap evaporated to wine SG instead of bringing to finished syrup and then diluting is, of course, for the energy savings, but as Misplaced_Canuck pointed out, much of the color and flavor is developed during the finishing process. BUT, as I stated, a lot of that doesn't necessarily come through in the finished mead/wine, and may be due to my choice of yeast (EC-1118); but the yeast is also the reason why the wine always finishes nice and dry. Now, if I were to use DV-10, or DV-47, things might be different. To keep the same alcohol tolerance as EC-1118, I'd go with the DV-10; if going with the DV-47, I'd probably scale back the OG accordingly so's I wouldn't end up with anything overly sweet. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE off-dry Rieslings, etc, it's just that with mead and maple it can get sicky-sweet. And stay that way...
The other reason is a bit more of a theory at this time, and that is --- when you make maple syrup, you will always end up with what is called "sugar sand." To put it a little too simply, it's the minerals from the tree contained within the sap. When heated, and as the sap becomes more concentrated, these minerals "group" and precipitate out as grit, or sugar sand. Anyways, this gets filtered out with commercial operations and most hobby/home-use operations. My THEORY, only, is that by not going entirely to syrup stage, this process of precipitating-out the minerals -- or, even if there is sugar sand, not filtering it out -- is prevented, and the yeast will have those minerals to use as nutrient. Just a theory. I don't even know how I'd go about proving it.
Otherwise, it's not big deal to forget about all that and go ahead and just add nutrient as you would for mead -- I do that anyhow. I just don't do staggered nutrient additions; I'm not sure that you need to with maple. I just like to keep the must with whatever it came with, figuring that maybe it contains just what the yeast need to do it right. IDK, probably just BS in the end.
As for aging: Like beauty in the eye of the beholder, that's entirely up to you. Naturally, the higher ABV's need a little more aging than the lower ABV wines, but there are exceptions. As far as my own tastes and experience (not at all extensive, I should state), it definitely matures a LOT faster than most meads (exceptions being the "quick meads"), between 9 and 12 months or so on average, but longer would be better. How much better, IDK, it hasn't lasted. I don't get a lot of lees, and I don't generally rack to secondary UNLESS I've also used honey or something else that will produce them, and even then I've forgotten all about racking and it'll be months later and nothing bad ever happened, so.... nah. I don't bother. About all I do is top off with more of the same to reduce headspace, since the ferment is so mild that I don't worry about blow-off at all.
I honestly don't know if I really ever do the exact same recipe twice; about all that's consistent is EC-1118. I love it. However, this thread, in post #12, has been making me regret always using 1118, and even some posts on HBT's Mead section mention that 1118 will blow the bouquet and flavors right out through the airlock, whereas DV-10 and DV-47 generally won't. The thread, over on gotmead.com --->
http://www.gotmead.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9177
Now, THERE'S a good lookin' recipe!!! Or "recipe's," since the chocolate one looks good, too. I've been meaning to do the "Acerglyn Aphrodisiac" for a long time. Also, this year, I want to try various mixtures of maple, honey, and apple. NOT sure how well those will turn out, but I figure that a bunch of 1-gallon experiments may just pay off nicely. We'll see, if I even get around to doing them.
Some other good sites, but by no means anywhere even close to scratching the surface (hint - search is your friend!!! lol!), if you don't care for my approach ---
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/request132.asp --- except, I boil down to the target OG, I don't add other sugars. Another thing, and if you tap you already know this, don't plug the tap hole. The tree will take care of itself quite nicely.
These two both seem to be by the same author, they're almost the same:
http://www.brewery.org/gambmug/recs/1003169902-30047.shtml
http://www.brewery.org/cm3/recs/10_25.html
http://davespicks.com/writing/mme/recipes/maple.html
Anyways, you got the long-winded response out of me. Sorry about that.
- Tim
I keep forgetting my priorities, or at least that mine don't necessarily match those of family and friends that only want the syrup.
