Mini keg and maple syrup

[razorguy]

So I've found a lot of threads that dance around what I'm looking for but not quite it. I'm splitting my five gallon batch into four gallons in bottles and then one gallon into a 128oz mini keg. I have maple syrup on hand for priming and using the Northern Brewer calculator, I need to use about four ounces of syrup for the four gallons for bottles, easy enough.

My real question comes to the keg. I'm not anticipating much maple flavor, if at all, in the bottles with such a low amount but I'm thinking I can get by with adding quite a bit in the mini keg since I'll be force carbing. My questions come down to how much would you guess is right for one gallon? And also, since I'll be diluting it in water, do you think I should boil it or just use some warm water and mix it in?

Never used maple syrup before so just trying to make sure I don't do too much. I can always add more but if someone else has done this I'd like to just get it figured out beforehand. Thanks in advance.

 

[cactusgarrett]

I can't comment to amount, but I think overall you might be a bit underwhelmed by the end result. Maple syrup is almost entirely fermentable and using it typically doesn't impart the flavor that one would hope for. At least it hasn't every time i've used it. Even going overboard - ie. using it in the keg to an amount beyond what would be needed to condition - would still find it fermenting out.

 

[NTexBrewer]

The best thing to do is pull a 1 cup sample of the beer and stir in measured amounts of the syrup until you achieve the flavor you want. Then calculate how much you need to flavor your keg. When the beer is carbonated you may loose some of the perceived sweetness.

The reason you are not finding definitive answers is this is a moving target question. The perceived sweetness and flavor will always vary on the base beer, ABV of the beer, IBU’s of the beer etc. etc. Not to mention there are different grades of maple syrup.

There is always a chance that yeast in the beer will consume the sugars in the keg. Cold crashing the beer and keeping the keg cold will slow the yeast and may even keep them dormant. Using something like Potassium Sorbate will prevent the yeast from refermenting the syrup. Potassium Sorbate is used for back sweetening wines and ciders.

If it were me, I would bring the water to a boil and then cool the water down to around 120 and stir the syrup in the water to dissolve and then add to the keg.

 

[razorguy]

So I actually bottled/kegged yesterday evening so I just winged it. I did the presumed amount for the bottles and put around 1/2 a cup in the one gallon keg and force carbed. I just took my first taste from the keg and it still needs a little more carbing time but I definitely get the sweetness from the syrup although not much of the maple flavor if that makes sense. Going to crank the co2 back up a little and let it sit for a couple days.