My beer has no alcohol... why?

[PGEduardo]

I've never added vodka or everclear to a beer before. Anyone have any idea about how much / what type to add a bit of booze flavor without ruining the nut brown taste?

I'd go with a mid-grade vodka. Add a couple shots at a time until you get it how you like it. Nobody else can tell you that...

 

[Peruvian802]

The grains were crushed, yes. I used a total of about 10 gallons of pre-boiled sap, both for the mash, the sparge, and the boil. At the very end, I wound up having to top off with nearly a gallon of regular cold water. My plan was to use no water at all, but I needed a little bit at the very end before I added the yeast.

Something is very off here. If you mashed and sparged with 10 gallons, but still had to top off to get to 5 gallons, you lost a lot of liquid somewhere.

 

[GHBWNY]

I used a total of about 10 gallons of pre-boiled sap, both for the mash, the sparge, and the boil.

Not sure why and in what context your sap was "pre-boiled"; nonetheless, wouldn't a liquid with sugar in it concentrate even further (higher ABV) after being "pre-boiled"?

 

[WrQth]

Did you do any pH corrections to the maple sap? Just read the pH of maple sap is in the region of 6.0-7.3 so your mash pH could have been too high or too low resulting in the low efficiency.

 

[andrewmaixner]

Ultimately, all, I think that the consensus seems to be a problem with the mash. I think that this is probably accurate. I am surprised that the wort bubbled so well in the fermenter, though.

I've never added vodka or everclear to a beer before. Anyone have any idea about how much / what type to add a bit of booze flavor without ruining the nut brown taste?

Approximately (ignoring volume differences between Water and alcohol)

( (current % alcohol * current volume of beer ) + ( additive % alcohol * additive volume) ) / (final volume)

So, if you add 2 Cups (1/8 gallon) of Burbon at 40% ABV, to 5 gal of beer at 2.6%ABV:

((0.026 ABV * 5 Gal ) + (0.40 ABV * (1/8gal) ) / ( 5gal + 1/8gal) = 0.035 = 3.5%ABV

((0.026 * 5) + (0.4 * (1/8))) / (5 + 1/8)=0.03512...

 

[bacgabe]

As others have said before, the question you should be asking is why your efficiency is not what you expected. It appears that perhaps there may be some lingering confusion on your part that is causing you to focus on the end result - the low ABV.

Here, you know your OG was 1.035. That should have immediately alerted you that your final beer was likely going to be a sub-3% ABV beer. The problem is not some mysterious infection or other type process. With an OG of 1.035 it would be impossible to get a 6 or 7% ABV beer. The alcohol comes from the conversion of sugars into alcohol by the yeast. Low sugar levels in the wort leads to low ABV levels, simple as that. That you did not immediately focus on the your OG (and thereby on your efficiency) indicates some confusion on the topic of gravity readings and their correlation with ABV. It also should not have been surprising that it bubbled just fine, as it clearly still went through a complete fermentation process--no issues there.

Looking at the numbers can help narrow down what the expectations could have been. Based on your NB kit, you could have expected an OG of around 1.044 (based probably on an average efficiency). Assuming that fermented down to 1.013 or so, you would have been looking at a 4% ABV beer. According to the best information I can dredge up online, it appears that your 10 gallons of maple water would have raised your OG by about 8 points. Again assuming average efficiency, you could have expected an OG of around 1.052, with potential ending ABV of around 5%.

Given that you ended up with an OG of 1.035 (and assuming your volumes were fine), and accounting for the fact that you probably got around 8 points from the maple water, then your sugar extraction from the grain was very poor. An OG of 1.027 from 8.5 lbs grain means you only got about 45% efficiency, which is not good. That is where you need to be focusing. Either something about the sap reduced your otherwise good efficiency, or your process is leading to poor efficiency.

Your description of the amounts of maple water you added leaves some of us scratching our heads a bit. I think it would be a good idea if you could give an overview of your mash and boil process so we can try to figure out what is going on. How much and at what temp was your maple water mash addition. How long did you mash and at what temp. How much maple water in sparge, what temp and for how long. What was your preboil volume. How long did you boil, what was your post-boil volume. How much top-off. Those sorts of details, along with any other measurements that you took (e.g., mash ph) would be helpful for us to help troubleshoot your poor efficiency issues.

 

[mucci2k]

since you used maple water did you take an OG before using it to mash/sparge your grains so you could account for the sugar that was already in the water?

 

[RichBrewer]

Any chance you inadvertently ordered/received a BIAB kit? I read somewhere that many of these kits are for 3 gal batches, which would have a significantly smaller grain bill, resulting in lower efficiency with water(sap) volumes for 5 gal. Just a thought.

This is another possibility. How much wort did you make and what was the volume the kit was designed to make?

 

[bigdaddybrew]

Let me start this thread over for the OP...
OP: I have been brewing for ten years. I brewed a all grain nut brown ale kit from Northern Brewer using maple sap instead of water. It has a predicted OG of 1.044 but I only got 1.035. Because of the sugar in the sap I was hoping for an even higher OG. The final gravity was 1.015. It tastes good but I hoped for more than the 2.6% abv. I wonder what went wrong? I did end up needing to add a gallon of cold top off water to the fermenter. Here is the grain bill...
7.5 lbs maris otter
0.25 English chocolate malt
0.25 caramel 120l
0.25 biscuit malt
0.25 special roast

Forum will ask: What was your mash/sparge procedure? Did you make adjustments for mash ph? What do you mean by maple sap for mash, sparge AND boil?

 

[meatcleaver]

assuming this isn't bottled yet...how about brewing a similar, much stronger beer & mixing the two at bottling time?
& I agree something having to do with the sap hurt your efficiency badly. in the future just use good water for your strike & sparge & if you want to add maple add syrup at flameout.
also, start taking pre boil gravity measurements. you would have known you had a problem right away...

 

[Bobby_M]

It would be really interesting to have sap analyzed for typical ions found in water sources. The PH may have been really off in the mash.

 

[murolo013]

Let me start this thread over for the OP...
OP: I have been brewing for ten years. I brewed a all grain nut brown ale kit from Northern Brewer using maple sap instead of water. It has a predicted OG of 1.044 but I only got 1.035. Because of the sugar in the sap I was hoping for an even higher OG. The final gravity was 1.015. It tastes good but I hoped for more than the 2.6% abv. I wonder what went wrong? I did end up needing to add a gallon of cold top off water to the fermenter. Here is the grain bill...
7.5 lbs maris otter
0.25 English chocolate malt
0.25 caramel 120l
0.25 biscuit malt
0.25 special roast

Forum will ask: What was your mash/sparge procedure? Did you make adjustments for mash ph? What do you mean by maple sap for mash, sparge AND boil?

Thanks for the consolidation. This is it exactly. I think that it makes sense that there was a problem with the mash causing a very low efficiency. Someone else suggested that I should just enjoy my maple nut brown session ale, as it tastes good. I think that this is good advice. I'll have to read up on mashing techniques and get it better next time.

Thanks, all, for your input.

 

[GHBWNY]

assuming this isn't bottled yet...

Too late. From OP's first post:

When bottling day came, I tested the ABV, and it came out to about 2%. ...A couple of weeks later, I had my first taste [and it tasted great].

Bottom line is he messed up and still ended up with a good-tasting nut brown ale, ABV notwithstanding. Since the "taste" of alcohol is not as evident (if at all) in a nut brown, whatever the problem with ABV was, it's not a bad *problem* to have.

 

[oceanic_brew]

Haven't read this whole thread but this might be interesting; maple production involves filtering the boiled down sap to remove niter which is solid potassium nitrate.

Which is soluble in ethanol.

Anyway... you are looking at. 40:1 ratio to get down to a 66% sugar maple syrup. Depending on the sugar yield from that particular run you could be in the 60:1 ratio in the north east(Nova Scotia) or something more along the lines of 30:1 in Quebec.

Without boiling down substantially I don't see any benefit of using maple sap.

People drink it and claim it has health benefits.