Retaining Maple Flavor

[matt23]

Hi,

I'm in the process of fermenting an Amber Maple brew and upon testing, discovered that all the maple flavor is pretty much gone, fermented out, but giving ~15.9% ABV. For the maple syrup, I put in about 20% by volume at the end of the boil, thinking it would be enough for some of the flavor to be retained, obviously it wasn't. I have some syrup left but not sure when would be best to put it in.

I have some time to figure it out, tomorrow I'll be adding some bourbon soaked oak to the fermenter to age for about 4 weeks, smooth it out a bit.

For adding the syrup, here's my options:
1) If added to the fermenter now, (such as when adding the oak tomorrow), there's probably still enough yeast that it'll eat through that anyway, giving the same results.
2) I could add right before I'm ready to keg. To prevent the yeast from eating it up, I could do two things before adding, 1) remove as much as the yeast as I can out of the bottom, and 2) chill the batch down at least 50 F to make whatever's left drop out. It was a barleywine yeast with a lower temp range in the mid 70's, so dropping down to 50 should do the job. Then when adding in, make sure it's stirred up well as adding to make sure it doesn't all just drop down to the bottom, and immediately keg it.

I think that's it but as this is my first Maple Syrup beer, probably missing an option or two, appreciate any help.

 

[Spencer weirauch]

I made a cinnamon maple "porter" a couple of years ago and great success with maple extract. I originally used maple syrup and found it's just too fermentable to add any real flavor, even as a bottle conditioner. I used 1 oz in 2 gallons of hot wort, just before chilling, and it came out wonderfully.

 

[matt23]

Yeah, I'm trying to stay away from extract though, I've heard others do it and am told it really messes up your system and screws up future brews as it's difficult to get the flavor out of your fermenter or kegs afterwards.

 

[RPh_Guy]

I think the best option is to add syrup to taste at kegging (option 2). I'd put it straight into the keg after doing a bench trial to see how much is needed.
Keep it cold so it doesn't ferment.

 

[madscientist451]

I'd bottle it and put a dash of maple syrup in your glass when you drink one.
Barleywine will get better with age.
Another option would be to siphon off about 3 quarts of the barleywine to a gallon jug, add some more maple syrup, put an airlock on and see what happens.
Basically, keep repeating that until your ABV increases, the yeast finally quits and you can add more maple syrup to taste. It would be interesting to see how high it will go and what it ends up tasting like.

 

[Spencer weirauch]

I can't speak to whether or not the extract will stick to things like that. I used a small throw away fermenter and bottled. I really enjoyed the final product and I'll be brewing more, for sure.

 

[dmtaylor]

The trouble with maple syrup is that it's fully fermentable. Unless you also injure the yeast with sorbate, and/or backsweeten with unfermentables like lactose or xylitol, it will always continue to dry out. The easiest thing to do I think would be to add a couple shots of maple flavor extract, that would help a lot, though might be "cheating".

 

[matt23]

Good idea on the sorbate. I was talking to another brewer last night and he suggested the same thing, he actually does this quite a bit when finishing out a batch.

Still thinking of cold crashing it though, remove as much as the yeast as I can, then add new maple syrup while stirring to an appropriate level. I guess the only concern is I've never done this before and I've read there can be some side effects/flavors if doing too much but I can't imagine it'd make that much of a difference. Live and learn...

 

[rmarshall100]

+1 on the sorbate. Very common practice when making mead in order to bring back some of the honey flavor.

 

[Steveruch]

Or add some fenugreek. It's used in maple flavor extract to give it maple flavor.

 

[SteveH aka shetc]

Or add some fenugreek. It's used in maple flavor extract to give it maple flavor.

Heard that the other day on Dr Homebrew

 

[Fly_Guy]

If you could crash for a few days, maybe a week or so and then transfer to a keg with fresh maple syrup picking leaving a little extra trub behind as possible might do the trick too.
There's also filtering, but I think that's a whole other complicated ball game.