Used Maple Syrup as Priming agent

[bferullo]

So,

I used maple syrup as a priming agent. I didn't add water and boil as one normally does with priming sugar since I didn't want to dilute the syrup. I opened a brand new bottle of grade b organic syrup, measured into sanitized container and added to bottling bucket. Stirred gently....bottled as usual.

Its been only two weeks and the beer tastes very harsh. Could I have infected it? I am hoping it just needs time to mellow out. The pre-botttling taste was really smooth and enjoyable.

thoughts????

 

[zeg]

I would imagine the odds of infection are relatively low, but I don't know for sure.

I do think your worry about dilution was unfounded, though: you just diluted it in a huge amount of beer, so a cup of water wasn't going to hurt. With maple syrup, you could probably safely boil it with just a small amount of additional water and reduce it back to your starting volume if you really wanted to maintain the original syrup concentration. They already boiled it a ton when reducing the sap down to syrup, so you're not going to hurt anything anyway. So either way, I'd boil it next time around.

Hope it mellows as it ages, I'd assume it would and in the mean time not worry too much.

 

[SittingDuck]

Nah, they take sap and boil the hell out if it to make syrup, then seal it in a sanitary container (one assumes, anyway--it is food packaging). There shouldn't be anything left in there.

If it was syrup you opened and left out, different story.

How long has it been in bottles? How ling did it sit in the fridge before you tried it?

 

[bferullo]

Not long just overnight. It was my first bottle.

I guess i didnt really consider i was diluting in 5gallons. I was going for some maple flavor. The recipe was a variation on the byo maple amber beer.

 

[SittingDuck]

I would think that your astringency is either just green beer (two weeks is pretty young in the bottle. Some beers are good by then, not all by a long shot), or it's the bite of carbonic acid. If you don't give the beer long enough in the fridge, not all of the CO2 has absorbed nd you get an acrid, almost electric taste. Let them sit for a little longer, chill them for 2-3 days, and you will probably have a great maple beer.

 

[Revvy]

The 3 weeks at 70 degrees, that we recommend is the minimum time it takes for average gravity beers to carbonate and condition. Higher grav beers take longer.

Stouts and porters have taken me between 6 and 8 weeks to carb up..I have a 1.090 Belgian strong that took three months to carb up.

And just because a beer is carbed doesn't mean it still doesn't taste like a$$ and need more time for the off flavors to condition out. You have green beer.

 

[Grumpybumpy]

Stouts and porters have taken me between 6 and 8 weeks to carb up..I have a 1.090 Belgian strong that took three months to carb up.

Where have I heard that before? Hmmm