Yeast choice to clone Harpoon's Catamount Maple Wheat?

[stratslinger]

As the subject suggests, I'm going to try to clone, sort of, Harpoon's Catamount Maple Wheat - but with a bit of a twist. Instead of adding maple syrup to the kettle, I'm going to use maple sap as my brewing liquor.

The only question I still have, at this point, is what yeast to use. I've tasted the beer a number of times (well, I've snuck sips when SWMBO ordered it and I've ordered something, well, less SWMBO-ish). And for a wheat beer it's NOT yeast forward in any way, allowing the maple character to come through. And it's not cloudy as is typical of many wheat beers. So, I'm thinking of just using WY1056 or even just US05, but with very limited experience brewing with wheat, I'm honestly not sure how successful that'd be - would I be setting myself up for failure, or would I be OK?

If anyone's interested, I can share my recipe. I plugged in 2lbs of maple syrup to make up for the sugar content of the sap - a little research has suggested that average SG of maple sap is 1.009, and the target OG of this beer is 1.062. So I planned out a grain bill to get me to 1.053, then plugged in enough maple syrup (turned out to be 2lbs, exact) to get me to 1.062, to keep all the math consistent in BeerSmith.

5.16lbs 2-Row (34.6%)
5.16lbs White Wheat (34.6%)
1.29lbs Carapils (8.7%)
1.29lbs Crystal 120 (8.7%)
2lbs Maple Syrup
1oz Williamette @ 60
.65oz Williamette @ 20

Mash @ 152

I know that's a lot of Crystal & Carapils - I've got a buddy who did a brew last spring with Sap, and he found that it really dried out his beer. His suggestion was to bulk up with more than the typical amount of Crystal malts, so that's what I'm attempting here. Judging by how much syrup I had to plug into BeerSmith to get the gravity adjusted properly, I'm not surprised at how much the Sap dried things out, honestly...

So, again, how well would 1056 or US05 work for a clean ferment on a beer like this one, where a significant portion of the grist is wheat malt, but where I'm not looking for a typical Hefe- type of flavor profile?

 

[stratslinger]

Nothing, eh? Well, for what it's worth, I've looked back, and chosen to adjust the grist slightly - I've shifted the base malts a bit, so there's 4.5lbs 2-row and 6lbs white wheat, mainly to get the wheat to 45% of the grist (discounting the maple syrup - I know the percentages above don't add up, since I didn't include the percentage for the syrup - oversight!).

I'm going to fire up a starter tonight on some washed 1056 from a few months back, and see how that's looking by the weekend. I'll need to hit the LBS for the wheat malt at least, so if the 1056 either isn't showing signs of life, or if I get some feedback that it's just a bad choice I'll still be able to pick up something more appropriate or more viable.

 

[RhodyRed]

Any feedback in this recipe? I'm looking to do a maple wheat using maple sap soon. Thanks.

 

[stratslinger]

My experience was that the maple character all but completely fermented away. I've tried again with a more traditional approach (water not sap) and added VT grade B maple syrup at knockout, and still everything fermented away. I primes my keg with 3.2oz of maple, and got a very subtle maple character back - but nothing close to my goal.