BeerBorg

Hey Borg

I've got the idea to add maple to a recipe. I would most likely add it to a Nut Brown. Most of what I've read states that adding Maple syrup to the boil, primary or even secondary only serves to dry the beer and add little maple flavor. Some people mention adding maple sugar as a bottle primer, but I don't think I want to go down that road.

I'm thinking that using maple extract rather than syrup, might be the way to go. Perhaps adding a bit to the primary. I am still unsure as to how much to use. I'm going for subtle, not overpowering or artificial.

Has anyone had any experience using maple syrup or extract in a recipe? I would love to hear about it.

I've never used maple extract so I can't help there, but the best way would probably be to experiment with a bottle of a similar beer as you intend and figure out how many drops to add to get the flavor you want, and then just do that when you bottle your batch.

As far as maple syrup - I used to make maple wine (think mead made with maple syrup). I can tell you that the most flavorful/best results if you wanted the maple to really stand out was to use the cheaper "lower quality" grade B dark stuff. I'd just go to a local store that was like whole foods but was a true local store and buy it in bulk. The grade A stuff is more delicate. That might be good for pancakes, but it wasn't good for the beverage.

Based on my experience with maple wine, if you want the maple flavor to really stand out, you would need to use a lot of it, IE make something more like a Braggot instead of a beer, IE use up to 50% maple syrup, and do not overly bitter the beer so that some residual sweetness still exists. If you have say a brown ale recipe that leaves a bit of lingering sweetness, but you go with 50% maple syrup, you need to adjust your bittering addition as if you were only using half the amount of malt to get the same resulting perceived bitterness. But I guess what I'm getting at is to really make it work you probably should not 'add it' to a recipe, but more or less re-design the recipe around it. If using that much worries you about the body, then add a bunch of maltodextrin or what seems to be an excessive amount of carapils to build the body back up.

You *need* the residual sweetness to remain if you want it to taste like what you think of as maple. If you take it out it starts to taste woody. Dry maple wine was not something I liked very much. It was really at its best done as a strong sweet mead like a dessert wine.

I brewed a few in my MB days with Maple syrup, its about the same idea as using honey, it pretty much ferments out without leaving much if any of the maple flavor and makes for a dryer beer. Mash is right the darker syrup will give you the most maple. My best experiment that had the most maple flavor was using raw sap replacing the water, which couldn't be an option for you where you live and for us up north only in the end of Feb. - April. I've never used maple extract but I know fruit extracts seem to work good for me to get the fruit flavor. One thing I was always going to try but never have was to try some maple chips like you would if doing a oak chip brew, I would have to believe that might add some maple......

From my experience at work, we add extracts after fermentation, in the brite tank. You can rack to a secondary vessel and add extract a little bit at a time until you get the flavor concentration you want. If you were to add it at bottling, you won't be able to add more if you find it needs more flavor.


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FWIW, the one maple beer I did involved using a Whole Foods kind of natural/no artificial ingredient maple/brown sugar oatmeal in the mash. Tons of maple flavor came through doing that.

Thanks for the feedback. If I do this, I'll probably add some extract at bottling, as I still bottle directly from a lbk. I'm kind of intrigued by the maple brown sugar oatmeal in the mash though. Do you remember how much you used?

Ibasterd wrote:I'm kind of intrigued by the maple brown sugar oatmeal in the mash though. Do you remember how much you used?

linky

swenocha wrote:

Ibasterd wrote:I'm kind of intrigued by the maple brown sugar oatmeal in the mash though. Do you remember how much you used?

linky

Wow... Kvass wort and Dandelion Candi Syrup... I've used both. But not together LOL.

Thanks Swen. I think I'll see if my local Fresh Market has something similar to those maple oats. If so, I'll give it a go!

Well, I've picked up a box of organic maple sugar oats. I hope I don't make oatmeal! I had 6 ounces of flaked oats in my nutbrown recipe that I'll simply swap out with the maple oats.

Brewing this morning. Smells like breakfast!

mashani wrote:

swenocha wrote:

Ibasterd wrote:I'm kind of intrigued by the maple brown sugar oatmeal in the mash though. Do you remember how much you used?

linky

Wow... Kvass wort and Dandelion Candi Syrup... I've used both. But not together LOL.

Yeah, that was a crazy "I've got all of these ingredients I want to use... so maybe I'll smash them all together" brew day. I was thinking/considering that I wanted breakfast flavors... maple/smoke/orange. It did catch all of those flavors and is a pretty fun beer. If I had it to do over again, I would have gone a more traditional porter/stout/brown route instead of a pale (I think it just would fit better with that style), but alas...

Ibasterd wrote:Well, I've picked up a box of organic maple sugar oats. I hope I don't make oatmeal! I had 6 ounces of flaked oats in my nutbrown recipe that I'll simply swap out with the maple oats.

Don't be afraid to eat the oatmeal during the hop boil...

Just an update in case anyone cared. This came out as a bit of a mixed bag as far as I'm concerned. As I mentioned, I used maple sugar oats in the mash, and the finished beer does have a nice subtle maple aroma. However, the taste is a bit too sweet for me. I'm surprised by this because I would have though that the maple sugar would have dried the beer out, if anything. I prefer my nut browns to be a bit dry and this one is definitely on the sweet/malty side. My wife said it tastes like a pancake. Not sure it that's good. Definitely drinkable, just not my favorite. I'll chalk this one up to experience. Here's to beer for breakfast!

What temp did you mash at? That would make a difference on the malty/thick (sweet) taste?