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My Annual Maple Brew

Post #1 made 11 years ago
by goulaigan
Did my annual maple brew the weekend before last while making maple syrup.

This year I decided to go for a Belgian Dark Strong ale. I used about 22 litres of maple sap and about 19 litres of water to get my total water needed. I would have used all sap but I have a theory that the sap is somewhat like my well water here, which seems to make a dryish beer that lacks mouthfeel no matter what I do. I used all sap last year in an oatmeal stout and it came out quite thin.

Anyway, mashed about an 18 pound grain bill and for the boil I added a pound of belgian dark candi syrup, and 500mL of homemade maple syrup in the last 10 mins. (sorry for the mismatched measurement units, being Canadian my brain switches smoothly from one to the other without even noticing haha)

OG ended up being 1.09 for 6 gallons into fermentor, about 4 points above predicted, and had relatively good mash efficiency for such a high gravity brew. EAW just a touch under 80% Pretty happy with that.

Checked the gravity today after 12 days and its down to 1.017, again quite happy as I had a bit of thermometer trouble during the mash and thought I may have been a bit hot. I will give this one a few more days and if the gravity stays put I'll bottle it up. Will be batch priming with - you guessed it - homemade maple syrup. Yummy. I forgot to take pics unfortunately, think I may have one of my home made syrup boiler tho, I'll try and dig that up here...
Last edited by goulaigan on 30 Apr 2015, 09:48, edited 1 time in total.
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Post #2 made 11 years ago
by goulaigan
Here is my boiler for sap, not beer but still somewhat on topic hah...
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Last edited by goulaigan on 30 Apr 2015, 09:21, edited 1 time in total.
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Post #4 made 11 years ago
by BDP
I remember reading your post last year, where you used sap to make the stout. Fascinating. I anticipate that you'll develop some interesting maple flavors in your finished beer by priming with maple syrup. I'm keen to try this myself, perhaps with an oatmeal stout, so please keep us posted on the results. :peace:

(Love the photo of the sap boiler ... and still snow on the ground!). We're well into a green spring on the BC coast.)

Post #5 made 11 years ago
by goulaigan
Thanks guys. The stout actually turned out pretty good, but like I said it was a bit thin for an oatmeal stout. I don't think this would be a result of maple sap in general, butmore a result of the maple sap here probably reflecting the same mineral content or close to the same as the ground water, which I believe is the cause. Of course this is just a guess, so who know. I had the last bottle a month or so ago actually, and it almost had an oaked-like flavour, which could have only been from the maple sap and syrup. I enjoyed it both young and aged tho, definitely give it a go if you have the means to do so!

Snow is almost all gone now, this picture was a few weeks ago... Only snow left in a few places in the shade where it was piled 6 or 7 feet high. Ice is almost all gone off the bay in front of my house too, be swimming in 2 months! And the mosquitos will be eating us by next week im sure hah!
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Post #7 made 11 years ago
by goulaigan
Bottled this up last night, FG came in at 1.016 down from 1.09. Sample was amazingly drinkable for a beer that's 9.5% ABV, didn't even taste 'hot' when flat and green. Looking forward to it once it conditions. I almost forgot I was priming with maple syrup and boiled up the calculated amount of Dextrose, then remembered while sanitizing the bottles luckily, so dumped the dextrose and boiled up some maple syrup instead...

I've named it Pickled Monk...
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Post #8 made 11 years ago
by BDP
That's a good name :) I'm glad you remembered you were priming with maple syrup. How did you calculate the amount to use (fermentability/weight/volume)? Am very interested to hear how it turns out.

Cheers

Post #9 made 11 years ago
by goulaigan
Well I usually use northern brewer priming calculator which has it as one of the sugars in the list, however I couldn't get the damned thing to work, site was down or something, so I found another priming calculator site which had it listed. didnt really trust the amount so I used the priming caclulator v2 posted here on biabrewer somewhere to get what the amount of dextrose I would use for the amount of carb I wanted, then used the other calculator and put in numbers until the dextrose matched what the biabrewer calc said, and then used the amount of maple syrup they said equaled that. Confused? Me too, basically it was a crapshoot, I'll let you know if I get beer on the ceiling hah.
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Post #10 made 11 years ago
by goulaigan
This beer is coming along very nicely, definitely a sipper, and carbonation is perfect. A great candidate for aging, so I will do my best to hide a 6 pack from myself (ya right). I had the last bottle of last years maple brew about a month before brewing this one, I will try and make at least 1 bottle of this last that long... Will try and remember to get a pic up here of the finished product.
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Post #12 made 11 years ago
by goulaigan
The maple is quite subtle, I can taste it and I think it complements the yeast and malt character but it certainly isn't the main flavour of the beer. In fact, I think the average beer drinker may not notice it unless they knew there was maple in there. Again I find the beer almost has an 'oaked' character to it as well, similar to my maple oatmeal stout. I think the balance is very nice, but I'm betting this one will continue to improve with age. Only time will tell... Perhaps next year I will do something light to let the maple shine through a little more...
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Post #13 made 11 years ago
by BDP
Sounds like you nailed it then :salute: . You don't want the flavor to be overstated. Better that it's subtle, and that's exactly what I was hoping to hear. Will have to give this a try sometime.

Cheers

Post #14 made 11 years ago
by goulaigan
Here is a not so great pic of the finished beer. I noticed last night you really get a nice subtle maple aftertaste, quite an interesting beer...
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Last edited by goulaigan on 10 Jun 2015, 21:39, edited 1 time in total.
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Post #15 made 11 years ago
by PistolPatch
goulaigan wrote:Well I usually use northern brewer priming calculator which has it as one of the sugars in the list, however I couldn't get the damned thing to work, site was down or something, so I found another priming calculator site which had it listed. didnt really trust the amount so I used the priming caclulator v2 posted here on biabrewer somewhere to get what the amount of dextrose I would use for the amount of carb I wanted, then used the other calculator and put in numbers until the dextrose matched what the biabrewer calc said, and then used the amount of maple syrup they said equaled that. Confused? Me too, basically it was a crapshoot, I'll let you know if I get beer on the ceiling hah.
:lol:. I think we can safely say that you now understand Priming Calculators as well as anyone. THanks for the read Goul :salute:.
Last edited by PistolPatch on 11 Jun 2015, 17:48, edited 1 time in total.
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Post #16 made 10 years ago
by goulaigan
Sent this in to a BJCP competition in Ottawa a little bit ago (National Capitol Homebrew Competition) and ended up getting a silver for it in the Belgian Strong Ale category. It is still improving with age, really trying hard to save a few as long as possible as its only been bottled for 4 months or so, would like to taste it after a year but my will power sucks...

:sneak:
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Post #20 made 10 years ago
by goulaigan
Thanks fellas, don't like to brag MS but I posted over on that thread anyway. :)

Edit - Oh and either of you feel free to stop by for a beer anytime!
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Post #21 made 10 years ago
by goulaigan
Well, that time of year again :) Before I start, to tie up a few loose ends from above, I did manage to save 3 bottles of the Pickled Monk from last year, and cracked one a few nights ago to celebrate finishing my last maple syrup batch this year. Boiled down just over 65 gallons of sap to about 6 litres of syrup. The pickled monk, after aging about a year, is easily now the best belgian I have ever made, possibly the best beer I've ever made. I gave some to the wife and she insisted I make it again, so I think I will, however I planned to make something light this year as I said above, so the theme of my annual maple beer thread entry this year will be the maple wheat I brewed last night. Pickled monk 2 will be next week hopefully. Here is last year's after a year...
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I actually remembered to take a few pics yesterday too, first off, collecting the sap
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The only time I ever filter when I brew, is when I use sap. Just because the jugs tend to get the odd little bits of debris in them...
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Next up, mill grain, (quickly before too many sticky little handfuls get stolen,heating strike sap and dough in. Got my very high tech wind avoidance sleeve over the kettle, and since it was raining, also had to deploy the equally high tech rain avoidance system...
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And the usual mash, bag pull, and boil, and as a bonus my top secret grain bag draining mechanism, that one is for all you tech and gear brewers, haha.
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So that's pretty much when I got too lazy to take more pics, but I'm sure most of you know what wort dumping into a bucket looks like anyway. Oh almost forgot, the secret boil addition, maple syrup of course. This beer will be batch primed with it as well, when the time comes.
IMG_20160330_205011.jpg
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Last edited by goulaigan on 31 Mar 2016, 22:16, edited 1 time in total.
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Post #22 made 10 years ago
by PistolPatch
Top pics :thumbs: :clap: :salute:.

And, thanks for the other updates. I read them at the time but didn't even have a chance to say congrats on the Silver :champ:.
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Post #23 made 10 years ago
by goulaigan
Thanks PP. Actually I think you did congratulate me in the BIAB competition success thread :) Hopefully this years brew will have a bit more of a noticeable maple flavour. It is very difficult to get anything to come through, so hopefully this recipe (malted wheat/2row/rolled oats and light on hops with a small bittering addition only) will allow a bit more maple to come through. It is definitely there in last years but with such a complex beer its difficult to pick it out. Time will tell with this one.

There is a local brewery here that does a maple breakfast stout, with coffee and maple syrup that are both pretty noticeable. I asked one of the owners how they do it and apparently they get the coffee from a local roaster who actually infuses maple syrup into the coffee... Cheaters haha
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Post #24 made 10 years ago
by Rick
I really need to do this, such a great brew method. Save me a bottle and bring it to the states! :D

My counterpart at work is in Hamilton, ON ... looks to still be quite a bit away from you even if I get up there one day.
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Post #25 made 10 years ago
by goulaigan
Yep, Hamilton is about an 8 hour drive or so. I do get down south to that area once in a while tho, but not too often. I'm not a huge fan of the big cities, can handle a few days but that enough for me.

I am going to try and save a few bottle of this maple wheat for a while.

If I can get my yeast order in before the 10 gallons of sap I stored in the fridge goes bad, I will rebrew the Belgian Quad from last year, that one I plan on aging the entire batch for a year, since age has really made last years amazing...
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