Maple Flavoring

My daughter in law tasted a maple flavored beer at a local micro-brewery and really liked it. My son and I thought it would be nice to try to brew a 5-gallon batch of a maple flavored beer. I have no idea of how. I thought I'd start with a strong American Ale and use maple chips in place of oak chips and dry hop for the last 7 days of fermentation and/or use maple surrup instead of corn sugar to carbonate. Any thoughts would be appreciated. I use BeerSmith2 exclusively and would follow the amount of oak chips recommended.

If you use maple syrup you may not get much maple flavour after the yeast eat the sugars, also the fermentability may be difficult to guess and you may end up with flat beers or bottlebombs. I'm not sure about the maple chips, it would probably also depend on when the tree was cut and how fresh the chips are? I would use maple extract if you wanted a more predominant maple flavour.

There was an interesting article recently in BYO.com about this subject.  You can read the article yourself, but they indicated that maple water is used to make maple beer for reasons stated by oddball.  Maple water is what maple syrup is made from.  Check out BYO.com. Query maple beer.

A few years ago, I exchanged messages with a Maple Specialist.  Here is what he had to say.

From my experience with maple brewers it seems that much of the flavor or maple is sugar related and is mostly removed by the fermenting process.  That  along with the fact that maple is usually a mild flavor that can be easily overwhelmed by stronger flavors of grains, etc.  Most syrups are 66 to 68% sugars as you listed and the vast majority of the other % is water with small amounts of minerals and flavor related compounds.  The minerals that remain in the maple syrup would not likely fall out of solution in the beer as they have survived staying in solution against sugar at 66% while beer is much more dilute.  If you would like to have some real maple flavor in your beer I would suggest you add the syrup after the fermentation has completed.  The maple flavor is fairly directly related to the darkness of the maple syrup.  To get some flavor to come through you would want a very dark maple syrup, often referred to as grade B, avoid what is commonly called commercial grade maple syrup as it can have unacceptable off flavors that grade B should not have.  As the strength of flavor in a maple syrup varies dramatically you would need to experiment with just how much to add.  When we make maple soft drinks we add between ½ and ¾ cup of syrup per liter of carbonated water.  I suspect you would use much less than that in a beer.

Joe

Robert D Glowacki said:

use maple surrup instead of corn sugar to carbonate.

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Do this!  I've brewed a few batches of maple pale ale and this was the most successful way I found to keep that flavor coming through. 

jomebrew said:

When we make maple soft drinks we add between ½ and ¾ cup of syrup per liter of carbonated water.

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This gave me an idea...You could pasteurize your beer after fermentation, add your syrup, then force carbonate possibly? Anybody have any thoughts on doing it that way to get full flavour since the yeast will no longer be active?

Use 1 TSP of Maple flavoring or extract for a 5 gallon batch, you'll get some nice maple aftertaste. any more than that and you're entering overwhelming territory. A little goes a long way, but it's maple and you don't lose flavor to fermentables.

I've successfully used maple syrup sugar in my porter recipe (called Mama's Sugar Bush). A previous poster here rightly notes that one should use grade B syrup; it's much stronger and somewhat thicker than grade A, which I never buy for pancakes or brazed carrots anyway. I purchase the sugar here in Michigan, and I add a 1-pound bag at 10 minutes before flame-out. I'm not after sweetness, but rather a balanced, non-dominating flavor addition to the porter as well as an ABV uptick. I think it's delicious, and I've been complimented many times for it.

I did a maple once in a dry stout. I think the trick is to use baking syrup grade dark if you want more flavor. the more it is filtered for the higher grades, the less maple flavor.
You may want to go to a specialty shop to sample different grades so you can get an idea. Or maybe you can find a sampler on line from a farm.
I did mine with the darkest grade and the maple flavor came through loud and clear.Used an lb (16 oz) for a 5 gallon batch.

Ive never heard of syrup fermenting. I would think the boil down process would kill the yeast necessary for fermentation. Oh well, new one on me. Since Im not fond of maple syrup I cant say what its handy for once fermented. Perhaps a new kind of bar drink??? Use google, you never know what you might find.