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I'm new to the forum and don't really know all that much about brewing. However I'm currently brewing my second festabrew with a friend, and want to get a little creative with regards to the step involving adding priming sugar to the beer. The instructions say that I add 1 cup of priming sugar to the beer, but i was wondering if I added some maple syrup would it carbonate too much, or would the taste even be noticable?
Cheers

Maple will ferment out a lot, without leaving much flavour. You'll get something, but the 'cruder' grades that you can get at Planet Organic (and maybe other places) will be better. Don't use high quality stuff. Some ground fenugreek will help as as well, maybe try 1.5 teaspoons ground per festa batch. Jaggery from Robie Indian food store is a nice priming sugar too that has a bit more character than plain sugar. Good luck!

Ok, thanks for the tips, its a double oatmeal stout, and i like the idea of a maply dark beer (i think the H&T had one this winter)

Yeah, a bit of maple would be nice in that beer.

ryandthompson wrote:Ok, thanks for the tips, its a double oatmeal stout, and i like the idea of a maply dark beer (i think the H&T had one this winter)

I haven't done any maple beers at the H&T

Maple syrup, especially for priming and especially in a stout will most likely be 100% un-noticeable but if you do use it be aware that it's a syrup and therefore contains a lot of water, in other words you'll need more than a cup to get to similar carbonation levels of 1 cup of sugar. Maple syrup is standardized to 68 % sugar btw

I made a Maple Porter not long ago based on a recipe from Liverdance and Chalmers.
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I think the maple came through nicely, but I used a fair bit of the darker grade.
500ml late in the boil kettle.
500ml in the secondary fermentor.
and approx 300ml as a priming sugar before bottling.

mr x wrote:Maple will ferment out a lot, without leaving much flavour. You'll get something, but the 'cruder' grades that you can get at Planet Organic (and maybe other places) will be better. Don't use high quality stuff. Some ground fenugreek will help as as well, maybe try 1.5 teaspoons ground per festa batch. Jaggery from Robie Indian food store is a nice priming sugar too that has a bit more character than plain sugar. Good luck!

Very nicely put. When it comes right down to it, everything that tastes good in any kind of alcoholic beverage is an impurity. The trick to making whiskies is to bleed off the pure alcohol _and_ the right kinds of phenols. With wine, you sometimes need to ensure you don't provide too many nutrients for the yeast. Making mead can be pure frustration, because honey ferments out so cleanly that you get nothing worth tasting (but you can still get a headache...). I'm damned if I know what the trick is with beer, but I'm sure Robert's right that the one thing you absolutely don't want if you're priming with maple syrup is a top quality one!



(OK, I only put that there because I could. Jimmy, where DO you get these smilies?)

derek wrote:

(OK, I only put that there because I could. Jimmy, where DO you get these smilies?)

It takes many many hours of tiring searches for such quality smilies. I've got to keep mr x happy haha

http://www.worldboxingvideoarchive.com/ ... &text=body" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

lol. Do you really want me to add all those? If there are any you want added, just send me a link. And there are smiley packages that can be installed too.

I don't care, lol, just wasting time...