sap beer

[mzstein]

I'm gonna end up with some cloudy , buddy sap and
want to make some sap beer . All the recipes I see
are for taking sap and using the sap in place of the
water for traditional brewing - I am looking for the
traditional recipe for sap beer. The details I have are
very sketchy some say boil down some sap to about 50%
add some yeast and raisins ferment . Others say to
just use the sap add yeast and ferment .

I was hoping someone could give some better details.

MIke

[MapleLady]

Hmmmm..... that's an interesting question. I've never heard of beer made from sap, only mead -- sap and honey. Have you tried google?? (Wish I had a better answer for you....)

Your post got me thinking, as I used to brew beer many years ago.... Check out this link:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/05/15/152694105/vermont-beer-makers-bring-back-old-time-maple-sap-brews


Hope this helps....

[jmayerl]

I sell both sap and 18% partial boiled sap from the flue pan to a brewery. I can tell you i whatched it being made and i perfered the flue pan beer, it was very dark and robust. Sorry no ideas for recipes thou.

[Clarkfield Farms]

When sap is flowing, many brewers, me included, like to use fresh sap in place of water for the boil. It's best with certain styles, though; I prefer using it with Nut Brown Ale. I also add a little bit of very strong syrup, maybe 2-1/2 to 3 cups per 5-gallon batch. I do mean REALLY strong stuff... like dregs. Over-cooked syrup, or syrup that might make commercial grade look light. It's not a problem when using it this way, since nothing that goes into a fermenter ever comes out smelling or tasting quite the same way it went in. By the time the yeast has done its job, it turns out just right this way.

Hops selection - you've gotta use a bit more care in this respect. The balance between sweetness of the brew and the hops bitterness isn't confined to the sweetness of the malt only, now you've got an entirely different aspect with the syrup and sap components. A nice, noble hops is great; Fuggles or Willamette I think are best, but never write-off Liberty, it's an extremely under-appreciated hops, especially with the finer wheat beers. A little goes a very long way. You'll be well advised to consider utilizing a late-addition (about 2-5 minutes remaining boil time) for aroma and flavor at least as much as earlier addition for bittering.

While "wine" is, by true definition, reserved only for fermentations of the grape, it's so commonly used for other fruits and even rhubarb that it's going to be around forever. Nevertheless, fermented maple is called "acerglyn," Acer of course being the Latin for the maple genus. Just as fermented elderberry is called elderberry "wine," fermented maple syrup/sap is called "maple wine." OK, we'll go with that for now... also, as MapleLady pointed out, mixing it with honey (even better) is often called mead, but once again "mead" is fermented honey, and again, called "honey wine." Interesting word, mead: in Russian, Polish, Belarussian and other languages, mead (generally pronounced "mee-YAHD" in those languages while for us it's pronounced just plain old "meed") is their word for honey. In fact, the word "meadow" -- "the source of the mead (nectar)," or "the place where the honey flows." Based bees observed heavily foraging the flowers of the fields... "meadow." Neat. Yes, I said neat. I'm that old. :)

Well, yeast to use? Honestly, go with the recommended types for the style you're making. Me? For the Nut Brown's, the much-derided Munton's works better than any other I've used. It's generally looked down upon, but in this case it has - again, for me - outperformed the others. When the other "superior" yeasts peeter out and don't finish the job on the maple, Munton's dutifully carries on, albeit sluggish at times, and follows through beautifully to a nice finish.

Here's a link to a website that you may curse me for sharing; it could well take even more of your time than this site! --> http://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum.php

As for acerglyn and or mead, here's a website for perhaps the most incredible beverage you'll ever find. I'm serious. DISCLAIMER: the site, unlike this site and the one posted above, isn't necessarily, um... family-friendly. That said --> http://www.gotmead.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9177&highlight=acerglyn You'll likely have to register before you can read it. Just go to the gotmead.com site to register. I will tell you that I add a small amount of Hershey's Natural Unsweetened Cocoa Powder, maybe 2-tbsp, to the mix and oh good golly is it WOW in the end... remember what I said about nothing going into a fermenter comes out the same. Sometimes, it's better. ;)

FFor acerglyn I have no set rules. I used to, when I wasn't making much but over the past two years I've learned that it's really hard to mess up. I generally take the sap down to about 23% sugar, then add the honey while still boiling (btw, you never have to boil honey if you're just going to make straight mead, and in fact you don't have to add honey to the boiling almost-syrup, it just mixes a LOT more readily when hot). Then, when cooling down, pour into the fermentor (if you're using glass, MAKE SURE IT'S COOLED or you'll break the carboy), add boiled/cooled sap (you do want to boil raw sap for about 40 minutes to sterilize it, but cool it after boiling) to get your starting gravity at your desired volume (typically, 1.090 or higher, and a 5-gallon batch).

The yeast that he recommends for the acerglyn is DV10. I have been unable to source ANY DV10 in less than ~1 lb size, and that puts it out of reach price-wise. Alternative yeasts are D47 (preferred) or 71B-1112 (aka, "Narbonne"). I don't use or recommend the 71B only because the yeast can, and have a tendency to, GREATLY accentuate any floral notes in aroma and taste. I mean, sometimes OVERPOWERING floral notes, especially when used in ciders or cysers. I used to prefer EC-1118 as my go-to yeast for almost everything, and while it does an exceptional job on meads and acerglyns it has the unfortunate tendency of being akin to a workhorse that works hard but has no consideration for the nuances of the finer qualities and how they're melded together, and instead blows a great deal of flavor and aroma right out the airlock. Doesn't even know it's doing it. It just does it. Poor thing... But, when making a pyment (wine grape - honey mix), EC-1118 really does seem to get it right.

Let the beer sit in the primary, I've never seen a need to rack an ale to a secondary. BE PATIENT. I have no problem leaving ales to sit for 6-weeks or more after fermentation is complete; the little yeasties don't all go dormant or settle out of suspension, many are still active, cleaning up all the other byproducts of fermentation and it results in a much cleaner, complex ale. I don't know anything about maple's performance in a lager, or most other ales. Nut Brown seems to excel with it, and I've come to really enjoy it and haven't bothered to step beyond that boundary. After 6-8 weeks or more, bottle or keg. With that all said, I will be trying some maple with a Dortmunder and a Rauschbier sometime soon (both are lagers).

As for acerglyn/mead, NOTHING else ages as beautifully or gracefully. It's got an aging curve most closely following the strength/cure curve of concrete - after 28 days, concrete is about as strong as it'll ever be, although technically it never stops increasing, it's just infinitesimal increase. Of course, Acerglyn/mead has a lot longer than 28 days to get to where you want it - years, in fact, but never seems to stop improving. That does NOT mean that one stage of aging is inferior to another. Bottle enough so that you can sample it throughout a very long history. In fact, you probably won't like the results if you try them too early. Some wonderful meads are more than 20 years old and still improving.

Anyways, typically long-winded and boring post. And as for the dissertation on yeasts, well... if you're gonna use a screen name like mine, you better know your stable. :)

[bairdswift]

Yeast pimp, sounds like you know what your talking about. But you kinda lost me.... Tell me what I need to add. I have a 6 gallon pail of flu pan drainings that's 14% sugar. What next?

[Clarkfield Farms]

Sorry, bairdswift. First, the sugar content is at or above what you'd want your wort would be for beer, and almost what you'd want it to be for making acerglyn. Second, until you're ready to go I'd bring the drainings to boil at least once a day to keep it from spoiling.

I apologize for causing confusion. I have no idea what your level of experience is, so I'll go with beginning stuff. There's a lot of information available, some good some bad. The links above are good. Another couple of pretty good sources of information are http://www.eckraus.com which is actually a wine and brew supply house, I don't use them nearly as much as I used to because their shipping and prices have gone up but there are certain things that I can only get from them so I do still buy there. The reason I refer you to them is that they give some very good educational information. Another is http://winemaking.jackkeller.net but the only thing about Jack is that he frequently just throws table sugar into the mix to bring the fermentable sugars to where they'd need to be. Here's his take on "maple sap wine," but you'll notice that again he recommends adding table sugar to it! I do NOT like that approach... anyways: http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/request132.asp

What I'd suggest is if you're going for beer, and you're already at 14%, just get some non-fermentable roasted malts. These grains will not contribute anything but color, flavor and some other favorable factors. I haven't time for a recipe right now but will try to post one tonight. Hops, I'd go with what I recommended above.

What I'd suggest is if you're going for wine, boil it down a little more; if you like wine on the sweeter side, boil down to about 26% sugar and use a low alcohol-tolerant wine yeast. If you like it dry, boil to about 23% sugar and use a yeast like D47 or EC-1118. You must use the appropriate fermentation vessels, again the tutorials on sites I've linked to will help a lot with that. Bottom line is, in the first ("primary") stage of fermentation, give the yeast all the oxygen you can. For the secondary phase, allow them NO outside source of oxygen whatsoever. This is accomplished, again, by the right vessel and appropriate use of airlocks. Making maple beer, go with ALE yeast, not lager yeast. But whether maple wine or maple beer, you won't need to rack to a secondary carboy since it's a fairly clean fermentation. If using a fermenting bucket, beer can sit right there until bottling day, but acerglyn should be racked to a carboy and leave only about an inch or two of headspace.

Again, not sure what your experience level is. I got your PM, maybe it'll work better to communicate by phone. I'll post more later.

[GeneralStark]

I sold 700 gallons of 1% slime sap from the end of last season to a local brewer. Here is a post about it, complete with a VPR piece including a sap beer song!:

http://mapletrader.com/community/showthread.php?17294-Sap-Beer-The-True-Value-Added-Maple-Product/page2

The brewer just used the sap in place of water and some other "brewer tricks" supposedly. It turned out quite well, though did have some interesting flavors that would be considered "off" in syrup. Not the kind of thing I would want to drink every night, but definitely unique.

Sources close to the project claim that the old timer's sap beer was the dregs left in the pans at the end of the season that they put in a barrel and let ferment, perhaps with other things to add flavor. It was likely not "beer" and also probably did not taste that great.