Maple Mead

[wurmdert]

I just started brewing my first batch of maple Mead. Has anyone else made any spirits from your syrup

[toquin]

Yes, very smooth but illegal

[wurmdert]

Why illegal? Even for home use?

[psparr]

Mead, wine, and beer are ok. Distilled spirits not so much.

[Flatlander]

Two of my brothers have made different beverages from my syrup/sap. The mead has aged quite well from 2013!

I sold a couple of gallons of syrup to a spirit maker to make vodka out of it but never heard back from her. Depends on the state if it is legal or not. Good luck.

[Ian MacMillan]

It's very popular. Buddy of mine here in NH owns Sap House Meadery, specializing in meads made with maple.

Ian MacMillan
Wakefield, NH

[Ray_Nagle]

I recently bottled a batch of mead that contained maple syrup. I also just started a new batch that included even more maple syrup. I'm a beekeeper so naturally I combine the two.

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[wurmdert]

Im in secondary fermentation waiting for it to clear up

[RuralBrewer]

Made a maple fermentation last year which I'm about to bottle. Started with partially boiled sap and then fed it syrup over the course of a few weeks with staggered yeast nutrients and a white wine yeast. Hit an 18% ceiling and added more syrup to taste (semi-sweet). Needed the year of aging to smooth out but I'm very happy with it and plan to do a batch every year at this time. Also playing with coffee, vanilla beans, and oaked variants.

[BSD]

my wife wants to use some left over syrup we didn't sell from last year to make a batch of mead but i have no idea what's involved.

[Kawierider]

Yes. This will be my third year.

First year I did two 5 gallon batches with partially boiled sap. Boiled down to the sugar concentration needed to max out the alcohol potential of the yeast (Lalvin 1118 and Lalvin d47).

Last year I used finished syrup, added enough to water for 6%. When fermentation finished I added the same amount of syrup to get me near 12%. Then when that fermentation completed I added enough sugar to get me to 20% alcohol content. I back sweetened with syrup. Used Lalvin 1118yeast + yeast nutrient. The result my wife says is like "bourbon without the burn". I left mine dessert wine sweet.

This year I will duplicAte the recipe, leave it dry, and then try oak barrel aging.

The best advise: find directions for a traditional mead. Using specific gravity measurements instead of volume measurements just replace honey with syrup.

[Burnt sap]

Maple Moonshine tastes great and easy to make.

[Brandy Brook Maple Farm]

I just started brewing my first batch of maple Mead. Has anyone else made any spirits from your syrup

We make traditional wine from our maple syrup. Instead of cane sugar, we use maple syrup as our sugar base. Raspberry, Strawberry, Blueberry, Peach, Currant, and Concord are on the line up for our maple winery opening during maple weekend in New York this year. www.facebook.com/oldetymewine

I'm interested to learn more about maple mead, as I read in the southern part of my state there is a meadery doing the very same thing.

Joy

[Tomino]

Hello, I'm from central Europe and this is my first comment, so first of all I want to thank everyone for their valuable advice on the production of maple syrup. I think I'm the only maple syrup producer in Europe. We produce only a small amount of syrup, but we tried to make a 2,5 litres of sweet wine for drinking and 5 litres of wine for distilling only (sugar content 15% only for ferment all of sugar) too. I must said that maple wine is so good I have only two last bottles 2 years old and of course very rare. Spirit was made this saturday from 5 litres of wine to 0,350 litres of 55% Vol. of alcohol content. It has very nice smell, like raspberries and vanilla. If you would like, here is my recipes:

For sweet Wine:
For 2,5 litres
Initial sugar content 30% Brix (refractometer)
1,15 litres of maple syrup (66% content of sugar)
1,35 litres of pure water
Mix it, make it to boil, turn off the heater and add this:
1/2 of big lemon cut on small pieces without peel
3 small pieces of cinnamon broken into small pieces
8g of ginger cut on small pieces
1 tablespoon of camomile
1/2 teaspoon of saffron (maybe it’s not necessarily)
Let it cool to room temperature, filter it and after that add 1g of yeast. Pour into the 3l bottle and don’t forget use the fermentation stopper. Let it be on the room temperature for maybe two months until the fermentation stopper stop bubble. After that pour into the smaller bottles, close it and let it relax for two more months, but longer time would be better of course.

Making wine for distilling:
For 5 litres
Initial sugar content 15% Brix (but can be up to 24-26% Brix. It should fermented all of sugar to alcohol)
1,36 kg of maple syrup (I think it should be 1,062 Litres)
3,86 Litres of pure water
You do not have to boil, only mix it together and add a 1g of yeast. Pour into the 5l bottle and don’t forget use the fermentation stopper. Let it be on the room temperature for maybe two months until the fermentation stopper stop bubble. After that it is ready for distillation.

Have a nice day.

Here is some photos of my equipment for small production and recipe and taste testing:
16039160401604116042

[wurmdert]

Thank you i will try this wine recipe. Welcome from across the pond.

[Jon Foster]

We've made a few batches of mead in the past with excellent results. But one of the best mead's we've ever had was made in Poland by a company named Apis. The mead was called Jadwiga and it was aged 25 years in oak barrels. Fantastic stuff but pricey. It was around $35.00 a bottle. A few years ago they got so popular they could only age the mead for around 2.5 years before selling. The taste of the recent bottles are nothing compared to the older stuff. I'm a firm believer in long aging meads. Right now the oldest mead we have in bulk storage was made in 2002.

Jon.

[SognSyrup]

Not distilled spirits, but we just finished our first batch of Maple Porter...AHHHHMAZING!! Turned out so nicely. We did the wort with 2/3 sap, 1/3 water. After 2nd fermentation, we kegged and added 1 cup of syrup to cold keg. The first few pints were very, very sweet, but things evened out and it's now wonderful!
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[lyford]

after adding back the syrup after fermentation, are you able to pickup any maple flavor in the beer?

[SognSyrup]

Totally. Initially, it was very sweet. Almost too sweet. But it's "settled" and is now wonderful.