Hi Guys, I’m new here and new to mead making. I have my first 1 gallon batch of orange mead fermenting like crazy now (2 wks old) and I’m going to start a second batch today. I was thinking, I have a lot of maple syrup I got from NY. It’s a light amber grade A and I have gallons of it. It’s from a small Amish farm in Northern New York and thus organic. My brother knows the farmer. Anyway, how would I go about using this sugar source to make mead either with some honey or as a stand alone fermentation? Any ideas or recipes would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
I don’t really recall the particulars but check out this podcast from Basic Brewing.
Got this by searching for maple wine. Many of the participants are active here, so I’m sure they will have more to say.
Maple Wine
The next time I brew a brown ale I plan to rack a gallon or so into a separate fermenter and add some maple syrup.
The darker the better when it comes to maple syrup for brewing. I’ve used grade B syrup for my maple wine. If you have a lighter syrup, you might lose a lot of maple character in fermentation.
The technical term for what you’re trying to brew is “acerglyn”. Search with that term and you’ll find quite a bit of info. Let us know how it turns out. I’ve only used maple syrup as a late addition in a porter brewed with maple sap in place of brewing water. It was decent, but I didn’t like the thinness of body and extract-like twang it gave the beer. It definitely boosted the alcohol content though, which is why my Minnesota redneck cousins liked it enough to kill the batch for me.