Using Maple for a stout - advice

Here’s an update on what process I followed and how it turned out.

I cold crashed and then cold conditioned the beer for @2 weeks. The abv came in at 9.4%. I boiled 16ozs of dark robust maple syrup from Trader Joe’s. I let it boil for maybe ten minutes in hopes to reduce some excess liquid, probably minimal if any. I then added some water and boiled the two together. My thought was if I boil the syrup and water together maybe it will prevent the maple from sticking to the bottom of the keg. I then added some cold pressed coffee to the syrup to cool it down and add coffee flavor of course. I then poured the coffee and syrup into the keg and then racked the beer on top. Forced carbed at 50 psi for 24 hours.

When I tapped the keg I got some sweet and viscous maple flavor. A friend was in town for the week so I bottled a few to bring over that we drank the next day, all but two bottles. Neither of us got much maple flavor from the bottles I filled. When I went home the following day I sampled some and got minimal of any maple flavor so I added @4ozs Of maple extract I got from beanilla. Sampled it and it was great! The same friend came over the following day and we had some from the keg with the extract and thought the beer was really good and the maple was noticeable.

I just cracked a bottle of the original beer that had just the maple syrup and no extract and I get zero maple flavor. But if I pour a beer from the keg with the extract I get a nice balanced maple flavor.

Prior to adding the extract I did do a side by side between the actual syrup, not the dark robust kind but standard maple syrup and they were comparable. Different but comparable. The extract flavoring is very good and doesn’t taste like extract at all.

Going forward I probably would do both again, adding actual maple and extract but bumping up my crystal malt and aging on some oak to add some additional vanilla flavoring that would enhance the maple while providing some additional flavor and depth.

Hope this is helpful to anyone using maple as it seems to be such a hard ingredient/flavor to use/get. This was my first time using maple and it was hard deciding which approach to take. Personally I recommend the extract, the one from beanilla was really goo and it’s much cheaper than actual maple, $10 for 4 ozs and free shipping. I have no association with beanilla and never heard of it before but I might try the hazelnut extract next.

I should add that I did soak some fenugreek in vodka. The tincture smelled really good like maple syrup but the taste not so much. I poured the tincture in a beer and it tasted like fenugreek not maple. Maybe I had the portions wrong as I used a good amount of fenugreek to vodka because crushed fenugreek soaks up the vodka. Based on my experience fenugreek was a waste of vodka.

 

The temp of the maple/coffee mixture was warmer because the beer was @40. I don’t know the temp of the mixture. I did cool the water and maple down then added the cold brew coffee which was at refrigerator temp so it couldn’t have been too far apart but the mixture was still warmer.

I would say @8 ozs to to determine the carbonation and maple flavor. I was trying to get the beer ready to bring to my friend as he is a home brewer as well and both of us have never used maple. I did move the keg around to “mix” it. It is possible the maple stuck at the bottom but the sample I pulled wasn’t over the top in maple. It was pretty good, maybe too sweet and the maple too much so some could have stuck at the bottom and the sample I poured had more syrup since it settled at the bottom. The coffee does come through. I added 2 ozs at flameout and then cold brewed coffee at kegging, which was 2 ozs of course ground coffee to 1 cup of coffee of water.

I did put “goo” earlier but I meant “good”. Side effect of having my maple stout and writing this post. At no time did I ever feel like i got goo.

The idea is boiling the water with the syrup was to prevent the syrup sludge at the bottom. The first sample didn’t feel like a sludge of maple but I could be wrong.