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Vanilla maple mead
Hey all, I'm new here. I've got a half-baked idea to try an all-maple mead with a hint of vanilla, and I wondered if anyone has any advice. We will be using raw sap, not diluting syrup. I've figured that I need to start with about 80 gallons of sap to end up with 6 gallons of mead, so I think I'm okay as far as that goes.
What I need help with is:
1) How much vanilla to add
2) I'd like to carbonate this and put it in 12 oz. bottles... am I crazy to think like this or does that sound good to anyone else?
3) If that is the route that I go, I think I need to add corn sugar at bottling time, correct? But first would add potassium sorbate to make sure fermentation does not restart in the bottles?
Maybe I should be trying some canned recipes before venturing out on my own like this, but opening a can of extract and following a recipe just doesn't do it for me.
I used to bottle beer with some friends (but was not the brewmeister by any means), and we currently have a couple batches of wine going (one of them is a maple wine), but I obviously have a lot to learn, so any advice would be appreciated!
Thanks in advance,
Duane
i am not sure, but i think the pure maple sap will not have enough sugar to ferment. i would reccommend making maple syrup, then using the maple syrup in a recipe to make mead.
if you did a 1/3 maple syrup and 2/3 honey (by volume) and then let it sit in the secondary on two to three vanilla beans (or 4 to 6 oz vanilla extract) i think you would get what you are aiming for.
the maple sap has the maple flavor, but is moslty resin, you need to add the sugar and boil it down to boil off the bad resins and make the sweet nectar we love with our flapjacks.
Thanks for the advice on the vanilla beans! That sounds about right.
I'm going to boil 80 gallons of sap down to 6 gallons.... that should be close to the same as diluting 2 gallons of syrup, except skipping the unecessary boiling down just to dilute it again. I can adjust the s.g. with syrup afterward if necessary.
Now just gotta wait for the sap to flow...
Thanks for the help!
Duane
By the way... lol... I thought I put in my first post that we already make our own syrup! So if anyone wondered why we wanted to boil our own sap down, that's because we already do it anyway!
80 gallons of sap boils down to about 2 gallons of syrup... so instead of boiling 80 down to 2, just to dilute back to 6, we're simply going to boil 80 gallons to 6....
Don't know if anyone cares, but I thought I'd clear that up! 
This idea rocks!!!!!!! I am a mead nut. I have close to 60 gallons aging at any given time ranging from dry to sweet. I have never used maple as my primary fermentable though. Perhaps I am a purest and just love the honey too much. I have used maple as an adjunct in quit a few of my meads though. On the vanilla issue I'd say 3 whole beans would do the trick. One bean pod for every two gallons would give you a distinct vanilla bite and a hefty nose.
Sorry I should have read your entire post. You can't use sorbate if you want to bottle carbonate. Potasium sorbate will stop all fermentation including that which takes place to create them pretty carbonation bubbles. Mead can take a long long time to finish. I have had pretty descent luck so far just bottling the mead after a few months. The rest of the fermentation will carb the mead. Right now it's guess work but I am sure there is a way to figure out when to bottle to allow existing sugars to prime your mead.
Thanks, glad you like the idea! I read somewhere that since mead ferments so slowly, you should check the s.g. three times over the course of a week to make sure it doesn't change, so that you know it's done..... otherwise you risk having bottles explode?
But what you're saying is that you can take advantage of the last big of sugar to do the carbonating for you, instead of adding corn sugar at bottling time?
I understand about the no sorbate, that makes sense now...
Thanks for the help! I am very excited about making this batch!
Duane
I'd shoot a SG once a week. Then bottle after 4 weeks of steady readings. A month isn't going to hurt it since you're going to be letting it age for 6 months to a year anyways if not more. By doing weekly reading you more accurately tell if your fermentation has finished/stopped or if it's just finishing off really slow. A week between reading makes for a measurable difference in readings.
Yah, good idea, no problem to check s.g. over a month's time. Definitely no hurry on this one. The one question I still have though, is once I determine the fermentation has stopped, should I add corn sugar at bottling time, so it will carbonate in the bottles?
Thanks man, appreciate the help!
Duane
Priming w/ corn sugar is A-OK. Just like you would beer right at bottling. It will take a long time to condition though.
Think I could score 3 pounds of raw maple syrup??? I'll pay.......
I need it for my next brew.
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