Official Community Brew - Maple Porter
thewave_21 wrote:
Thanks brew luva Im still pretty new with only acouple batches under my belt. Aside from the hops should I add everything else at the beginning. Do you think I should add more maple syrup than the recipe calls for?
Thanks again.
i would add more maple syrup as to how much, dunno. maybe another 1/2 to 1 pound, also add more cinnamon
start with 2 gallons, bring the temp up to 155F turn off the heat and steep your grains in a grain bag for 30min, remove the grain bag and bring your wort back up to a boil, turn off and remove from heat and add your LME or DME, stir well and bring back to boil and start adding you hops, with or without hop bags, for you 60 min boil, after that pour it into your primary on top of 3 gallons of ice cold water that you already placed in it,i usually strain my wort when pouring it in but you dont have to, the pitch your yeast when your wort temp falls below 80F
I am new to this forum, but I just bottled my modified Maple Porter. It seems to have turned out pretty good, but I had a 1.040 OG and a 1.014 FG, so it'll be less potent (which i think might be due to sugars lost in my sparging - I am still learning that process). The flavor is really nice, however, and the extra spices that i added (sweet orange peel and whole cloves) have given it a nice holiday spice. I also added more Maple Syrup at secondary and I used more cinnamon than the original recipe called for. Overall, it should be a great brew to enjoy in cold January!
Just a thought for getting the maple flavor. I assume everyone used real maple syrup and not log cabin or aunt Jemimah, but using a Grade B syrup might be better. Grade B is sweeter than Grade A and is used primarily for cooking. I'm not sure how readily it is available to the masses but could make a difference. I just started brewing so after I have a few brews under my belt I might give this a try with the Grade B syrup.
Trying this one using a modified recipe sometime this week.
I'm going with this:
6# LME (guy at the LHBS overpoured into my bucket, should have been 5.5# but I'm not complaining)
.5# British Crystal 80L
.5# Cara-Pils
.5# British Chocolate
.25# British Black Patent
1 lbs. Grade B Maple Syrup
.2 oz cinnamon sticks
1oz Centennial 8.6 aa% 06 crop
White Labs English Ale Yeast
I'm doing a 5 gallon boil, steeping grains in 4 gals of water at 150 for 30 mins, then sparging (well, a cheap sparge, basically pouring a gallon of 170 degree water through a strainer with my grain bag in it), then bringing to a boil. Will add LME then bring back to a boil, then add all 1oz of then Centennial hops. I'll be adding Irish Moss at 15 mins left in the boil.
5 mins after I shut off heat when the boil is complete, I will add the 1# of maple syrup and the .2 oz of cinnamon sticks. The guy at the LHBS told me it'd be better for flavor to pasteurize the syrup and cinnamon and not boil them, hence waiting until 5 mins after shutting off heat. I'll stir it in pretty good at this point.
At that point I'll leave covered for 5 minutes or so, then I'll start the cooling process, then pitch yeast when temp. gets down.
Anyhow, anyone hear that pasteurizing over boiling ingredients such as this is good? Could there be a potential for contamination with not boiling them in?
Maple syrup is made by boiling down the sap, so I figure the syrup is sterile enough.
Actually, bringing your maple syrup to a boil before adding it to secondary is not bad idea at all. Being from Vermont, I remember a few times when I was a kid of having mold growth on syrup that had been opened (like the time between boil and secondary) for a bit. Skimming off the mold and giving it a quick boil fixed everything though, so a preemptive (short!) boil of just the maple and cinnamon together shouldn't hurt any flavor characteristics.
I am really interested in this recipe, but I was wondering about priming with brown sugar instead since it compliments both cinnamon and maple so well.
I've primed several batches of homebrew with brown sugar and I really liked the results.
DC
deafcone wrote:
I've primed several batches of homebrew with brown sugar and I really liked the results.
DC
Did you notice a longer carb time with the brown sugar? Never tried it before, but The next scotch ale I make I was thinking about using it.