Just brewed a beer using maple sap in place of water. It was a small batch since I didn't have a lot of sap and since I wanted this beer to be 100% sap-based.
Just thought I would share a few notes about my experience brewing with the sap:
I'm excited about this experiment. Though the maple sap may not be identifiable in the final beer, I have no doubt that it will add to the complexity.
link to my recipe if anyone is interested - http://brewbybrew.blogspot.com/2013/05/strong-maple-mild.html
Just thought I would share a few notes about my experience brewing with the sap:
- specific gravity of my sap was 1.006
- the sap looks, smells, and pretty much tastes like plain water (perhaps with an ever-so-slight sweetness to it)
- when heated/boiled, however, the sap darkened and had a noticeable maple syrup aroma to it
- for my recipe (a strong brown mild), the mash ended up being rather acidic - in the low 5's. Lower than I was expecting. Apparently the maple sap doesn't have much buffering capacity
I'm excited about this experiment. Though the maple sap may not be identifiable in the final beer, I have no doubt that it will add to the complexity.
link to my recipe if anyone is interested - http://brewbybrew.blogspot.com/2013/05/strong-maple-mild.html