For National Homebrew Day on May 4th, I had planned on whipping up a batch Maple Sap Porter, but the Box Elder (Manitoba Maple) trees that I tapped were not producing enough sap by Saturday, so I went with Plan B: A Black Saison. I made 10 gallons of that and will split the batch and infect 5 gallons with some Brett B.
Anyway, my friend who owns the trees told me on Sunday that the sap has stopped flowing and we netted about 3 gallons of sap. I picked up the sap and brewed a small batch of Maple Porter.
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Sweet Box (Maple Sap Porter)
0.700 KG Pale Malt (Maris Otter)
0.600 Malteurop 2 row pale malt
0.150 Briess Munich 10L
0.040 Black Patent Malt
0.040 Chocolate Malt
0.030 Carafa II
boil 60 min 10.0G Goldings ~ pellet
boil 20 min 15.0G Goldings ~ pellet
boil 1 min 15.0G Goldings ~ pellet
I only used the Maple Sap and did not augment with water or any other fluid. I was boiling down a couple of liters to syrup consistency so I could put that at the end of the boil but I ended up burning it so I had to improvise. I collected some sparge runnings and put that on medium heat for about an hour and added that to the boil kettle at flameout. I am hoping it will end up a little sweet. I also used London III Wyeast 1318 which tends to lend a sweetness to the beer. I did not treat the sap in any way nor did I use any Irish Moss
This was all I was able to get from the experiment, but should be very interesting to taste it. I am very much looking forward to this.
