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Maple wine from half-boiled sap

I was poking around a couple of years ago with this idea, and somebody

-- I can't remember who for the life of me -- said that if I knew any maple syrup producers, half-boiled sap (midway between sap and syrup) would probably be perfect for winemaking. Enough sugar to give it a decent SG, and enough flavour to keep it "mapley."

So I'm sitting here in my office right now with about 5 gallons of half-boiled sap in plastic containers in front of me. Oddly, I can't find anything about using half-boiled sap to make maple wine.

Here are a few things I could use some help with:

  1. Do I really, really, really need to boil the sap? It's already been boiled down and cooled, and then sealed in plastic jugs, so I feel pretty secure about it. And I don't have any major league boiling equipment, and doing it one gallon at a time on the stove would be quite a burden.

  1. Any other advice for me other than check the SG and proceed as regular? I'm planning on adopting/adapting some of Keller's Maple Sap recipe, perhaps boiling the ingredients in some water to take the SG down if need be. If the SG starts too low, sugar and water and ingredients on the boil, then added to the ol' bucket.

Reply to
Matt Shepherd
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It seems perfectly logical to me. I can see no reason to concentrate it by further boiling and then add water back to it. Go for it!

Ray

Reply to
Ray Calvert

No need to boil the sap, but I would boil the water. If you can afford five gallons of maple sap, you can afford a five gallon stainless steel pot.

I plead guilty to not having read every word Jack Keller ever wrote. But, I am trying.

A gallon of water weighs 8.3333... lbs. How much does a gallon of sap weigh? Weigh an empty container and zero you scale to its weight. Add one gallon of sap and you have your answer (Ws).

Then compute the SG of the sap as (Ws / 8.33333).

Let's say a gallon of sap weighs 10 lbs, then (10 / 8.33333) 1.20. So mix equal quanties of sap and water and you should expect an OG of 1.10. Verify via an hydrometer reading.

Dick - The more I learn, the more I realize little I know.

Reply to
Dick Adams

Worthy of note: half-boiled sap (it's not a precise science, so bear with me) has an SG of about 1.082. After I added a litre of "pure syrup" to the 23 litres of half-boiled sap, the SG rose to 1.084. A tetch low, but worth working with just to avoid the inclusion of white sugar.

Annnnnd we're off! Boiling the zest and cloves in some half-boiled sap right now. Going to add the yeast after that's in the mix, and hopefully everything will go as planned.

My main concern is whether or not the primary will "boil over" and, if it does, whether it will attract carpenter ants (my house has been plagued off and on for years). A little diatamaceous earth around the primary should solve that problem, though.

- Matt

Reply to
matthewshepherd

Matt,

There are many components to any wine, and in addition to the fruitiness (esters and other substances) that will come from the maple sap, your main concerns should be a balance between the residual sugar, the acid and possibly the tannins.

  1. Sugar - concentrate the sap so that the sugar content will give you a suitable alcohol level when it is fermented out eg 10-11%, you are probably pretty close now at 1.084.. Decide if you want your wine to be dry or off dry. If you want it sweet or off-dry you might want to save some of the sap as is or further concentrate it through boiling to use as a sweetener once the wine has finished fermenting. Any other source of maple syrup would work just fine. I fully support your intention to avoid adding sugar. If the SG is not where you want it you can always concentrate the sap a little more, as your goal should be to concentrate the sap flavours and this is best done by concentrating the sap to your desired SG.

  1. Acid - is very important for several reasons, particularly the taste balance of the final product but also you need to know the pH in order to use the minimum effective level of sulfite once your wine is finished to avoid excess oxygenation and spoilage. Of major concern in a wine without adequate acid is that it would be quite flat, tasteless and otherwise uninteresting. Without going into detail it is extremely helpful to know the TA (total acid) and the pH. If this is not practical, try to determine the taste of the sap and that will give you a very general sense of the balance of the juice although this is not very reliable. What you really need to know is whether or not there is adequate acid, and, if not, how much acid should be added. If additional acid is required, it is best done before fermentation.

  2. Tannins - adds body and "biterness" to the wine and I have no idea whether or not sap contains much if any tannin. Tannin can be added as a powder or is a result of the exposure of your wine to oak. I would be reluctant to fool with this unless the experience of others with maple wine suggests you should.

I would try to do a search through the newsgroup or even google to try to learn from the experience of others who have made wine from maple syrup. But, definitely attend to the acid issue as well as the sugar.

Good luck,

Glen Duff

Reply to
Glen Duff

If you are even remotely worried about your primary boiling over, the easy solution is to use a bigger primary. Or use two primaries and just don't fill them so full. I like to use a 10 gallon primary for a 6 gallon batch. That way I don't have to worry.

Ray

Reply to
Ray Calvert

Just so we're on the same page, 23 liters is 6.076 gals. And you got an SG of 1.082 on the half-boiled without having added any water? Now (23 * 1.082 + 1 * x) / 24 = 1.084 So x = 24*1.084 - 23*1.082 ie x = 1.13 (The SG of pure maple syrup) That SG seems to me to be extremely low.

I hope so too.

NEVER fear mutiple primaries are here. And just spread gound Habenero peppers at the thressholds of your exterior doors.

Dick -- A miracle happened to day: I stopped at my LHBS and did not buy anything.

Reply to
Dick Adams

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