Welcome to Thunderdome

Posted: **Mon Feb 24, 2014 9:48 pm**

But hell if it's ever worth $20/bottle+ to me, except ice wine. That stuff is the shit.

I've paid $10-12 for certain 750s of beer. If you're forking out more than $20 for a bottle of wine, you're either a connoisseur or you're getting taken for a ride. $15 will get you a quite good wine if you know what to look for. Ice wine is fucking awesome, but the production is a bitch and drives the price way up.

Edited By Malcolm on 1393296541

Posted: **Mon Feb 24, 2014 10:01 pm**

I told the people about this maple sap experiment on a homebrewing forum I read. Everyone says it is an awesome idea and I am awesome.

Edited By GORDON on 1393297304

Posted: **Mon Feb 24, 2014 11:44 pm**

GORDON wrote:I told the people about this maple sap experiment on a homebrewing forum I read. Everyone says it is an awesome idea and I am awesome.

Posted: **Tue Feb 25, 2014 1:04 am**

I basically reinvented a lost brewing process, and by describing my methods on that popular forum, brought it back to the public. No big deal.

Posted: **Wed Mar 05, 2014 9:36 pm**

I am glad we had that 4 days of sap weather, because I got exactly 6 gallons of sap before we had another cold snap, and for the last week we have been below freezing. You are supposed to untap the tree when it starts to bud, and it will be budding in a few weeks. Sugaring season in this part of the country got severely cut short.

Not even sure if I will get enough sap to bother the maple syrup experiment... I wanted to have at least 10 gallons, and right now I have 1.

Posted: **Thu Mar 06, 2014 12:38 am**

GORDON wrote:I basically reinvented a lost brewing process, and by describing my methods on that popular forum, brought it back to the public. No big deal.

A) Brewing processes are lost only until someone sobers up enough to remember them.

B) I know I've had maple flavoured brew in the past that you haven't produced. That was not homebrew batch, though.

Edited By Malcolm on 1394084361

Posted: **Thu Mar 06, 2014 1:04 am**

FLAVORED. All kinds of peeps pour in a bottle of syrup after they brew. That's some weak ass shit compared to what I am doing.

Posted: **Thu Mar 06, 2014 1:13 am**

GORDON wrote:FLAVORED. All kinds of peeps pour in a bottle of syrup after they brew. That's some weak ass shit compared to what I am doing.

Not syrup, not flavoured. I vaguely remember talking to the brewers at the local joint where they tapped a small keg. I was kind of drunk, but I believe I remember them pointing out it was straight from the tree.

Posted: **Thu Mar 06, 2014 6:57 am**

Malcolm wrote:I was kind of drunk, but I believe I remember

We should just add that to all yours posts...

Posted: **Thu Mar 06, 2014 8:01 am**

Malcolm wrote:
GORDON wrote:FLAVORED. All kinds of peeps pour in a bottle of syrup after they brew. That's some weak ass shit compared to what I am doing.
Not syrup, not flavoured. I vaguely remember talking to the brewers at the local joint where they tapped a small keg. I was kind of drunk, but I believe I remember them pointing out it was straight from the tree.

They were probably saying it was "straight from your mom" but you just don't remember.

Posted: **Thu Mar 06, 2014 10:59 am**

GORDON wrote:
Malcolm wrote:
GORDON wrote:FLAVORED. All kinds of peeps pour in a bottle of syrup after they brew. That's some weak ass shit compared to what I am doing.
Not syrup, not flavoured. I vaguely remember talking to the brewers at the local joint where they tapped a small keg. I was kind of drunk, but I believe I remember them pointing out it was straight from the tree.
They were probably saying it was "straight from your mom" but you just don't remember.

I remember them distinctly referring to your mom.

Posted: **Mon Mar 10, 2014 8:45 pm**

Temperatures suddenly jumped close to normal, so I have 5 gallons of sap in the cooler, will get 3 more tomorrow. This experiment is happening.

Better go top off the propane tanks so I can boil it down... possibly this weekend. Possibly Friday.

Posted: **Mon Mar 10, 2014 10:52 pm**

syrup or it didnt happen

Posted: **Mon Mar 10, 2014 11:12 pm**

I hope it isn't frigid the day I want to boil it down... I want to do it outside so I don't have 12 gallons of water vapor in my house.

Posted: **Mon Mar 10, 2014 11:28 pm**

At least it would make your lungs very tasty.

Posted: **Mon Mar 10, 2014 11:34 pm**

If this works on a small scale I realized I have enough large containers in the attic to collect 50 gallons for next year's season.

Previous owner left a shitload of 5-gallon culligan water bottles when he moved out.

Posted: **Sat Mar 22, 2014 2:59 pm**

Let this batch of beer sit for an extra week to settle and hopefully ferment the last of the sugars. Just bottled it. Final gravity came in at 1.010 which brings me to 4.5% ABV.

Smelled and tasted awesome. Hope it carbonates properly... I had overcarbonation last time I used regular sugar for bottling. As the sap glucose was always there for the yeast to eat during fermentation, hopefully we wont have that happen again.

Back in 2 weeks for tasting.

Posted: **Sat Mar 22, 2014 7:25 pm**

4.5% seems kind of weak. I prefer the 6-8% range.

Posted: **Sat Mar 22, 2014 8:41 pm**

I honestly don't know how to bump the OH content. Once I added more malt to a known recipe, and that didn't work. I know different yeasts can produce more OH, but then that isn't really beer when you are using champagne yeast.

Posted: **Sat Mar 22, 2014 10:23 pm**

Try a double bock

Welcome to Thunderdome

The Maple Sap batch of beer