Does anyone have experience bottling with other sugars rather than the standard corn sugar? Specifically, honey, maple syrup, molasses. I’m pretty sure I’ve read all these could be used. If so, how much flavor is in the finished product? If I tried one of these I wouldn’t add any during the brewing process, only for bottling.
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Bottling with other sugars
- Thread starter HikeNC
- Start date
sbbish
Master Brewer
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- Jan 30, 2011
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I have had mixed success bottling with molasses and maple syrup.
I've made two different brown ales and I bottled both using molasses as the priming sugar. A slight amount of the molasses flavor came through, which I really liked.
I made a maple syrup porter that I bottled with maple syrup. Again, a slight hint of the flavor was noticeable in the finished brew.
The "mixed success" part had to do with the aging. None of the three beers had a very good shelf life. All tasted great initially, but changed dramatically as time passed. I had the biggest problem with the maple syrup porter. It tasted great for about the first month. By the second month, the beer was on it's way to cloyingly sweet. By the third month, it was undrinkable.
The brown ales had a slightly better shelf life, but even they changed over time and the final bottles did not taste nearly as good as the initial ones.
None of my other beers (bottled with DME) have had this problem. In fact, almost every brew I have gets better with age. I used DME to bottle my third brown ale recipe and the remaining bottles are still delicious after 6 months. Only the ones I've bottled with maple syrup or molasses had shelf life issues.
Great taste to begin with, but drink the batch fast. That's my experience. YMMV.
Scott
I've made two different brown ales and I bottled both using molasses as the priming sugar. A slight amount of the molasses flavor came through, which I really liked.
I made a maple syrup porter that I bottled with maple syrup. Again, a slight hint of the flavor was noticeable in the finished brew.
The "mixed success" part had to do with the aging. None of the three beers had a very good shelf life. All tasted great initially, but changed dramatically as time passed. I had the biggest problem with the maple syrup porter. It tasted great for about the first month. By the second month, the beer was on it's way to cloyingly sweet. By the third month, it was undrinkable.
The brown ales had a slightly better shelf life, but even they changed over time and the final bottles did not taste nearly as good as the initial ones.
None of my other beers (bottled with DME) have had this problem. In fact, almost every brew I have gets better with age. I used DME to bottle my third brown ale recipe and the remaining bottles are still delicious after 6 months. Only the ones I've bottled with maple syrup or molasses had shelf life issues.
Great taste to begin with, but drink the batch fast. That's my experience. YMMV.
Scott
You can create a new carbonation profile. Just click on carbonation profiles. On the top left click on Add Carbonation. Name it what you want, set type to bottle, leave beer temp at 70F, set sugar used to Maple Syrup, set Priming Effectiveness to 65.20%, add a note if you like.