Maple Wine and Traditional Mead

Classification: mead, maple mead

Source: John Gorman (john@rsi.com) Mead Digest #19, 10/17/92

The question was asked: "what would a mead made with pure maple syrup taste like?" Now on my sixth batch, I can say "like ambrosia.

Maple wine becomes crystal clear with a beautiful sherry color within 60 days. I find that mead will usually clarify in 90-120 days. If you choose to bottle the mead before it is clear, it will clarify in the bottles, leaving an unsightly but delicious sediment.

Ingredients:

8-9 quarts, maple syrup or about 5--1/2 quarts, honey
5 teaspoons, yeast nutrient
15 grams (1 pack), champagne or any white wine yeast

Procedure:

Hydrate the yeast in warm water and dissolve the yeast nutrient in hot water. Mix the maple syrup or honey with cold water in a large open container to almost 5 gallons at your target specific gravity. Splash or spray the water to oxygenate the must so that the yeast can multiply rapidly.

Pitch the dissolved yeast and yeast nutrient, dregs included, into a glass carboy. Then splash in the must and slosh around until well mixed, oxygenated, and full.

Use a blow off tube for the first few days and then switch to a water trap. After about 60 days, when the maple wine is crystal clear and you can shine a flashlight beam right thru the carboy onto the wall, bottle your maple wine. It is ready to drink immediately. Make some for Christmas!

I always use yeast nutrient and plenty of yeast for starter, so the fermentation takes off with a bang and the rapidly rising alcohol content quickly kills anything else. For this reason I have never heated the maple syrup or honey, and have had no problems with contamination.

Specifics:

O.G.: 1.120---1.130
F.G.: 1.015---1.030