On Mar 29, 12:00 am, Jack Schmidling wrote:
Theodore M. Kloba wrote:
Silly question: If you plan on using it for brewing anyway, why boil
it down to syrup? Why not just boil down to the gravity you need
contributed to your wort?

Good question. The answer is,that's exactly what we do when making
wine. Saves an awful lot of boiling.

If I ever found myself in posession of a quantity of maple sap, I'd be
tempted to try this "wine" recipe I found on a Lithuanian folk culture
website:

FERMENTED TREE SAP
Rauginta sula

Fill a wooden barrel with maple or birch sap. For extra flavor add
black currant, cherry or birch branches. Cover top with oats. Oats are
light and remain on the surface and sprout creating a 5 cm/2 inches
thick cover. This method of covering the sap creates a flavorful
fermentation. Such fermented sap can be kept for several months in a
cool place and be available to satisfy summer thirst. Cut a round
opening in the oat cover to allow a ladle to enter the barrel. Replace
the cut out round when enough drink has been ladled.

When adding to beer, you would have to deal with all the water in the
original calculation for the batch. I presume the person who added the
syrup to beer purchased the syrup so it was not an issue.

Makes sense... I guess you'd be pretty much limited to extract or a
really long boil otherwise.