Proper use of campden tablets in a recipe that calls for the staggered addition of a sugar source

Question

I'm very new to all this, but is my intent to brew an oaked apple maple acerglyn by slightly altering this recipe. My plan is to brew about five gallons--as per the recipe--but utilize an appropriate amount of campden tablets to preemptively sterilize the must 24 hours before pitching the yeast. However, this recipe calls for adding a quarter gallon of maple syrup before and ten days after pitching. What steps can I take to make sure that the second dose of maple syrup is properly sterile?

EDIT: I plan on using EC-1118 yeast and after primary fermentation, the ABV should be hovering somewhere around 17-19%. This is when I intend to add about 750mL of apple cider. Should I use a campden tablet to sterilize the cider (which will likely be unpasteurized) or will the alcohol content prevent any bacteria from spreading?

Answer 1

OK... Let's think about this critically. Suppose your maple syrup had some stray yeast in it. What would happen? Well, yeast eats sugars and burbs CO2 and pees alcohol. What does that mean for your maple syrup? It means that your maple syrup would be all alcohol and the side of the jug would be split open (so, it wouldn't matter if it was alcohol or not).

Now, as far as your cider goes, the same thing would apply only not quite as violently. I would heat the cider to about 160 degrees F and hold it for about 15 minutes if I were worried (actually, I'd just dump it in and not worry). I would do nothing with the maple syrup except pour it in.

Are you planning on the cider fermenting? If not, you can add Potasium Bisulfate to it to kill off the strange yeast that may have made a home in the jug.

Bacteria isn't what causes most food spoilage, yeast and mold is. There's a reason that sugar was used in wound cleaning.

Answer 2

You should be totally good to go using the maple syrup without any treatment, because it has been simmered for quite a long time to make it into syrup. No worries there so long as your syrup folks have good sanitation. (The probably do.)

Your apple cider is definitely suspect because yeast is every-friggin-where, including apple skins. The standard way to deal with this problem is campden tablets, AKA potassium metabisulfite, or possibly sodium metabisulfite. Add one tablet to each gallon of of cider 24 hour prior to adding your yeast.