This weekend we tried our hand at making maple syrup for the first time. After we got settled on Friday night, I took a walk with Maxie to check out the sap buckets. Unfortunately, we probably tapped a week early, because the cold temperatures on Wednesday through Friday resulted in sap that was completely frozen!
Since we had only tapped six trees and they were all relatively close to the house, I decided to bring the buckets into the house to thaw overnight. The next morning, we at least had some liquid to work with. I arranged two cinderblocks in the firepit to support a pan, and got a fire going. I started a batch of sap boiling, and then added one of the 'sapsicles' to the pan.
The ice of course stopped the sap from boiling. Since we had about 6 to 7 gallons of sap to boil, I needed to find an alternative. We have a couple of very large stainless steel bowls, and I found that I could balance one over the fire. I used the bowl to melt ice and pre-heat sap, which I then poured into the main pan.
Once I had a system, I just needed to keep the fire going. It took from about 9AM to 2PM to boil the sap down to syrup. I filtered the syrup into a small pot and finished boiling on a camp stove so I could control the heat. We do not have a sap hygrometer, so I relied on a thermometer, as finished sap boils at about 219 degrees. I then filtered the sap using cotton cloth and an IKEA stainless steel coffee filter, finishing around 3PM. For my 6 hours of work and 6 gallons of sap, I ended up with a little over a pint of maple syrup.
One of the challenges of making maple syrup is that the process concentrates not only sugar, but also minerals, producing 'sugar sand'. Unfortunately, my cotton cloth and coffee filter did not capture the sugar sand and I ended up with some sugar sand sludge in the bottom of the jars. Everything I had read recommended the use of an orlon filter to remove the sugar sand. I had hoped to avoid it, but I went to Fleet Farm, bought an orlon filter and some paper pre-filters. I re-heated the syrup, filtered it, and put it back into a jar. Because the filter absorbs some syrup, I ended up with exactly 1 pint of maple syrup that, unbelievably, tastes like maple syrup! We plan to have pancakes for dinner this week to try it out.
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