Dean took the snowmobile out yesterday and collected all the sap in the buckets. We had about 4 gallons, and it froze overnight. So here it is melting slowly in the pot! We have 22 five gallon buckets out right now! It takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup! That is a little less than 3 gallons of syrup!
Here it is melting, the sap looks like water, but does have an amber hue to it, and you can slightly taste something sweet.
Still melting:)
...............and melting:)Notice how far up the sap comes to the top? This whole pot boils down to a little less than a pint!
Ok now were getting somewhere! You can see the color starting to come and at this point the house smelled really good!! The sap was really sweet too!
I transfered the sap to a smaller pan so I could keep track of the temp. of the syrup.
(excuse my dirty stove :)!! When the syrup is ready they say that it has "aproned" , because when you dip a spatula in it, it forms an apron on the back of the spatula.
Once the syrup was about 225 degrees F , I put a coffee filter in a funnel and strained it into another pot.
Once the syrup was about 225 degrees F , I put a coffee filter in a funnel and strained it into another pot.
Here is the finished product! One pint of maple syrup. Guess what we are having for breakfast?
This is the first time I have ever done this. It was fun, but it is alot of work. My kids really enjoyed it too.
We wanted to try sugar snow with the syrup, but it didn't come out too good. The syrup just melted the snow and turned to water. Does anyone have some tips on this?
Have a great day!
1 comment:
I use to live in Upstate New York before my husband and I moved South--to escape those long winters! I've been to sap houses where they boil syrup but I also know people who do it on their own stoves. Your maple syrup looks delicious. Fortunately, my children keep me well stocked in Maple Syrup because you don't find much of the real stuff here in the South.
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