Remember when Joel and I tapped our maple trees several weeks ago?
Well, I lost track of how many gallons of sap we collected, but it was quite a lot. While we were building the decks we put the sap on to boil outside. It was very windy that day so we set up a piece of plywood as a bit of a wind break to protect the flames of the propane burner and moved our comfy chairs near the flames to keep us warm.
Boiling down the sap is a simple task. We usually put about 4" of strained sap in each of two huge pots onto the burners and crank up the heat. The goal is to get the sap boiling so the water evaporates. As the sap boils down to about 1" we add more sap until we once again have 4" in the pot. Wash, rinse, repeat. For hours. And hours. It takes a while when you have over 15 gallons of sap to boil off!
So instead of sitting around for the better part of the day we got to work on the deck, making sure to check on the sap every so often.
Remember this pic? We were quite busy with the deck. There was just one itsy bitsy problem. I got so involved with laying down boards that I temporarily forgot about the sap. Until I smelled something really sweet in the air....and when I looked down at the pavilion where the sap was boiling off....I saw something horrible. SMOKE!!! Holy cow!
Joel and I ran down to the pavilion and quickly shut off the propane to that burner and when we looked inside the pot, this is what we saw. Yes. A charred mess. And all the gallons of sap we had boiled off in this particular pot were gone. Aww, man.....can you hear me whining from where you sit? Yes, I was not very happy with myself. What a stupid mistake.
Needless to say, from that moment on I paid much closer attention to the remaining pot of sap happily boiling away. Once the remaining gallons of sap were boiled down and had turned this amber color we shut off the propane under the pot and moved our operation indoors. The sap needs to be finished off inside where the temps can be more closely monitored. See how large the bubbles are? It's not quite syrup yet.
And then all of a sudden the bubbles get smaller and smaller and the whole business froths up. I checked the temperature of the syrup to make sure it was 7 degrees above boiling water temp and we were done! Just that simple......
And these are the pretty bottles filled with the luscious gold liquid. I do believe that is more than enough syrup for us for the next year. And just think how much more we would have had if I hadn't been preoccupied with the deck? Sigh.....well, live and learn. And there's always next year. Maybe multi-tasking while cooking sap isn't such a good idea after all.
You can bet I'll pay much closer attention to the sap boiling process next year,
Deb
