Making Maple Syrup, part two

Our plans are to wrap up our maple syrup making today.  We began by collecting sap on Thursday and Friday last week.  Then on Sunday we began the process of “boiling down the sap.”  We worked at that again Monday and Tuesday.  Due to some cold weather the sap wasn’t flowing and we got caught up with our “boiling” on Tuesday.  Wednesday was much warmer and the sap began to flow again.  We collected sap that afternoon and started the evaporation process that evening, leaving a good fire burning under a evaporator pan filled to capacity, about 50 gallons of sap.  We collected again yesterday morning and a bit in the late afternoon.  Our plan is to collect this morning and then help Gill take down all of the jugs and pull out the spiles.  Our weather has warmed up—to be near 70 degrees today and over 70 the next couple of days, so there isn’t going to be much more flow.

Connie has been “finishing” off our syrup.  Here are a couple of photos.

Here the concentrated sap is “boiling” on the top of the wood burning cookstove.  There are a few different ways of knowing when it is ready to be taken off the stove and put into jars.  Some use a candy thermometer to check.  At about 218 degrees the sugar content is what is looked for.  At about that temperature the syrup begins to really foam.   Also, one can dip a spoon into it and when it is poured off the spoon there will be some that tends to “cling” to the spoon.

Pictured here is 5 pints of syrup from the first batch we did.  There was about 1/2 pint more that isn’t pictured.  I “had” to make some pancakes for our supper Wednesday evening so we could try some of that fresh syrup.  Ummm!  It was good!