Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

I missed 2 or 3 good days but Some days over the last week weren't good sap days my brother-in law north of Barrie says the same thing.
I only have 4 taps in and so far have I litre of syrup. Looks like a good day today.

Big score today. Went to pick up maple syrup from a local farm and the lady had maple sugar! SHe sold me some at a very reasonable price. I love their syrup!

Woohoo!

Welllllll....my stand tube and hydrometer arrived mid last week...i had sap saved in a whole bunch of food grade 5 gal pails and it froze outside..I finished it off on Sunday and tried the new gadget...it actually caught me by surprise...to get the syrup to the brix level demanded by the hydrometer took me boiling to a level I haven't done as yet...but it was syrup and oh so good...it got to the thicker consistency that some of my friends had commented on and that I hadn't managed..I was always afraid to boil too far...it takes mere seconds to turn syrup to garbage near that ideal point ...so I had backed off...the syrup I had been producing had great colour and fantastic taste but it bordered on too thin...now the taste is more intense and the consistency proper but the syrup is much darker...and of course, there is less of it...I love, love, LOVE sugaring season and look forward to it every year...I only run enough buckets to produce syrup for me and mine and a few gifts..I could run a couple of hundred taps but I don't have the boiling capacity and I really don't want to go commercial so I might max out at 40 taps..only ran 15 is year...but sooooo much fun and I can hardly wait til next season... :running-chicken:

Don't make it "work" Tom. It's never as enjoyable when there's expectations, quotas and deadlines attached to it! It sounds like a labor of love :)

Happy.... so true.. I really look forward to doing it...big time...I'd like to do a little more but not crazy much... I have a plan for an evaporator which was supposed to be done for this spring but well, one thing after another and all of a sudden it's sugaring time and its not ready...next year..lol..but darn it, the connection with the bush and the quiet is sooooo nourishing for the soul.. :running-chicken:

I'm headed out right now to collect. Missed yesterday so the buckets may be overflowing.

I'm the exact same with the boiling Tom, first batch I made this year was definitely too liquid (really just because it was getting late and wasn't going to wait any longer), but my subsequent batches were much better. I'm sure I'll get a hydrometer eventually.

I had a disastrous maple syrup day on the weekend and lost it all (would have been about 1 liter of syrup). So I'm feeling a bit down about the whole process given how much work it is just to bring back the sap from the woods. But some lessons learned and I'll still carry on with it! What would I put in my coffee otherwise?

Treerooted...how did you lose it?.. that's disheartening...i take 5 gallon pails to the trees and they have snap on sealing lids, so i can't spill the sap ..5 gals is a lot to tote very far but filling it less might solve that...my ambition is to find a tank that I can put on my trailer behind the old Ford tractor and eliminate all the toting... :running-chicken:

i used to just boil mine until 4C above boiling with a thermometer....so if your water boils at 100C (it depends on altitude) then add 4C and boil until the temp of the syrup is 104...then your syrup will be done-but you need to make sure you measure your boiling point of water first every day because altitude and barometric pressure can affect the boiling point (it'll be close to 100, but not always at 100).
or for the F people, 7F over the boiling point of the water (approx 219F)

TomK wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 27, 2018 1:36 pm

Treerooted...how did you lose it?.. that's disheartening...i take 5 gallon pails to the trees and they have snap on sealing lids, so i can't spill the sap ..5 gals is a lot to tote very far but filling it less might solve that...my ambition is to find a tank that I can put on my trailer behind the old Ford tractor and eliminate all the toting... :running-chicken:

First, I was transferring from one pan to another and managed to drop it into the fire, so I lost about half of it there. What I had left I ended up burning on the stove inside while finishing off. So it was just me being careless!

My forest path is too wet this time of year to support our tractor going back there, so it's a combination of sled and wagon to get it back to the house. Probably the only solution would be a sugar shack in the woods (which would be awesome!), but I don't think that's gong to happen. If there's snow in the woods I can manage getting 10 gal + a toddler halfway back on a sled.