Yahoo, Maple!!

I decided to make use of the 50 or so sugar maples around the house this year. Why buy sugar that comes from such a far away and dirty industry? Pure maple syrup sound way better. Perhaps I could make enough sugar for myself for a year?

First I needed knowledge so I invested in a beginners kit and book from Atkinson Maple. The book Backyard Sugarin’ by rink Mann was great and gave all the instructions needed and focused on using what you have on hand rather than buying all kinds of fancy stuff.I used Freecycle to collect pails and cement blocks – made a few friends in the process as well. I could not get an evaporator pan for free, but as you will read, I made out ok.

Next I wanted people so I emailed EVERYONE that I knew and even put a listing in the local paper. Lots of friends and family came and we had a blast on the first and second weekends. Here is my story;

Day 1 March 14
Managed to finish the first day with 1 litre of syrup. Tried the wood stove – canning pot combo first but the pot would not boil. Determined that wind on the pot and on the stove itself were keeping the temps low. Second fire I made in a cement block 3 sided box with an antique white wash basin set in. This worked much better because a. no sides to lose heat, b. fire directly to the bottom of pan, c. double the surface area. Wet wood makes it hard to keep the fire going hot enough. If I had more cement blocks I could make a chimney.

Quite by accident and narrowly missing a complete burn up, a batch of dark smoky syrup was poured off. We have to use this batch up fast because it was not filtered. Mark and I tasted it out of shot glasses and it was freaking awesome. A few friends came to see what was going on and donate some spiles and pails.

Day 2 on Sunday lots more people came all through the day. We got more taps and buckets going, about 22 total. Some strapping young lads dragged up fallen branches and busted them up for fire wood. Cats and chickens kept the little kids interested. This evenings batch was poured off to be ‘finished’ later.

Day 3
I have the privilege of hanging out with my brother Allan, as we work out the set-up and process, and boil all day long. It was dark when we tried filtering and bottling – sticky mess. Vow to stop adding any new sap to the boiling pan after 3pm because it takes another so long for it to boil away.

Day 4
Allan does some modifications on the stove by improving the chimney and adding a baffle (to prevent me lighting my pants on fire) and making the pan sit level. The pan is oblong, the openings on the curve must either be blocked or in our case used as little sap pre-heaters. After re-reading the instruction book, I re-boiled the syrup from the last 2 days indoors on the electric stove. The instructions are more clear after having seen it once. I found it impossible to read the candy thermometer due to the steam, so that technique was out. Seeing the foaming bubble boil and the way the syrup ‘marbles’ off the spatula were the more reliable method for me.

Stopped earlier today and did less busy bodying. Filtered the syrup at the outdoor stove into a container storage. This finished product, when finished, will have been filtered twice, as is suggested.

Day 5
Called in sick. Coming down with the flu. Go back to bed and let the sap buckets run over. Spend my energy indoors getting ready for the out of town visitors, and respondents to local advertising of workshop with Douglas Barnes on Sat, 21 March. So, in conclusion, I have tapped the maximum amount of trees IAW the amount of boiling pan that I can keep going. The magic number was 22.

PART II

Now that I am more efficient, we collect and store before boiling every 2 or 3 days. When temps are low, there is not as much to collect. The sap is being stored in large containers lined with plastic bags.

Decided to do a tour of other local other syrup productions that are close by. John is 1 km and is a fellow backyarder with a party based set up. The 2009 vintage should be calledBear Hair Maple – there is a sweet tooth bear that likes to check the buckets. One thing that I learned from John is to leave the buckets up in the rain to maintain their weight so that the buckets don’t blow away, however, do not use this liquid for boiling. Dump the water after the rain, start collecting sap again. Sap after a big rain is the sweetest.

The other was Murray Hills Sugar Bush who have a big set up and a huge shiny indoor evaporator. Murray’s maple trees are on a fairly steep hill side so it is no wonder he uses tubing to collect the sap. When the sap runs it is normally pretty muddy and with a set up his size, horses or tractors would be used for collection… wouldn’t work. He keeps only one bucket set up close to the sugar shack so that he can keep an eye on drip rate and sap clarity. When the sap turns colour or cloudy, the season is over. Once the sap turns it would make a bitter unpalatable syrup. Some taps stop dripping before then as a response to the tree actively trying to heal that small wound.

There is currently a 90% grant offered for any maple syrup producer with equipment older than a certain date to upgrade their equipment. This is because the older equipment has too high lead solder content. He gave me a lead test kit so that I could check my pan – I’m good, nice to know.

Grading is based on colour. Backyard set ups like mine will always be darker because all the sap stays in the pan boiling all day. A big evaporator reduces the time that each batch is boiled and the colour stays much lighter. Still tastes great, I’m not sure what the big deal is.

Collected sap and boiled until 27 of March. So far we haven’t run out of wood from the various stashes and piles on the property. Just about done with the maple syrup production for this year, we should finish with 20 litres. This will become an annual event with a workshop offered on one of the weekends. Let me know if you would like to be contacted for next year.