Wednesday I started collecting sap for making syrup. I have two very large maple trees and I drilled the holes for the spikes and the sap was running. Sap is moving in the trees when the right weather conditions are present, usually when it is still below freezing at night but above freezing during the day. This morning I had a couple of inches of sap in my buckets and by early afternoon my buckets were nearly full so I am starting to boil my sap to evaporate the water out of it and concentrate the sugars.
People who make a lot of sap into syrup often use a large container and a wood fire to cook their sap. I don't have a wood fired evaporator so I am using my electric roaster. The initial cooking is done outside so that the humidity created is outside instead of in the house. Usually it takes 40 gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup. The last little bit of cooking will be done in the house on the stove where it can be better monitored and bottled at exactly the right temperature.
Last year I had a lot of difficulty. My thermometers were not accurate. I had a couple of them and they did not read the same but I didn't know which one, if either, was accurate and some of my sap was under cooked and some was over cooked. This year I am better prepared. I will be testing my new thermometer bought at a place that sells maple sugaring supplies and made for making syrup as well as candy. I will measure the temperature that reads in boiling water. Maple syrup needs to be 7.5 degrees higher than the temperature at which water boils.
I also bought a hydrometer. A hydrometer is a device that measures the sugar content of a liquid by floating the device in a sample and the height that it floats at gives a Brix score.
Above is the maple tree closest to the house. There are two buckets each with three taps and tubing that carry the sap to the buckets. I have a second tree with the same set up. The first couple of years I used a bucket that hung on the tree on the tap and the sap dripped right into the bucket. That causes some issues with the heavy buckets pulling the taps out of the tree and the empty buckets blowing off the tree on windy days. This set up seems like it is going to work a lot better.
This little wood table holds my electric roaster and my new thermometer. I have the lid ajar so that the contents will heat faster but the steam can escape. The roaster holds one bucket of sap. So far mine has been cooking for a couple of hours and the level of the sap is down about an inch. Long way to go yet.
The two covered buckets are full of sap that is waiting to be cooked. My four buckets collected a total of three buckets of sap so far and are filling up again. I don't have a lot of room to refrigerate the sap so I am hoping that I can keep up. My plan is to try to cook it down until close and then refrigerate the almost syrup until I have enough to finish and bottle several bottles at a time.
Very, very cool. Is there anything you can't do? And you must be thrilled to be able to see the ground again!
ReplyDeleteYep, we can see the ground in parts of the yard that had the snow removed during the winter. We have a mix of crusty wet snow, ice during the overnight and early morning replaced by standing water 'ponds' during the day and then frozen again overnight. We are losing it pretty quickly in the sunny spots but I am sure that there are places that we will have snow into May in the trees or other shaded spots where the biggest drifts settled. The driveway is nearly clear. They are starting with the flood watches.
DeleteI don't know what sap is. But it sounds exciting. It must be nice to see the green after the winter. Enjoy your Spring. Hugs Sujatha:)
ReplyDeleteHi Sujatha, Sap is the fluid in the tree that carries nutrients to feed the tree. In spring the sap moves from the branches and trunk of the tree to the roots. It is clear and thin and looks like water but it is slightly sweet and when it is cooked it thickens and the sugars are concentrated making a sweet, sticky, brown syrup. My trees are maples so my syrup is maple syrup but other trees can have syrup made from them too. Some people make birch, or ash or black walnut syrup. Here we pour maple syrup over pancakes, waffles or French toast. The season lasts just a few weeks and then it gets too warm and the sap quits flowing. We cook and cook the sap to evaporate the water from it and make it thick. Generally it is said that it takes about 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup but that might vary by area or tree variety. I have had a crazy busy winter and am way behind on my blog reading so I will be visiting you and catching up. Yes, glad spring seems to be here. We are about 7 or 8 weeks until our last frost date so the chance of a little more winter is still there but I am hopeful. Hugs to you too!
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