Maple Syrup

Olde Fashion Maple Syrup

The real story of how it got so out of hand...

Here we are first week of March, still well below zero, and a good 2 to 3 ft of snow and still coming down.

This picture illustrates the love affair I have with this truck, it always starts and is more than willing to help it's partner and my second best friend "the Tractor".

There's a considerable amount of prep work that I need the tractor for and without it, this whole enterprise will grind to halt. The reason it appears that I'm 6ft above the tractor is because I'm on top of a snow pile on the edge of the driveway.

After much boosting and cranking the Starter motor gave out... a lot of clicking, but no whirring.

There are few things I despise more than working on frozen machinery outside. So it sat on the top of the furnace for an hour to get up to temp.

Already I'm not getting a good feeling about this Maple Syrup endeavour, that we're about to get into.

There was one brush that appeared not to make proper contact. so all was dis-assembled and thoroughly cleaned.

Bearings and bushings were packed with grease, and I had high hopes that things would be back on track.

As it turned out I was wrong, but I had eliminated the actual starter motor as a source of the problem.

Now and for the foreseeable future I'll use a screw-driver to short the terminals and engage the starter...

This really is what I was born to do... Play on anything that makes noise, chugs fuel and throws stuff out of it's way.

We ended up with a loop of roads that would be just under a mile through the bush, and some through pretty heavy snow where it had drifted in.

The blower has a 7ft width and this picture is on the second pass, where most of the snow is already gone.

Even if we weren't going to tap trees, I would have plowed a road back to the hunt camp, as there is nothing more enjoyable as a nice slow drive on a sunny day.

The pictures above are the rewards for about 4 hours and close to $25.00 in fuel. The road is close to 10ft wide in most spots and completely passable for the bush-buggy.

Here I am boring a hole into a tree. It would appear from the expression on my face that this is entirely more fun than should discussed in mixed company.

I've since found out that the holes should be bored on a slight upward angle.

As this is our first year at this game, we thought it prudent to only hang 30 buckets...

If we enjoy this type of thing there's always next year for a bigger operation, as there's approx 20 acres of mature maple in our bush lot...

As I was boring the holes My chum Ralph is knocking in the spouts that the buckets will hang-off of.

This picture should act as evidence to Ralph's wife that we actually do far more than just drink when Ralph stops in...

Here are some buckets hung by another friend that was up visiting with his family in anticipation of the sap run.

We had a great visit, ate and drank too much stayed-up too late and the weekend was too short... but the sap never so-much as dripped as the temp just couldn't break the freezing point.

Here is my lovely wife, with snow shoes and back-pack off to the hunt-camp to collect the numerous empty whiskey and scotch bottles that we hope to fill with golden syrup.

It's a good job that she's found a use for the bottles as the place really needed a cleaning out...

Obviously these pictures are marginally out of sequence as the snow has melted considerably.

The ideal conditions for the sap to run is a 10 degree Celsius differential with zero crossing through the night. Minus 4 at night and plus 6 through the day.

We've had 2 or 3 of these days and collected about 40 gallons.

Here is the un-load point, a log cabin that was the original homestead over 100 years ago for the poor bastards that tried to eak out a living on this farm.

The barrel has a pipe and valve to drain the sap into another barrel that has a clean bed sheet over it to act as the first of many filters.

Above is another typical scene, the truck hopelessly stuck in a snow bank... I guess this is why I don't have a drivers license. And the Tractor lords it over the truck that it was stuck and had to be pulled out. In this case it was pretty routine, though I've gotten into more pickles since having a 4 wheel drive then ever before. The worst case required a pull from a neighbour to extract the tractor that was still hooked to the truck that was in a bog over the top of the wheels.

We had a major thaw and then freeze that flooded the floor and froze about an inch and a half of ice right where we had intended to relax as the sap gently boiled off.

As the room heated up while we kept the wood stoked in the firebox the floor got cleaned up and slowly became livable.

This building was once a horse stable, we renovated it to be a boarding kennel for a number of years, it's also been used for geese, chickens and pheasants as well over the years.

Look back at the image above and notice the pan that's on the fire-box. We started boiling at 2:30PM, numerous folks came and went, lots of beverages were consumed, games played, conversations held till nothing more was left to say...

By the wee hours of the morning it was obvious we hadn't boiled off more than 5 gallons of sap, so we switched to a different pot. This is now well into the next day, I'm completely in the groove of soaking in the heat, dozing and reading, but Sandy is completely sideways at the insufferably slow pace of progress.

And then things got just plain weird...

Or normal, judging by the rest of the pages on this site... I do have to concede that it was my wife's idea to dig out an old cast iron bath tub that acted as a water trough for a number of years behind the barn. At this point I was well into a hung-over stupor that was best nursed with minimal activity and as little nagging as possible.

Sandy would simply keep harping on the point that she could boil potatoes in 10 to 15 minutes and we're doing something wrong, and on and on... finally I lost it and after much cursing and arguing it was obvious that this couldn't wait until next year when we would try again...

After tugging and yanking with the tractor the tub was dragged out and hung from the bucket.

It was wheeled around to the front of the cabin and placed on a semi level space of ground.

The boiling pan wouldn't sit in the tub regardless of orientation, so I grabbed a couple of 4 ft lengths of 1" tubing and fashioned a couple of lifting handles that would suspend the pan over the fire in the tub.

This was my personal touch to dig a small hole to gain access to the drain and insert the hose from the shop-vac (set as a blower).

It took minutes to bring the sap to a boil that exceeded the previous setup substantially.

It took some trial and error, but we eventually figured out to feed the wood in from the back and keep shoving it forward to the blower.

In the first 2 hours we had boiled over half the 40 gallons down.

That is one hot-tub... as the night temperature started to drop the steam started to really pick-up in volume.

A word of caution if you consider trying this, the enamel coating would seemingly explode right off the cast iron from the extreme heat.

At first they were quiet pops, but soon became louder and I heard a small flake whiz past my ear. A hot sharp flake of enamel in the eye would not be enjoyable (for me)...

Periodically as cool sap is added and it is in the process of heating-up, a layer of "Scoam" would have to be skimmed off. I call it scoam as it is a hybrid of scum and foam.

Here it is just about to start forming, and sap starts to take on a cloudy colour as it is about to start boiling.

Here is the scoam well formed and ready for skimming....

This the last image that I took, as we poured off the now boiled down sap.

Sandy spent the rest of the following day filtering and finishing the syrup off on the electric stove in the kitchen.

The final step requires more attention to the specific temp and carefully heating to as close to 218 degrees F without going over otherwise it will crystalize or thicken into a taffy...

40 Gallons ended up making 2 1/2 26oz bottles.

We've learned a hell of a lot, and are better prepared for next weekend. I personally enjoyed every minute from plowing to splitting the wood to running the fire... I'm sure that we now have another spring ritual to look forward to next year.

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