Sugarin'.......Part Two

We've been collecting sap that's been flowing since Wednesday and now it's time to boil it and turn it into delicious maple syrup.

We started rather late in the day, it was 1 p.m. when we fired up the evaporator......a turkey fryer.

This stainless steel turkey fryer has a spigot and we felt it would be perfect for boiling sap. And it was a lot less expensive than a real evaporator that can cost $1,500 or more.

We poured in 2 buckets fulls of sap which is a little less than 20 litres into the fryer, turned on the propane and then to coin the vernacular .....give 'er.

While the sap started to boil we enjoyed a delicious bowl of homemade Minestrone soup.

Knowing we were going to be outdoors for the rest of the afternoon, we decided to do some outdoor activities.

PetBoy got out the Red Ryder pellet gun and target board.

He not only hit the Bulls Eye on the target but also a beer bottle.

Meanwhile the sap kept boiling.

I cracked out a deck of cards for a game of Go Fish.

Using these cards maybe the game should be called 'Go Trap'.

Meanwhile the sap was still boiling.

As the afternoon wore on PetBoy, with a little help from his father, plowed through better part of a case of beer.

Then we pulled out the sound dock and listened to some tunes. PetBoy introduced me to Kathleen Edwards. She a Canadian singer/songwriter nominated for a Juno Award for her album Voyager, which we listened to.

Sap dripping in buckets on 3 of the tapped trees kept rhythm with the music.

And the sap was still boiling.

It was such a beautiful sunny day. Perfect for sitting outdoors and Sugarin'!

After about 4 hours the sap had evaporated quite a bit and it was time to drain it off and put the concentrated sap into a finishing pan and take it indoors.
The steam coming for the boiling pot smelled like maple and because we kept sticking our head inside the pot, we began to smell like maple.

It reminded me of being inside Uncle Harold's Sugar Shack and watching him squat in the steam filled shed as he looked at the temperature gauge.  It was the same wonderful maple smell.

We took the finishing pan indoors and set it on the stove to complete the last boil.

In less than an hour, the sap became highly concentrated and at 220 oF it was syrup!

We poured the contents of the finishing pan (a.k.a. a spaghetti pot) through a filter and into a huge measuring cup.

Here's the syrup dripping through the filer cloth.

And then we poured it into a sterilized Mason jar.

We figured that given the 40:1 ratio we'd get just shy of of a 1/2 liter. And sure enough, for our initial test run, that's what we got.

Our first batch of homemade Maple Syrup made from the trees on our property. Too cool, eh?

We thought that perhaps we should have a label. This is what we came up with.
The name Five Tree indicates the sum total of trees we tapped.

We have more Sugar Maple trees on the property, but we jut couldn't get to them. Maybe later in the week we can get more taps.

We have well over 50 liters of sap collected and sitting in the holding tank. So first thing in the morning, PetBoy and I are going to start another boil.

This. Is. Fun!