Finishing Several Small Batches at Once

[bigjohn1]

Over the last several days, I have read various posts that talk about boiling the sap in several batches and then holding each batch to combine with the others and finish all at once. What exactly does this mean?
Are you completing the various boilings to a certain stage such as just to the syrup point and then holding until the other boilings are at the same stage and then combining them all together to reheat for bottling?
Or is the recommended stage before actual syrup so you can combine and bring to syrup all at once then filter, reheat, and bottle?
Would someone be willing to clarify?

This is our second year making syrup and our batches are small, so it would be helpful to have a better understanding of how we can combine batches for more productive filtering and bottling.

15 taps
1 large kitchen stove and a great exhaust fan.

Thanks for your advice!

[John c]

I can't answer what others do, but I am going to start boiling down 20-30 gallons a day. I will boil it until it gets down to almost syrup and save it (unfiltered) until I have enough to actually "finish" couple gallons all at once. This will save me much time and much clean up!
I don't have a big enough rig to chew through more that 5 gallons per hour and my boiling opportunitys are limited compared to the amount of sap that I'm getting.

[Lukie]

This is a good question I have the same problem small batchs and filtering a gallon at a time you waste a lot so hopfully there is a few old maplers out there that have some input .It would be nice to boil four or five batchs and put it in the frigerater and then combine and do one batch of 4 or 5 gallons .if i am correct if you try to boil for four or five days the syrup will get dark ?

[northwoods_forestry]

I finish as close to syrup or even a bit over on the evaporator, Generally, I get from 1/2 to 2 gallons per draw. I combine several draws in a finishing pan and once I've got 5 - 7 gallons of syrup I bring it to 219 degrees, make sure the density is right (usually I have to add near syrup from the evaporator to bring the density down), run it through the filter press and hot pack it into retail containers or 5 gallon barrels. When the sap runs are small, it might be a day or three before I have enough syrup in the finishing pan to make it worthwhile to finish, filter and pack.

Hope that helps.

[TrentonTerry]

Since it is close to syrup, bring it back up to a boil will not darken it much? I just remember reading that boiling syrup for too long will darken the finished product. I may have misunderstood that since I am new to all this.

Secondly, do you refrigerate the syrup at that point or just cover it in the finishing pot (In my case the turkey fryer)?

[happy thoughts]

Since it is close to syrup, bring it back up to a boil will not darken it much? I just remember reading that boiling syrup for too long will darken the finished product. I may have misunderstood that since I am new to all this.

Secondly, do you refrigerate the syrup at that point or just cover it in the finishing pot (In my case the turkey fryer)?

You'd still have to boil it some more to get it to syrup so you're really not prolonging the cooking time that much.

I know everyone has their own way of doing things, but from a health and safety point of view, it's best to treat it as you would any perishable food, imho. If you can't keep it hot then you should chill it or freeze it. Though syrup is a relatively safe food to process as you're going to kill just about everything bringing it up to syrup temp, and high sugar content will also help preserve it, near syrup is a good medium for microbial growth especially for molds and yeast which thrive on sugar...... and that can also darken your syrup and possibly give off flavors. But that's just my 2 cents:)

[Lukie]

This advise sounds good it will save having to clean the filter and all the other mess that it makes from 5 times down to one

[wnybassman]

How long would you figure "almost syrup" would last in the fridge? Something say 5 or 6 degrees above boiling point? Variables I know, but a couple weeks? More?

[happy thoughts]

I think you really mean 5-6 degrees above freezing, in the upper mid thirties? People's mileage varies. Think of it as perishable food. How long do you keep left overs before tossing them? imho 3 or 4 days tops, assuming it's gotten careful handling like getting chilled as soon as possible and packing into really clean containers and lids. Longer than that imho it's better to freeze it. And like someone else said earlier, it probably won't freeze solid but just get slushy, which is fine. You just want to keep it as cold as possible.

If you're making syrup on a large scale, I know it's not always possible to handle syrup this way, but for small producers like you and me, we can take it a little bit further and produce not just syrup but artisan syrup of the highest quality. At least that's the way I like to think of it :).

[bigjohn1]

Thank you all for your great advice and insight!
It's nice to know I'm not alone with my many questions.
I bottle very small batches as soon as they are done, but that makes filtering long and bottling inaccurate as far as guessing on quantity.
I will surely take your advice and start altering my process. Thanks again!

[Groves]

I'm going to finish 4 weeks worth at one time this year.

The only downside I can think of is that all of the grades will blend together instead of keeping each batch separate, with their separate colors.

[Vermont Creation Hardwood]

Big John, if you have a freezer, even sap will keep for a year or more. I keep all my syrup in the freezer, and often freeze sap because I love to drink it. Near syrup will keep in the fridge for as long as you as you need to, as it's so close to being syrup. I have always batch boiled to near syrup on my evaporator, then finished inside on the stove where I can keep careful watch on it. It makes perfect sense to hold several small batches of near syrup to finish together. I just finished two runs of near syrup together and got two gallons of fancy. I have not found the darkening of syrup that others talk about. In fact my trees generally produce fancy most of the season and only medium, dark, or grade B right at the end.

I've also found that that boiling to 7.2 degrees above the original sap boiling point is not usually enough to get to hot syrup on my hydrometer. Sometimes I'm closer to 8 degrees above before the hydrometer says it's done. Water generally boils at 209-210 for me, and syrup is 217-218.