First Boil...Ever!

[jalbert29]

My wife's family used to make syrup but it's been about 10 years since the last time they did. Now that our kids are old enough to be interested in it we thought it would be fun to do this year, so we tapped about 25 trees. Today was our first boil, first ever for me and the kids, and it was a ton of fun. We only had about 13 gallons of sap but wanted to boil it before it went bad. Here are some pics of our homemade fire pit boiler that is made out of cement blocks from an old chimney. I originally had the back blocks setup like a chimney, but I noticed all the heat was going right up it so I blocked it off, making it into a heat wall to direct heat back at the pot. It's a stainless steel pot that my wife's grandfather made about 25 years ago and it gets the sap boiling really well. We finished the syrup off in the house until it was 219 degrees. It's pretty dark and tastes incredible. We noticed some darker stuff that has settled to the bottom of the jars since they have sat for a while now. We strained it with cheese cloth so I'm not quite sure what that is. Looking forward to the next batch, which hopefully will be much bigger!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v204/albertj03/045.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v204/albertj03/046.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v204/albertj03/103.jpg

[spencer11]

wel come to the trader!!! the stuff on the bottom of the jars is called nitre or sugar sand. its a natural mineral in the sap. have fun

spencer

[jmp]

Great job! Nice deep red color. Have fun!

[GramaCindy]

NICE! Isn't is AWESOME? and Welcome back to the addiction of making maple syrup

[jalbert29]

Thanks everyone! Is the "sugar sand" ok to eat or should it be removed?

[John c]

Nice, I love the color!

[sbingham]

Give it some time and the "sugar sand" will settle to the bottom of your jar.
Use the syrup down to that point and rinse the jar out.
As you progress in the future, get yourself an orlon filter and some paper liner filters, they will filter out almost all of the "sugar sand".
Great job, sounds like your hooked.

[twocanines]

Very nice, and I expect Grampa will approve of how the pot is being used.