extended cooking limit?

[clydefrog]

hey guys, great forum.

im down in southern indiana and am planning to cook the last week of february, weather permitting. i have a 25 gallon cast iron kettle im cooking in and am wondering how long i can cook the sap if i keep adding to it? im only tapping 15-20 trees and thought i could get some volume if i added the sap once or twice a day...will that hurt anything?

[bowtie]

it will not hurt at all but it tends to make a darker syrup. anybody that boils in single flat pans, ie not seperate sap and finish pans, in essence is doing the same thing,batch boiling. it is the way it was made for a couple of centuries. the taste can be a bit stronger but some prefer it this way!

[happy thoughts]

Your syrup will be darker, but I'm also thinking prolonged contact with cast iron is going to give the syrup an iron flavor. That's not necessarily a bad thing if you want or need more iron in your diet but I think it could definitely affect the flavor the longer the sap sits in there.

[clydefrog]

thanks for the replies...will i need to keep it a rolling boil the whole time? i dont mind getting up several times in the night for a good cause, but if it will be ok just staying hot, i might get longer naps in...

[psparr]

They say every time you reheat it gets darker

[newman_maple]

I batch boil and learned from experience that on my old 2 x 3, I needed to boil no more than 75 before drawing off. I now use a 2 x 6 and boil no more than 150 gallons at a time. I get a few gallons of light early on and very little grade B except very late in the season. My first year, I did as much as 200 gallons in that 2 x 3 and we used it, but it was very dark. If it for your own use, you can experiment with the amount you put in. Everyone I sell to swears it is excellent quality.

[TerryEspo]

I would boil every two days with that amount of taps, maybe get a gallon of syrup at best each time, if less, so what.

Fresh sap, light syrup, no sap sitting around for days, no interuptions during sleep time !!

[Old School]

Another thing to consider is the acidity of the syrup- it removes the seasoning, and it stays in the syrup. Along with any fat that may have been used to keep it from rusting. Maybe boil some water to get all the fat out?

[Snowy Pass Maple]

It sounded like you were thinking about maybe leaving it on coals all night long, so I'll offer a different perspective - if you keep that kettle on a real low fire for really long periods of time, you will make some of the lightest amber, extra fancy syrup you can make.

In previous years, I would collect sap from a few trees and put it in big 2 gallon pots on my indoor woodstove. I'd add to this continuously for a week or two, slowly evaporating 1-2 gallons per day. Kept the house nicely humidified, and over time, would become syrup. It made some of the lightest syrup I've ever seen - delicious too! I never had a rolling boil when doing this which is why it wouldn't darken as much.

Low and slow - the ticket for smoking pork butts, making any kind of birch syrup, and making extra light maple :-)