Rookie season sugaring...

[ShLUbY]

Hi everyone! This is my first year at it. Sure has seems to be a good year for sap... I was going to start last year but the temps here in MI were so sketchy I didn't even bother. Flowing good now! Looking forward to learning from this community!

So far i've done a test run, which came out great, got a super clear quart of syrup somehow by filtering with paper towel. But my second batch with paper towel didn't filter at all... it was a different brand so maybe that was why. Bought a filter and prefilters looking to improve the final product. did a batch last night, with only two prefilters and without the thick synthetic filter...and it looked real clear when jarred but this morning there is what i'm assuming is niter in the syrup.

So here I am looking to gain some knowledge from you fine experienced folk, and hopefully I can teach some things as well down the line. Happy sugaring!

[Galena]

Welcome to the madhouse! Thought I'd say hi as I've just finished playing about with one batch and waiting to go collect again. I figure things are quiet right now as everyone's out busy Easter-Holidaying it while they can in between boiling and collecting :-) It'll probably be busier in the evening and morning.

Anyhow not too long ago, like my first year or so, I used shop towel as a filter. Then I tried and still use paper coffe filters as prefilters. More recently I have added using squares of clean white 100% cotton pillowcase for filter material. So far it looks and tastes great.

Re residue...if it looks like powdery sand in the bottom of the jar, or a yucky greyish/brown paste in the bottom of your boiling pan, yeah it's nitre. Harmless but ugly and will cloud your syrup. If it's crystals then it's sugar, you can just dump the syrup into a clean container. Then put some fresh filtered sap into the jar with crystals and swirl it around or gently warm it to melt the sugar, then toss it in with the rest of your boil.

Well that's all I've got for now, good luck and see you around - this is a great place to learn everything and more about sugaring!

[Run Forest Run!]

Hi there. Have fun. You'll learn tons from this forum.

BTW, love the morels in your avatar. What a delicious forest find.

[ShLUbY]

BTW, love the morels in your avatar. What a delicious forest find.

Why thank you Karen! Shroomin' is my passion now, but i'm having a lot of fun with the sugaring too. The shrooms are going to be poppin here soon... 3 week +/- a few days i'm predicting. Do you hunt them in ontario? there's a lot of good ground out through there i hear. The syrup in your picture looks just like mine, nice and light! best stuff i ever tasted far as syrup goes!

[Galena]

Yumm morels...but I still miss the pine mushrooms (think their real name is Ponderosa?) shrooms picked in NW BC during the fall. Often tree planters come up to plant trees for the spring/summer, then stay on to pick pines. Only winter gets rid of em.

[Run Forest Run!]

Why thank you Karen! Shroomin' is my passion now, but i'm having a lot of fun with the sugaring too. The shrooms are going to be poppin here soon... 3 week +/- a few days i'm predicting. Do you hunt them in ontario? there's a lot of good ground out through there i hear. The syrup in your picture looks just like mine, nice and light! best stuff i ever tasted far as syrup goes!

ShLUbY, I would LOVE to know how to properly hunt for mushrooms. They only time I've done so was when I was staying at a small lodge in Smithers, British Columbia. The couple that ran the lodge were Swiss and were really into that kind of thing. I went foraging for morels with them and never had so much fun in my life. I dried the morels and keep them vacuum sealed in my pantry to use in special dishes. If I ever had the opportunity to learn from someone experienced I know that I would be hooked.

[ShLUbY]

Karen- the beauty about hunting morels, is that they are so easily identifiable that you really can't screw it up (as long as you can distinguish them from the forest floor aka "morel eyes"). You just have to go look for them (which can be the difficult part for a newbie), and it's all about being able to identify and seek out trees that morels (as well as most other mushrooms) associate with. If you want to go and check out this forum/message board Norther Country Morels (http://www.northerncountrymorels.com/messageboard/index.php) you can find me on there with the same screen name, and there are many knowledgeable and experienced people on that site that I have learned a great deal from. There's a lot of info on that site about how to locate morels (not where, but HOW). If you want to talk further on this subject just shoot me a message or something, or jump on the northercountry site and read all about it in the forums. There are quite a few easy to identify mushrooms to hunt throughout the summer and fall as well and I enjoy spending my time hunting for them!