First-timer wants your input of planned method, from sap collecting through canning

[Homespun]

Here's my plan for my first syrup making attempt (tapping 5 trees in my yard):

1. Collect sap in sanitized plastic milk jugs w/caps or sanitized food grade 5 gallon plastic buckets w/ lids. Combine sap daily and pour through a sanitized kitchen strainer followed by 3 sanitized filters (cotton jelly bag followed by a 50 micron & 10 micron orlon cone filter) into sanitized 5 gallon food grade storage buckets w/ lids. I'll the keep the storage buckets outside in shade if temperatures allow, until weekend boiling. Any ice found in the buckets will be removed. If outdoor temps get warmish I'll have to either refrigerate the oldest sap until the weekend (unlikely due to limited refrigerator space), or boil down the sap to a smaller volume every few days and refrigerate the concentrate to hold it until the weekend boiling (due to time constraints, I'm trying to avoid this). Any ice found in the buckets will be removed.

2. Sap boiling will be done outside on two high pressure propane banjo burners used for bewing homemade beer. On one burner I'll use a new 26" diameter carbon steel wok for the bulk of the boiling, due to it's large surface area. On the other burner I'll use a large graniteware canning pot (also fully boiling) to reduce the sap & to supply the wok as needed. In the house I'll have another large pot of sap slow boiling, to supply the canning pot or wok.

3. When "near syrup", I'll either finish it in the house on the stove at that time or refrigerate it until the next weekend and finish it then (after siphoning off any niter or sediment that might be found after refrigerated storage).

4. After it's boiled to the finished syrup stage I'll keep it warm (185 degrees F or so) on the stove while pouring off and filtering it through the 50 micron filter placed inside the 10 micron filter. The filters will hang from the jelly bag rack over a collection pot in a 170F degree oven during this process, to keep everything warm and flowing as best it can through the filters.
***Or I may just skip this filtering step and got to the sedimentation process in step 5 instead.

5. This filtered & finished syrup will go into refrigeration for a week or two to allow any niter to settle out. It will then be siphoned off the sediment and placed into cleaned pint canning jars to about 1/4" to 1/2" from the top.

6. The syrup filled canning jars will then be placed on a trivet inside a large pot or canner filled with water to the level of the syrup in the jars. The water will be heated up and held at 185F-190F degrees until the syrup in the jars is this temperature. The jars will be removed one at a time and immediately capped with a sanitized lid and ring and then inverted for a minute or two. The jars will be turned upright & placed far apart on a kitchen towel on the countertop until cooled to room temperature and the lids have sealed. At this point they will be stored in the refrigerated or gifted away.

Any comments/suggestions/corrections you have to my plan would be deeply appreciated.
Thank you for any advice you might have!

[Swagner]

I too am fairly new to this incredible hobby. So experimenting at the process each year is very much fun for me.But that being said it seems like a really lot of work to have a heating pan inside feeding a pan outside which feeds a wok that your boiling down in.As a cheap alternative i built a very basic stand out of strut that i used to hold three hotel pans on(which can be picked up very cheap at used resteraunt equipment suppliers) and did your same theory but outside in one place. just a thought. One idea iI'm going to try this year is since I always have my wood stove going is to put a pot of sap on it instead of water to reduce it down some. again I'm still new so just a few thoughts

[happy thoughts]

Welcome to the forum and your new addiction. Your plan seems reasonable as many things will work on a small scale and everyone has their own approach.

For #1 Milk jugs will work but may not be large enough to contain all the sap that can flow in a day during a good run. If you can check them a couple of times a day during heavy flow you may be fine. There's also no need to filter sap so much. At this point you're just trying to remove the obvious debris that ends up in the collection bucket.... debris that blows into the collection container and any insects that always manage to find the sap sooner or later. A strainer may be all you need to remove them.

There are some that have done OK holding sap a week especially if the weather is cold but I have found sap becomes cloudy within even 2 days time kept refrigerated. The colder you can keep the sap the better. You may find that your syrup comes out darker than if processed sooner after collection. Any sap that appears stringy or ropy should probably be discarded, but again you may find others here that will tell you differently. You can freeze sap in some plastic bottles or jugs and float them in your storage containers kept outside in a cold shaded place. You may also choose not to toss any ice that forms so that the sap can be kept cooler.

#2- one reservation I have is the carbon steel wok in that it may rust and taint the syrup with an iron off flavor. Same with the graniteware if there are any chips or cracks in it. On the positive side, It WILL add iron to your diet. :) Stainless steel or even aluminum pots or pans will be less reactive.

Preheating sap will help decrease boil time but not sure I'd want to do any quantity in the house unless you heat with wood. The moisture from the number of gallons you will be boiling can build up quickly. But if you heat with wood and normally have a pot of water on your stove to add moisture then replacing sap for water as swagner suggested works pretty well especially if you can find some large shallow baking pans with lots of surface area.

The rest of your plan seems pretty good to me. Have fun and don't be afraid to experiment to find what works best for you.

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

For storage (step 6) once the syrup is safely sealed, it is shelf stable until opened. You can store it in a cupboard rather than taking up space in the refrigerator.

[psparr]

You forgot about boil over, boiling in the freezing cold, and having a great time. Good luck. looks like you got the bug.

[325abn]

Don't over think things

[maplerookie]

for your buckets go to your local grocery..go to the bakery ask for their buckets. most will give you buckets and lids..usually 3.5 gallon size..they are food grade and free. clean em up and you are good to go..no cost except gas for running to a couple of stores.

[KGodshall]

I'm a small timer too, and utilizing many of the same techniques and tools as yourself. Just a few of my ideas:

+1 on the milk jugs, but only if you can check them several times a day when the sap is really running. This is my 4th year with the jugs, and I just ziptie them to the spile and they work fine.

No need to strain the sap so much. I go through a mesh colander before adding to the boil, just to strain out any bark or bugs that might have found their way in.

Evaporation works best when you have more surface area. Easier to keep temperature and easier for water vapor to escape.

I finish on the stove top, after a "rough strain" (again for particles), and then store in large glass pickle jars, to allow settling. After a day or so, I cant off the clear syrup at the top and return to the stove for bottling. The remainder is then heated and strained (orlon and cloth diaper), and then bottled.

My canning procedure works like this: While heating up the syrup to 180 or so, my jars are in a 200 degree oven. I fill these hot jars to the bottom of the neck (headspace), lid em, ring em and wait for them to seal. No hot water bath. Over 4 years, I've had a 100% success rate.

Just a few thoughts off the top of my head. Feel free to ask more questions, or PM me if there is anything else that I can pass along from my experiences. Best of luck!

[NirvanaFan]

Hello from another Rochestarian! I live in Rochester (and finish my syrup there), but tap down in Bristol.

I agree with the others. Milk jugs work, but they will overflow in a decent run and can crack. I used them pretty much exclusively last year (my first) on my 20ish taps. I think that 4 or 5 of them cracked that I had to replace.

I used a graniteware cooking pot to finish the syrup in and it was fine. It was pretty much brand new though and there were chips or anything.


I canned it differently than you are planning. I finished the syrup on the kitchen stove and immediately poured it through a filter into sterilized canning jars and immediately put the sterilized lid and ring on. Every single one of them sealed. This year, I'll finish the syrup, let it cool down, refrigerate it, siphon off the syrup to leave as much sediment behind, and then reheat it to 195ish. Then I will pour it through a filter into sterilized jars. I had to rinse out the filter every 4 or 5 jars last year, and it was a real pain.

[Rangdale]

I'm a small timer as well (only 5 gallons last year) and came up with a good way to can (works for me anyway). I use one of the cone finishing filters (and a few pre filters inside that one) that I set into a blender container ( I take the blades and stuff off so it's just the glass container with both ends open) and then set that into a stainless steel pot. I take the syrup after the hydrometer says it's done (used to rely on a just a thermometer but discovered I was making glorified sugar water and not syrup) and run it all thru the filters in the blender container. The first bunch goes pretty fast but it slows down as the filters get clogged. After it's done (sometimes take 4-5 minutes) I just put the SS pan on the stove and heat the syrup up until 185-190. Then I just pour it into the bottles and cap them. No need to filter it a second time as you're bottling it.

[Sugarmaker]

Welcome to the trader. I think your process sounds good. Try it then make any needed changes as you go. Be safe moving the hot sap from the house outdoors Other than that sounds like a good plan. Let us know how it works for you.
Regards,
Chris

[Big_Eddy]

Don't over think things
I'm with 325abn here. We're talking 5 trees and 3-4qts of syrup.

Tap trees, hang clean containers
Collect into anything foodsafe. Keep cool until boiled
Boil in what you got, as fast as you can
Use the most precise thermometer you have to tell when done.
Filter it - finer is better, but for the amount you are making, be careful the filter doesn't get more syrup than you do.
Pour into new jars. Don't worry about hot packing - Store it in the fridge until it's all gone :lol: