TooManyIrons...
04-22-2014, 11:48 AM
This is in reply to a question from another active thread in this forum, thought it might be good to discuss on a separate thread. Regarding the subject of niter, I have read many of the discussions in the other mapletrader forums but right now I am interested in gleaning some fresh information on this topic from folks in Minnesota and the surrounding areas. I simply find local and regional experiences to be more valuable than experiences of folks half a continent away.
Question:
Anyone else from MN have heavy niter this year?
I had a lot of niter created during the process, but I do not have enough experience to know whether it was more than usual this year or for that matter whether niter creation even varies from year to year (I would suspect it does). My jars of syrup are pretty clear, just a wisp of stuff at the bottoms. The 2-quart jars I filled have around a one sixteenth inch layer of sediment settled out at the bottom, but that is a lot of syrup in one jar so I would expect there to be more. While the sediment looks solid, when I disturb it I can see that the stuff consists of very, very fine particles - I can easily see how it got through my filtration materials. IMO it is not realistic to use any finer filter material because mine clogged up quickly enough as it was. I must also admit that it is entirely possible that not enough time has passed for complete settlement to have occurred in the jars yet. I still have some one year old jars of syrup from my first year. There is a quarter inch of sediment settled out at the bottom of the half pint jars. I am glad I improved from that result.
I used a lot of filtering stages (6 total) in my process this year. I also filtered quite a few times during the boil by hand-ladling the boiling hot syrup through a hand-held filter setup that I made, letting the filtered sap-syrup simply drain right back into the pot. It is amazing how the cloudy boiling sap-syrup clears up so nicely from doing this. I do not really know if it is fact or not regarding niter buildup affecting boil rate, syrup color, flavor, etc. but I really like the idea of boiling clean clear liquid as free of impurities as is possible or practical. Though I have read discussions about it, I also do not know whether high heat during boil causes increased niter creation. If true that would be a bit of a bummer for me because I like to boil using high heat.
I went through around twenty homemade filters per processing day. They are reusable, but I do not know yet how many times. My strategy was to use the most used, most worn filters for initial niter removal during the boil, where perfection is not necessary. As the days wore on, every processing day I would use one last time and then toss out five of the most worn filters and introduce five new ones into the inventory. A simple rinse in the reverse direction using warm water from a small diameter hose (to get higher pressure) that screws on to the sink faucet cleaned the filters out nicely. I then placed them in boiling distilled water for sterilization, although as much of a clean freak as I am I question the need to do this step. Total cost of filter material was around $12 and most are still usable, at least to start out next season.
My final filtering method was overnight decantation (longer might be better). As recommended, I also kept the reheated syrup below 190 degrees during the bottling process to avoid niter creation.
It never occurred to me to keep accurate records of it, but even after all my filtering during processing I still removed around 3 pints of niter in total (at most) from my 13 gallons of syrup following decantation. I do not know if this information means anything or is of any value...
Question:
Anyone else from MN have heavy niter this year?
I had a lot of niter created during the process, but I do not have enough experience to know whether it was more than usual this year or for that matter whether niter creation even varies from year to year (I would suspect it does). My jars of syrup are pretty clear, just a wisp of stuff at the bottoms. The 2-quart jars I filled have around a one sixteenth inch layer of sediment settled out at the bottom, but that is a lot of syrup in one jar so I would expect there to be more. While the sediment looks solid, when I disturb it I can see that the stuff consists of very, very fine particles - I can easily see how it got through my filtration materials. IMO it is not realistic to use any finer filter material because mine clogged up quickly enough as it was. I must also admit that it is entirely possible that not enough time has passed for complete settlement to have occurred in the jars yet. I still have some one year old jars of syrup from my first year. There is a quarter inch of sediment settled out at the bottom of the half pint jars. I am glad I improved from that result.
I used a lot of filtering stages (6 total) in my process this year. I also filtered quite a few times during the boil by hand-ladling the boiling hot syrup through a hand-held filter setup that I made, letting the filtered sap-syrup simply drain right back into the pot. It is amazing how the cloudy boiling sap-syrup clears up so nicely from doing this. I do not really know if it is fact or not regarding niter buildup affecting boil rate, syrup color, flavor, etc. but I really like the idea of boiling clean clear liquid as free of impurities as is possible or practical. Though I have read discussions about it, I also do not know whether high heat during boil causes increased niter creation. If true that would be a bit of a bummer for me because I like to boil using high heat.
I went through around twenty homemade filters per processing day. They are reusable, but I do not know yet how many times. My strategy was to use the most used, most worn filters for initial niter removal during the boil, where perfection is not necessary. As the days wore on, every processing day I would use one last time and then toss out five of the most worn filters and introduce five new ones into the inventory. A simple rinse in the reverse direction using warm water from a small diameter hose (to get higher pressure) that screws on to the sink faucet cleaned the filters out nicely. I then placed them in boiling distilled water for sterilization, although as much of a clean freak as I am I question the need to do this step. Total cost of filter material was around $12 and most are still usable, at least to start out next season.
My final filtering method was overnight decantation (longer might be better). As recommended, I also kept the reheated syrup below 190 degrees during the bottling process to avoid niter creation.
It never occurred to me to keep accurate records of it, but even after all my filtering during processing I still removed around 3 pints of niter in total (at most) from my 13 gallons of syrup following decantation. I do not know if this information means anything or is of any value...