What about blanching?

[Groves]

Ok, small time residential setup here, less than 20 trees.

I can't boil every day or every other day and sometimes not even once a week.

In 2008 and 2009 I never had a problem with old sap, always great tasting, sometimes I went two weeks between boils, and my sap just sat in 5gal jugs (plenty of them) in the shade.

On my last batch of 2009 syrup, I went just over two weeks, it was unavoidable.

NOW I know what you guys mean by stringy!

So now, I have several containers of stringy syrup, hope it works to make that into candy, cream, or sugar.

Anyway, I had a thought.....

I believe that it's the bacteria building up that makes it stringy in the end, correct?

If I can't boil it all to finish, would it work to just get it all boiling for just a few minutes to kill the bacteria? I could maybe do this once a week if I didn't have time to do a full batch.

Would the blanching keep it from being stringy?

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

Bring it to a good rolling boil and it will kill the bacteria back. Pasteurize it. The bacteria will start to grow again as soon as it cools down but it will help. You can do this repeatedly. It will darken the syrup, but for your own consumption, who cares. Unfortunately, my guess is that the ropey syrup you have will not make sugar or cream.

[brookledge]

If you are that small just refrigerate the sap or even freeze it until you can boil it. As for the ropey sap and in turn ropey syrup I never tried using it for anything. As Thompson said if you boil it it will kill the bacteria present but as soon as it cools down it will grow again. If you are going to be holding sap as long as you have to then I think the only option you have is to refrigerate it or freeze it.
Keith

[Groves]

If I had refrigerator or freezer space for 70 gallons of sap, that would be ideal, you're correct.

[brookledge]

Look around for a used one. It wouldn't have to be that efficient since it will not be being used in the hot summer. Certainly the little amount of electricity would be better than losing all of that sap. Another idea for you would be to freeze small amounts and put the frozen blocks into the tank to help keep it cool. There are some traders that do that.
Keith

[lew]

I wouldn't advise trying to boil that ropey syrup. Once sap has become ropey, it will not cool the pan and you will pull the solder out of the joints in your pan, and/or it will scorch very quickly. We had a long season years ago and we ended making syrup about the 25th of April. I tried leaving the sap in my 5x14 rig until May 1st just so I could say I made syrup in May. I did make syrup in May, but only from the first partition of the front pan. The rest was ropey and I almost burned up the pan just trying to bring it to a boil.

[Groves]

Let me clarify. It's possible that i'm not using the correct terms.

When I finally boiled the sap, there was nothing odd looking for smelling about the sap. Not cloudy really, and tasted fine.

The batch of syrup, however, was slightly different than the first two batches I made. It still tastes fine, but when you go to stop pouring there's a little strand of syrup that seems to hang on forever. Is THIS what is called stringy syrup?

[3rdgen.maple]

No that is not stringy syrup or what is called ropey syrup. I think what you have there is an end product that the density is too high and it just is thicker and clings to the jar. There is nothing wrong with it. Are there crystals on the bottom of the jar if so it was over boiled. I have a few customers that want it thicker like that. As far a maple candy goes you usually want to use the lightest syrup possible. Ropey syrup has an off flavor and smell.

[Groves]

That's great news!

It tastes just great, so I'm glad that it's not "ropey".

I assume I can just thin it back out and it will act like normal syrup again, then.

I did get some crystals in this batch, yes.