Introduction, and anyone else use a syrup-making humidifier?

[Snowy Pass Maple]

Cool website, and I'm already learning a lot! I haven't yet seen anyone else who makes syrup this way, so I thought I'd share my experience as an introduction and ask a question.

This is my 3rd year tapping. I heat with wood on a freestanding soapstone stove. Through the winter, I keep a large open stock pot on my woodstove filled with water to keep the house humidified.

During the maple season, I use maple sap instead of water and steadily concentrate it. When I accumulate extra sap, I keep it in a 5 gallon bucket and extra milk cartons in the fridge until I can get it boiled down. I have typically made between 1/2 and 1 gallon this way. The syrup never boils - it just slowly releases water vapor and concentrates the sugars. After a couple of weeks, I get it close to target this way and then finish on the kitchen stove which is the only time it boils, and that is for a few minutes.

The interesting thing about this is that it produces an incredibly light grade of syrup even when concentrated to spec with a hydrometer. It's only about half as dark as the Vermont Extra Fancy sample in my grade kit!

Wondering if anyone else has tried this and if you've had similar results from this method.

I have also done processing on a flat pan over an open fire pit and getting a darker syrup which I also like. But I find that tapping 2-4 trees and doing this "humidifier" method works great for making a decent batch of syrup with the only extra work being getting water from buckets outside vs. my sink.

[Maplehobbyist]

Four or five years ago I tried to use a woodstove to boil my sap and had a similar experience. I had been doing it in a galvanized washtub on cement blocks in the yard so when a friend offered the stove, I thought it would be a step up. Had doors to control the airflow and a damper to make the burn last longer. I bought a ss pan like you see in salad bars and put it on the stove. Didn't hold much sap, but I figured it would cook down very quickly. Well, was I wrong. It just steamed, never boiled, took forever, especially when I closed the damper, which just sucked the heat/flames down and away from the pan. I was getting overwhelmed with sap so I went back to the washtubs. I ended up with about a pint made that way. It was an extremely light color, just like yours. I've wondered about it for a while now, so I was glad to see your question. I also thought maybe it was because I had used stainless steel but didn't know if that would make a difference in the color vs galvanized. What kind of metal is your stock pot?

[KenWP]

The key word in this is on the stove. You have to have the flames on the pan to get it to boil properly. If you had of cut a hole in the top for the pan to fit into it would have boiled. if you never get the sugars hot they don't camelize like when they boil had that makes the light syrup.

[Snowy Pass Maple]

I have predominantly used a large stainless steel stock pot - but I also use a second aluminum pot when I'm getting a lot of sap. Also, the stove is a soapstone stove which can't be run as hot as steel / cast iron - it's designed more for longer burn times with stovetop temps in the 400-600 range. But this makes it great for putting humidifiers on top and not needing trivets, etc - never boils and just slowly releases water vapor, hence no mess with maple sap.

Interesting that you saw the same thing when you did this outside on a stove, presumably running it hard? I had also at one point thought about getting a friend's old steel woodstove and trying to use it with a large flat pan on top running full throttle, but reading this forum, it sounds like the time would be much better spent building a more solid block arch than what I have now. My current outdoor setup is just dry-stacked wallstone supporting a ~2 SF pan with a very crude 4 foot stovepipe. I also learned that those stones have a lot of water in them the first time I made a fire and a few exploded :-)

-Colin

[RileySugarbush]

Snowy Pass,

I love what you are doing. Two birds with one stove!

It is interesting that the slow evaporation makes super light syrup. Does it have a maple flavor or mostly sweet?

[Snowy Pass Maple]

It definitely has a good maple flavor - I've used a lot of this for breakfast parties at work and it's been quite popular. Not to say that I don't like the darker stuff too - this stuff I reserve for ice cream, yogurt, and things like that first since my outdoor boiled stuff is sometimes a bit smoky on my crude setup.

[michiganfarmer]

very interesting

[Maplehobbyist]

Does it have a maple flavor or mostly sweet?

As I also recall, the batch had good maple flavor, it was just very light colored, much lighter than the stuff I made with the galvanized tubs. My stuff was only for home use so I never tried to grade it.


If you never get the sugars hot they don't carmelize like when they boil hard...

So it's a choice between a hard boil (faster but lower grade = less $) and light color (slower but more $) for the people who do this to sell the syrup:confused:

[KenWP]

Probbably a lot of the maple flavor comes about when you finish it on the stove it just dosn't get as dark from over boiling. My syrup this year is a bit ligher due to a bit shorter boil time like a 1/4 if the time. I would try the pot on the stove but for the reason I am trying to dry this house out as it is not get it wetter.