Central Ontario Tapping

[paulslund]

I had left one tap in my largest sugar maple until yesterday. Collected another 12L for a stove top boil (although I had two pans boiling and went into the garage thinking I had "primed" them enough.. opened the door and smelled burned marshmallow! Ugh.. ruined a good pan I think. at least it was only one of them..). Still getting good sap just slowed down now.. my silvers are still dripping a lot but I don't want those anymore.. went buddy around Easter time. Got a 500ml jar from that last boil though.. I've done that twice since I pulled my taps..just for fun.

These little batches I filtered with coffee filters.. I think I figured out a system to make it work decently.. man do they filter nicely!

[Run Forest Run!]

Sorry to hear about the burned batch Paul. It happens so fast!

[Bruce L]

Doing the chore of cleaning up here Karen. Haven't touched sap since Good Friday,sure stinks coming out of the lines. Peepers and snakes out in full force,few mosquito scouts out so hope to get finished cleaning soon

[Run Forest Run!]

Bruce I'm starting the clean up here as well. Calling it a season. Haven't heard a single peeper yet, but a pair of bluebirds were checking out accommodations at one of my bluebird boxes this morning. Moving on to installing additional raised steel garden beds in my veggie garden. Those things are fantastic!

[BrutemanAl]

Al, I bet you probably could too! Some of my trees are still trickling a bit, I wish they wouldn't. Others have been sensible and dried. Karen, well at least you do have a lot of sap to boil. Maybe use the poor man's RO to make life easier? Sure worked well for me, and will be doing it in the future.

whats a poor mans RO?

[Run Forest Run!]

Al, Susan is talking about removing the ice from your buckets and discarding it. I do that all the time, except I put the ice into another container and use the melting liquid for making syrup until the remaining sugar content in it is about .5% and then I toss it out. At that point it's not worth it for me to boil it.

[BrutemanAl]

That’s what I thought, I only use the ice to keep my sap cool most times.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Run Forest Run!]

Yesterday I pulled all of my taps for the season. I almost made syrup in May! That's crazy.

I made syrup once in February (the 26th), twice in March (the 11th and 27th) and three times in April (the 5th, 13th and 23rd). My sixth and final batch yielded 3.7L of Amber, bringing my 2018 total to 16.9L of syrup. A respectable total, but not spectacular.

It was a cold year where the daytime temperatures had trouble thawing the taps. For the month of March the taps were frozen solid from the 3rd until the 25th. Then came the ice storm......followed immediately by the warm weather.... and it's over. Average sugar content was hovering around 1.8%. The lowest ever.

I was hoping for closer to 25L of finished syrup but the sap refused to cooperate. I ended up with all grades of syrup which is a definite plus. The darkest of the batches provided a nice glaze on the salmon for tonight's dinner.

On the subject of equipment, I give my new Denali camp stove from Costco two thumbs up. It was easy to use and held three full size steam trays. I can't wait to fire it up again to make syrup next season. However, I know that I'll be finding ways to use it this summer when I'm in full BBQ and grilling mode.

This year certainly had its challenges but in my mind there is no better way to spend February, March and April. Counting down the days until the start of the 2019 season.

[Galena]

That’s what I thought, I only use the ice to keep my sap cool most times.

Actually what I do is collect it, sap and ice and all, measure it (and melt the ice) so I know what my production is like, then put it in 15l water containers. As you noticed the ice has its uses and keeps the sap cold. But when it came to boiling time,I was thawing the containers fully, but no more. Now that I know better, when they freeze up, I'll just drain off the sweet and discard the ice once I can no longer taste any sweet dripping out.

[BrutemanAl]

Hi Galena


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk