Question on taste with different production methods

[Tin_Man]

This year I put out 200 taps on a friends property. We shared the sap. He uses a flat pan on an outdoor stove. He simmers rather than boils, he gets somewhere around 1gph. He boils about 5 gallons a day and saves the days near syrup in a pot that he puts in the refrigerator every night. This past weekend he took the near syrup and made syrup. After bottling he made about 2 ½ gallons of syrup. That was his production for 1 months work

I use a high end 2x6 evaporator. I filter and bottle directly off the evaporator using an auto-drawoff. I’m meticulous in keeping my pans clean and drawing off at perfect density. A Murphy Cup is used to check density. My syrup came out perfect and I was happy with it, everyone who tasted it and bought it said it was delicious.

Today we were pulling taps and we took a break to compare our syrup. Both of us made crystal clear Grade A Golden Delicate. Doing a side-by-side visual comparison they are indistinguishable from one another. The difference is in the taste. My syrup has a very light if any maple taste, his syrup has a heavy maple taste. We both preferred the taste of his syrup.

What would cause such a huge difference in taste? Can flat pan production vs pro evaporator production make such a huge difference in taste? We are both baffled as to why our syrup would taste so different considering we both used the same sap at the same time. Only our production methods were different.

[fisheatingbagel]

So I'm guessing the niter content from both was similar. And by keeping his sweet cool between boils he was able to minimize bacteria growth. I think both of these contribute more to color than any other factor, but Dr. Tim will weigh in with the facts. The fact that his boils so much longer contributes to the strong "maple" flavor that many people prefer.

[DrTimPerkins]

Sounds like a reasonable explanation to me (longer boils), however there are several other possibilities. The largest being that since his processing is so slow, any sap he had probably sat around a little longer. In addition, if he wasn't as meticulous about cleaning, his syrup would probably develop more flavor/color.

[Tin_Man]

Thanks for the replies. I expected his syrup to be darker than mine because of his longer boils but our syrup color is exactly identical. We both bottled into maple leaf glass bottles and compared 100ml maple bottle samples. When the bottles are side by side it is impossible to detect any difference in color. I verified the color grade on both with a color grading set & a Hanna color grader test meter. Density is identical & verified with a Milwaukee meter. Our filtering process are very similar, I use flat filters and he uses cone filters. Our hot bottling process is identical. The difference in taste is night & day, no burnt taste at all to his only a strong maple flavor, my syrup I would call flavor diet syrup, kinda like 1% milk compared to whole milk. I was blown away when we compared, I never would have thought there would be so much difference. We are both confused how such a huge difference is possible.

He's not as meticulous about his cleaning as I am and his near syrup grew in volume over about one month where mine was boiled & bottled every several days, but that's the difference in production methods between flat pan syrup and evaporator syrup. Shouldn't his color have also been darker along with the stronger maple flavor? I think It's unusual that he produced Grade A Golden Delicate with the flavor of Grade A Dark Robust.

[Tin_Man]

I'm also confused on how he would label his syrup. He doesn't sell it, only uses it for his family & gives some away to friends but he would still like to put grade labels on it. Would he grade according to color grade or flavor?

[Eberzin]

I would guess color.

[barnbc76]

He's a hobbiest so I would say grade it whatever he thinks. Golden delecate robust...sounds good. I find that interesting about his syrup and yours. I recently built an ro and a couple weeks ago made the lightest syrup I've ever made. I was slightly disappointed it was that light as most people prefer dark but I dont discriminate between any it's all good to me. But then this past week we boiled again and I forgot to clean the pan out since the previous week, it wasn't that bad but made considerably darker syrup.

[DrTimPerkins]

How it is graded depends upon where he is located, and whether it will be sold. It falls to the lowest common denominator, so if the color is golden, but the taste is Dark/Robust, it would be graded Dark/Robust.

It is quite possible that it is NOT the type of evaporator, but how it was handled in between boiling. Refrigerator temperatures are around 40 deg F, which is cold enough to slow, but not enough to stop microbial action. Microbial action will cause some acidification of the sweet, which will result in less color formation, but a different flavor (due to the chemical reactions that happen both before and during boiling). You see this most often very late in the season when the sap is getting ugly, but the color grade comes up and you make nice, light syrup, but it doesn't taste light. Frequently it'll taste fairly poor at that stage -- despite the light color. I suspect his keeping the sweet so long might have had some of that going on.

[Sugar Bear]

While Dr. Tim Perkins suggestion is most likely the cause of this difference I would also pay attention or try to asses how your friends rig is clearing fuel smoke/gases off his rig as compared to yours.

A lot of smoke rolling across the boil will produce smoky tasting syrup.

A little bit of smoke rolling across the boil might produce what might be perceived as a strong delicious maple flavor. ( sounds like we have the potential for this on your rigs )

No smoke rolling across the boil will produce syrup with no taste added from smoke.

Lightly smoked grade A fancy clear could amount to a stronger tasting maple flavor.

[berkshires]

Sounds like he saves all the little batches and then boils it together. So all of his bottles will be the same - the're the whole season together.

You on the other hand are bottling as you go. So the bottle you sampled is from a snapshot in time, not the average of the season.

I know my trees can produce very different syrup from batch to batch. Have you tried sampling other batches you made? It may be that most of your syrup is more similar to his, and the bottle you tried was an aberration.

If that's not it, I think Dr Tim's explanation makes the most sense: The very long batch boil (including continuous addition of new sap to the batch) would tend to make darker syrup. Combine that with the acidification in the fridge to lighten it, and maybe you get lighter-looking darker tasting syrup.

Gabe