Central Ontario Tapping

[Galena]

Wowo Karen, I bet you're not dumping any of that ice!!! And you know all about making stuff...well...last night I brought home a KitchenAid stand mixer, dumped in a cup of light syrup and put it to work...I saw in the manual that the paddle shouldn't contact sides of bowl so I fiddled with the setting of it...anyway...I got maple sugar all right, but it's powdered! It's like icing sugar, and all I wanted was granulated! So now I've adjusted the thingy up a little so I can try to make granulated tonight :-)

[Run Forest Run!]

For sure I'll be testing the melting sap from that all that ice for sugar content before I start to dump any of it. It sure didn't take long yesterday to boil down that sugary sap. It's finishing on the stove right now.

Galena, I'd bet that powdered maple sugar would be fabulous sprinkled over fresh berries or dusted over waffles for garnish.

[Bushfrosh]

Galena, I'd bet that powdered maple sugar would be fabulous sprinkled over fresh berries or dusted over waffles for garnish.

When I get crystals at the bottom of a jar, my wife sometimes uses them for her tea. So, the powder could work for that too!

[Super Sapper]

My sugar has been turning out the same way. I think I read that you need to let it cool more before mixing and you will get more of a granulated sugar. I will try that next time I make sugar.

[Galena]

OK, supersapper, and feel free to share your results with me either here via pm, please! I'll visit the candymaking thread and see what I can find there too.

[Run Forest Run!]

Got 60L from 15 sugar maple taps that had started to thaw this afternoon. They are all dripping aggressively! Looks like boiling is in my future.

[NTBugtraq]

I made 17.3L today with a brix of 68.5...one of these days I have to actually learn how to turn that into 67 brix. Out of today's batch I made a customer's wedding gifts for the people coming to their wedding...120 x 50mL maple leaf bottles...cute. I usually sold those for $5 ea, but I made a deal with the couple to sell them for $2.57, which makes me as much profit on the syrup as if I'd sold them in 1L bottles but doesn't make me a dime on the bottles themselves. All I know is at least 60 (and possibly a lot more) people who have never had my syrup may taste it.

No sap today, the variation in temperature was just too small.

[canadian_diesel1964]

I also got 60 surprising litres this morning and it's boiled but way lighter like the season has reset...this my first year and I love it!

[BrutemanAl]

So my syrup that is frozen in my freezer, should I thaw it out and reboil it? I have about 15 L of "nearup" that I am going to finish today, should I add the frozen stuff to the "nearup" ?

[Galena]

May as well, esp if you're wrapping up for the season.