All Things Sharp & Fiery...and Friends!

Blues said:
I haven't read all the posts, Coleman, are you planning on marketing it locally, or is this for your consumption?
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Since this is our first year, and we are unsure what to expect, it will be for us and our families.

Now, next year may be a whole ‘nother story. Haha.
 
To go a little more in depth, Blues Blues we will maybe end up with results of around 2 gal of finished product. I think.

Our plan is to make sure it is of high quality and tastes fantastic. We would also like to mess around with making maple sugar, maple candy and possibly “smoking” some maple sugar…like meat not with a bong. Hahaha! Just wanted to clear that up.

So with all this, we may not have any “extra” to sell or market. If things go well and we enjoy the process, we will tap 100-150 trees next season.

Thanks for the question, Elliott.
 
Sharp & Fiery said:
To go a little more in depth, Blues Blues we will maybe end up with results of around 2 gal of finished product. I think.

Our plan is to make sure it is of high quality and tastes fantastic. We would also like to mess around with making maple sugar, maple candy and possibly “smoking” some maple sugar…like meat not with a bong. Hahaha! Just wanted to clear that up.

So with all this, we may not have any “extra” to sell or market. If things go well and we enjoy the process, we will tap 100-150 trees next season.

Thanks for the question, Elliott.
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You going for any particular grade of syrup? Light, Amber, or Dark? We tend to like the middle but I've had all and like all.
 
Sharp & Fiery said:
Yes sir! That’s straight from the tree. It is pretty much “water” with a high sugar content. We will be boiling the water out, slowly concentrating the sugar.

Maple syrup making is, as my friend says,

“Maximum effort for minimal perfect (sweeet) results”
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Dang that’s crazy, never had any idea it was such a thin consistency. Neat info and awesome to see your journey evolving. Can’t wait to get a bottle at some point.
 
Sharp & Fiery said:
Blues Blues

Apparently gave you partial info.

Regarding color, (light amber, medium amber and dark) it is final boiling temp that also determines color. :)
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Okay. I know with the three "grades" available for the syrup we have been using, we tend to go with the medium amber. But we still enjoyed all three types we've tried.
 
Ok, so I missed a few days…I did get photos. :)
The boiling process was time consuming but a great lesson in sap boiling! I was planing to post photos as I was processing, but alas, the power went out and so did my wifi. So I just put my head down and evaporated away!

Wednesday we collected 6 more gallons of sap and I added it to my boil.

I was getting used to how the homemade barrel stove was going to operate and have it down now. :)

We boiled Wednesday, starting at 7am and going until almost 10pm, shut ‘er down for the night and restarted up again Thursday morning till about 5pm.

Here are some photos of the sap evaporating and changing color…

Starting the boil with fresh sap. The pan at the front is my “warming tray” and the one behind is my boiling tray…
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Bringing it up to temp…
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Got it to temp…
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Now we just let it slow boil…for hours…haha…keep the fire stoked…

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And shutting it down at night for the first day…
The pans need to be “flooded” with clear sap because even as the stove cools down, it will evaporate a lot more water and we don’t want to get too low and scorch the sap…
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As you can see in the last photo, the sap in the boiling pan was starting to turn a gold color (before I flooded it for the night).

In the morning, there was a layer of ice on top of both pans. Thicker in the clear sap because the higher sugar content in the boiling tray hinders freezing.

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And back to boiling for the second day…
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That’s it for sap boiling! I couldn’t get photos of the finishing as I was working by myself and the change from boiling to finish happens fast.

I’ll add some more photos in the next post.
 
I love to see the smoke puffing out of the chimney and the steam rolling out…
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Decided to heat anodize my chimney cap…😂🤣
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The day I boiled, we had gotten freezing rain the day before…
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Our first boil was a success!!! Mmmmmm…
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Thursday night we collected the sap in the buckets. The sap will stop running for a week to two weeks as our temps here are dropping below zero and staying there for a while.

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Hope everyone has a great Sunday!
 
This syrup side quest is really enjoyable Coleman. Thanks for taking us along :)

I have to confess... I've never had real maple syrup before. Partly because anytime I ever had syrup growing up, my stomach immediately started to hurt... but maybe maple hits differently than the HFCS variety, I'll have to order some!
 
SwissHeritageCo said:
This syrup side quest is really enjoyable Coleman. Thanks for taking us along :)

I have to confess... I've never had real maple syrup before. Partly because anytime I ever had syrup growing up, my stomach immediately started to hurt... but maybe maple hits differently than the HFCS variety, I'll have to order some!
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The cheaper stuff from the grocery store is made mostly from corn syrup, unfortunately. Could make a difference.

Or perhaps, your body doesn’t do well with high content sugar products?
 
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