The final stage of the maple syrup process takes a long time! The sap is dumped into big pans with a hot fire underneath. We boil it down for hours, as it boils down, more sap is added. Normally, we boil down about 120 gallons at a time. Eventually it boils down enough to dump it all together in one pan.
These are early in the morning as the sap is heating up, but hasn't started boiling yet.
It's boiled down enough to combine the pans:
After it runs through the filter, the big pot comes into the house and Mom takes over. She puts the big pot of syrup on the stove and heats it back up 180 degrees. Then the syrup is poured into jars, and sterilized lids are placed on top. Because the liquid inside the jars is so hot, they seal themselves. The lids "POP" as they seal. Now the syrup will keep and we will have it to enjoy until next year.
These are early in the morning as the sap is heating up, but hasn't started boiling yet.
It's boiled down enough to combine the pans:
(It's very hot at this point!)
Next comes the tricky part---telling when the syrup is done. Pull it to soon and you have really thin syrup, pull it to late and it will be really sugary... (Or worse, if you leave it over the hot fire too long it will burn and then there's nothing to do with it.)
So far this year we have had a couple batches that turned out good. One got left too long and Mom and Grace cooked it down to sugar here in the house. The batch that's shown in the pictures here was pulled just a little too soon and is a bit on the thin side. But hey- even if it's a bit thin or ends up as maple sugar it is all good tasting!!
Skimming some of the foam off:
Using a spoon to test it to see if it's done. (We also have a hydrometer that we can use to test the sugar content. It didn't get used for this batch)
Calling it done and taking it off the fire
The syrup is poured through a thick filter
Getting the last of it out of the pan
"It won't get any fresher than this!"
After it runs through the filter, the big pot comes into the house and Mom takes over. She puts the big pot of syrup on the stove and heats it back up 180 degrees. Then the syrup is poured into jars, and sterilized lids are placed on top. Because the liquid inside the jars is so hot, they seal themselves. The lids "POP" as they seal. Now the syrup will keep and we will have it to enjoy until next year.
A jar of the finished product!
Making maple syrup is very labor intensive, but it's a family project for us and we are all involved in the process at various points. And the final product is so good, it's well worth the work. We enjoy using syrup for lots of things: on our hot cereal or pancakes for breakfast, we use it for sweetener in our home-made bread, serve it on ice cream...oh, the possibilities are endless! We had Maple Muffins for breakfast this morning. They were quite tasty!
It rained last night and this morning, so when we collected today it was even more "fun" since dead wet leaves are quite slippery, and that added an additional challenge to the job. The sap ran really well the last 24 hours. We collected about 150 gallons of sap today, so in addition to the batch that's boiling down right now, we will be boiling again tomorrow! :)
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