Tuesday, March 25, 2008

The Syrup is Done!

I finished processing the maple syrup today. I boiled the sap until I only had my big 18 qt cooker full. Then I brought it into the house to finish on the stove.


Nathan helped me can the syrup when it was done. He was a great helper.

Nathan poured the hot syrup through several layers of cheesecloth to filter it. We still get some sugar sand in the syrup but most of it is filtered out. Sugar sand is hard bits of syrup that don't dissolve. Kinda like sinkers in wine.

Then I poured the hot syrup into jars.

I put clean lids on the jars, screwed them on tight, and turned the jars upside down for about 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, I turned them right side up. As they cooled, they sealed themselves.

The grand total: 3 gallons and 5 cups of syrup. This was more than we expected. So either we undercounted sap somewhere or we have great trees.

This year, the syrup was lighter than last year. The lighter the syrup, the better the grade of syrup. Nathan and I agree that it tastes amazingly wonderful.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, that was quick! Somehow I thought you'd be slowly evaporating it for weeks. It looks beautiful. Why do you invert the jars at first?

Technoprairie said...

Well, we did something new this year. We had more trees tapped so that we only collected sap for 2weeks rather than 4 weeks.

I inverted the jars because that is what the books tell me to do. I think it might have something to do with warming up the lids. Then as they cool, they seal.