2008 Season Comes to an End!

The 2008 season has come to an end. We did the last collection of the season and the taps have run dry!

BUT...

This past weekend we have the mother-of-all-boils. A regular 'ol Bendah of syrup making. Brother Tim (that's not blood brother, but syrup brother) brought over 35 gallons of fresh red maple sap to add to the 70+/- gallons I had been sitting on for the past week. We started early with 20 gallons in the evaporator and I started to pre-warm the rest of the sap on the stove

After a few hours and 50 gallons later, Tim showed up with his sap and we added it all together. By 2pm we had 100 gallons going in the evaporator, the most she has ever seen at once (yes, we are in the garage due to bad weather..This is why I need a sugar shack).

As we tried to figure out how many gallons we were boiling per hour, we quickly realized it was going to be a long day. We passed the time discussing philosophy of gallons to sap ratio; we indulged in manly talks about tractors, chainsaws, microbrews and me throwing up on Tims boat. We even had a visit from Steve and Dylan who were happy to partake in the conversation. Sometime after 11pm Tim was long-gone and I decided to turn off the propane which left us 3" of sap to boil in the morning.

Sunday am we brought the batch inside after a final filter (background of picture below). We had another visit from our Topsham neighbors who came bearing FANTASTIC gifts of the best Maine wild blueberry Belgium waffles Becca and I have ever had.

After testing with the hydrometer, breaking the thermometer (you couldn't imagine the size of my eyes when we saw the temp of the syrup reach 283 degrees!) we bottled it all up. At the end of the day, Tim ended up with 1/2 gallon of finished syrup and I figured my daily tally was just about a full gallon. Below we PROUDLY display all of our hard work! The brown bottles are 1/2 gallon jugs, and the plastic bottles are pints and 1/2 pints.

I learned so much over the past 2 months. Its been soo much fun bringing together friends and family and learning a new hobby is really a great experience. This season turned up close to 5 gallons of finished syrup. Pretty good for the first season! Its also been fun thinking about how I can improve the operation next year. Bigger evaporator, sugar shack, more taps... Its all fun to think about.

More later.

More.

More syrup and even more fun headed our way this past weekend.

We had a nice visit from Sarah and Gerry who were eager to help with the weekend festivities of boiling. Friday Gerry and I collected full buckets and started the evaporator. We let it go until about 2am when we called it quits. At 9am we were back in action to boil down the last of the sap, and by 3pm we were finishing the batch on the stove. Here Sarah gets pretty excited about finished syrup.

After filtering, Gerry decided he couldn't leave ANY syrup in the filters OR on the counter. We told him no, but he just didn't listen! I guess you dont want to waste any of this tasty goodness!

After bottling up the final product, Sarah and Becca had a successful run at "sugar on snow". It was really tasty. Below Sarah watches carefully with her candy thermometer getting the syrup to the perfect temperature to make the hard candy.

Below, Becca and Sarah taste the candy!

At the end of the day, we were left with just over a gallon of final syrup. That's 4 quarts in cans, plus the beautiful bowl of golden syrup we used for pancake breakfast!

This weekend my syrup was thicker and darker partly because I boiled the finished product for longer. The last two batches were technically finished syrup (7 degrees above the boiling point of water that day) but after talking with some local backyard sugaring experts, I understand that a hydrometer is what REALLY gets you to finished syrup. A hydrometer is a device that measures the density of a liquid. I picked one up this week and hope to try it out this weekend. Always in search of that perfect batch!

On Sunday we had a great visit from brother Tim and Sonny. Tim brought a few gallons of evaporated sap to the house to finish, filter and bottle. The beer was flowing, but we paid close attention to the precise work we were doing. The next few pics are of Tim and I filtering and bottling his final product!

Tim ended up with 3/4 of a gallon and was a V-E-R-Y happy camper.

Tim and I are both collecting this week like mad men in hopes to have a massive syrup bender this weekend. We hope to boiling down close to 100 gallons of sap. This could be reality as long as the cold nights and warm days stay with us. Lets hope things pick up towards the end of the week!

More later.

Thursday,Friday-Good days

Thursday Little Gerry Kempen and I collected 25-30 gallons of sap. Stay tuned for a boil update from friday and saturday. We are hoping for another 1-2 gallons! We also may  be boiling some Greek Olive sap this weekend with Tim and Bethany. Stay tuned!

More later.

Wednesday Collection Minimal

Collection tonight was minimal. 

More later.

Warm Days, Heavy Lifting

Yesterday in Brunswick it was over 50 degrees. The night before was a nice cold night, getting down close to freezing temps.

I collected all the buckets yesterday, they were all as full and as heavy as they could be. Needless to say, it will be a busy weekend!

On another note, I made a trek to Tim and Bethany's house to see how the buckets were doing. Tim has 12-15 taps going as well in Wiscasset, Maine. Though they are only 40 min from us in Brunswick, they still have plenty of snow and the sap is much slower. I did collect 20+ gallons for them, which will keep him plenty busy!

More later.