Maple Syrup 2016 Part 3: Boiling Sap

Today we are boiling sap - lots of it!!  This is the boring part of the maple syrup process.  For every 40 gallons of sap, you need to boil off 39 gallons of water in order to get 1 gallon of finished syrup.   This is a long process that takes almost all day long.   We just keep feeding sap into the evaporator and feeding wood into the firebox.   It's very windy today, too, so it's not a pleasant task to be outside doing this.  Towards evening, we will have a bunch of "near syrup" that we will filter and bring into the house.  Tomorrow we will boil small batches of it inside to the finishing point and filter it again before letting it settle out and canning up the following day.

First the sap is filtered through a 600 micron filter to take out any debris.

The filtered sap is added to the back of the evaporator.  There are small holes in the evaporator plates, and the sap gradually works its way to the front of the furnace, where the sap is more concentrated.   The whole thing is kept at the boiling point to boil off the excess liquid.  We add another few gallons of sap about every 15  minutes.

As the sap boils, minerals are boiled out and a white foamy scum forms.  From time to time this is skimmed off and discarded.  If you don't do this, it is more difficult to obtain really clear maple syrup.

The sap gradually works down the 7 partitions of the evaporator.  Each section is still boiling.

It is a constant chore to split wood and keep the fire going.

The goal is to have a good fire going at all times in the furnace.  Towards evening, we will draw off the near syrup with the faucet at the front, and filter it before bringing it inside.

It will take a couple days to boil up the sap we collected yesterday.  The sap is not running very good today, as the overnight temps were not freezing.  In order for the sap to run, there must be freezing temps overnight, and above freezing temps during the day.   The weather forecast for the next few days does not show freezing temps until Tuesday, so we will have a few days to catch up!  We collect sap until the trees bud out - then "buddy sap" makes for horrible tasting syrup and the season ends.