I spent a few days down at the farm of my godson last week; he invited me down to see his process for making maple syrup. The past few years I’ve been the recipient of his syrup and have asked quite a few questions. He thought I would like to see you it’s done – he was correct.
We started at 6:45 a.m. by getting the fire pit going. He does his boiling out in the open – no hut or roof or anything. You have to watch the weather forecast carefully when you do it this way. The three pans fit right over the edges and we filled them about 2/3 full of sap. With the 10 gallons that we harvested that day, we were working with 60 gallons total.
After about 5 hours, the farthest two pans started to darken as the water in the sap boiled off; the closest pan, due to being near the opening for adding wood, didn’t boil quite as vigorously. We spent a far amount of time transferring from this pan into the darker pans. That way we only added cold sap to the closest pan. It takes quite some time to boil down 60 gallons of sap so we were still at it into the night. The fire kept us warm as the temperature started to drop and it rained (lightly) for about 40 minutes.
When we had it all boiled down to about 3 gallons, we closed up shop and moved the syrup into the kitchen, where it sat overnight. There was about an hour more of boiling on the stovetop the next morning. There was quite a bit of fiddling with it, using a hydrometer to make sure it was the right density. Not dense enough and the syrup can develop mold, too dense and the syrup crystallizes. At that point we had about 2½ gallons and we filtered it through a very heavy duty filter that was hung from a camera tripod; why purchase something when the camera tripod works wonders?
Then all that was left was to get the syrup into bottles. Although I had worked hard the day before, the bottling was the only thing I really helped with all morning. It was really a one-person operation once it moved inside.
Seems like a LOT of work (16 hours on Friday and 4 hours on Saturday) for the amount of syrup we got but I will say that the ½ cup that was left over after bottling, that we all ate with spoons was probably the best syrup I’ve had in my life. See the bottle with the green cap in the photo above, that is a little larger than the other bottles? That’s the one I claimed.
What do you like to pour maple syrup on?
Trail Baboon 
My housemate is from Michigan and has serious nostalgia for sugaring-off time, which she used to do when she lived near a nature sanctuary. I haven’t been able to take her to any events in MN due to lack of transportation, alas!
Maple syrup, liquid smoke, garlic powder, and soy sauce go into a marinade, which goes onto tempeh strips which then go into a tempeh reuben. Mmmmm, tempeh reuben…
–Crow Girl
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That sounds really good!
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Baked diced apples covered with oatmeal plus maple syrup. An odd apple crisp.
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I agree with the above-the combo of baked apples and oatmeal and maple syrup is ideal! I grew up in Upstate NY only a short distance from 2 maple syrup producing places. We had maple syrup with everything (not bad on ice cream) and I recall grating maple sugar from a block in the early years.
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I like maple syrup on things like smoked ham, and definitely in sauces and marinades.
We tapped a (regular) maple in maybe 1983, when we were heating with wood and had an old fashioned cookstove. Just set a couple of large kettles on top, took a couple of days, and we bottled it when it was still rather thinner than usual. But it WAS delicious!
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Agreed… I love syrup on my veggie sausages!
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Morningstar Farms has a maple-flavored veggie sausage patty, but the maple syrup is much better on the outside than the inside IMHO.
–Crow Girl
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Agreed!!
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I hesitate to admit here that when I was growing up, maple syrup actually meant boiled sugar water with maple flavoring added. This was a habit I brought with me into young adulthood until we moved to the Twin Cities and there were actual food co-ops here. That’s when I discovered that you could take a container to Seward or the Wedge and pour real maple syrup right into it. That was the end of the sugar water for me.
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I grew up with that same sugar water maple syrup. I didn’t know any better.
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Waffles for me. I also have a delicious recipe for maple-glazed salmon filets. I’m with VS in that I got off the sugar water bandwagon years ago and now I’ll only buy real maple syrup. Life’s too short, and the difference is night and day between the two.
Chris in Owatonna
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Yes, maple glazed almost anything…
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This post is making me hungry.
I like to make glazes with maple syrup. I also like it on French toast. I’ve added a small amount to whipping cream while I’m whipping it.
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Easy find.
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Coincidentally, it smells like maple-flavored Post cereals in town today. Lots of people comment on the “maple day” being their favorite.
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Good👋
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Alarm! Alarm!
Today the building in which I live went up for sale!
For the curious and maybe investors (please let a Baboon be my landlord) look up commercial property Franklin, Ohio 243 South Main Street.
The lot to the right with two big trees is also for sale separately from the building. I feed my outside Birds there. This is weirding me out. Maybe I need a GoFundMe account. $900,000 would be the goal.
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Oh dear! Wish you luck with that, Wes.
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I’m pretty sure there are no real estate tycoons among the baboons. May be it’s time for you to look for a co-op or similar ownership based living situation?
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