Maple Syrup Chat 2013

[Go Go Diablo]

Hi all,

It looks to be a good year for maple syrup. Weather around here remains cool and trees are starting to cooperate.

I know a number of you collect sap and boil.If you would, please share your techniques for reducing or eliminating sugar sand from your canning process. I would appreciate some help for improving this part of our process.

Bruce

[Andy]

Hi Bruce,
By all accounts it is a great year for maple syrup in Grey and Bruce Counties here in Southern Ontario. I was not able to tap this year since my wife fell in Nov. and broke her back. She is coming along o.k. but it would be hard to do everything without her in the setup we have and even harder to get her to sit and watch. We are a small 200 or so taps with a two pan boil system. We can do twenty or so gallons of syrup most years before we tire out. We use eggs to help get the sugar sand out. It is how my dad and his dad did it so we always have. We take the syrup from the pans to a cottage and heat about half a gallon on the stove to a good rolling boil. To this we add two scrambled up eggs. We cook this up then double strain it through moistened wool blanket two times. Works real good for us. That being said we have friends that use the new cone filters with the sleeves in them and we tried that last time we boiled and it seemed to do a pretty good job too. I guess it all depends on what you are used to. I would be curious to know if anyone else uses eggs. Sure have a lot of great memories of collecting sap with the Hus-ski with the old man when he was still alive. Andy

[Go Go Diablo]

Eggs! Are you foolin with me Andy?

That's the kind of creative ideas you get from this most excellent forum. I'd like to hear more about that suggestion and also what others do.

[Andy]

I know it sounds crazy but it does work. My dad talked of people using milk as well but he felt it changed the color of the syrup. I found this little article that explains it better than I can. Andy

http://www.atkinsonmaple.com/files/FilteringSyrup.pdf

[devil dog]

Hi Bruce, we had a good season here in NH. Pulled taps on April 8th. If you dont want to invest in a filter press, what works good is to get a couple yards of white flannel from Wal-Mart. Then pour it though while it is still a little light ( before it is syrup).Then clean in hot water and re-use. I put it in glass containers ,and all the bad stuff will settle to to the bottom in a day or two,and then you can pour off the good stuff off the top. I have a stainless milk strainer and pail I got used and it takes a 6 1/2" disposable milk filter and that works really good. I use it to filter raw sap too.The wool cone filters also work excellent,but when you have only small amounts,you lose quite a bit of syrup in the filter. I invested in a small used 5" filter press this season with a hand pump and that works mint.

[Qtiddman]

The maple season just started a week ago here in the up

[Andy]

Hi Bruce, Another maple syrup season is here and we took off our first boil. Just wanted to send a couple pictures of us using eggs to help take out the sugar sand. We just pour the eggs into a high boil, stir it until the eggs cook, put it in the strainer with a wool filter then take out the cooked egg. You can see how much of the sand the eggs take. Less sand to clog up the filter. Happy spring to you. Andy

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[Go Go Diablo]

That is incredible.

We are heading up to camp this weekend and will give that a try. I'll let you know how it works for us.

Bruce

[Go Go Diablo]

Well, I can say I've never seen an uglier pot of boiling syrup! But when we poured it through the filter, we ended up with the clearest syrup we have ever had. It did work just like Andy posted.

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Thank you so much Andy. 2015 will be known as the year of the Egg at Syrup Camp!