Yankee Gold

We are planning on boiling sap again today. It is 8am and brilliantly sunny out, a perfect day to boil. A few days ago we got our first maple syrup. What happens is that one boils maple sap down for a very long time until it concentrates to become syrup. Some numbers; it takes about 40 gallons of sap to make about 1 gallon of syrup. We are doing it the old fashioned way (over a wood fire) so it took us 3 days to get syrup.

Some more detail. We collect the sap in a holding tank, then run it through a tube into the sugarhouse. From here we pour a few gallons into the boiling pan (larger back pan) where it evaporates. Once it cooks down a bunch we put the sweet (sort of sap/ not quite syrup) into the finishing pan (shiny front pan) where it boils until it becomes syrup. Pretty simple really.

I should mention there is a fire under the finishing pan that needs to be constantly stoked to keep the liquids boiling. Also, there is a chimney attached the furnace; we had not hooked it up as of this picture (in case you were wondering).

I would like to take this time to say that the sweet is delicious. We had our staff meeting out at the sugarhouse over glasses of sweet infused with ginger tea. I can't think of a better way to have a meeting.