It's Sugaring Season!

[docsconz]

More photos coming shortly, but I did discover a few tidbits today. The grades generally come from the point in the season the sugar is harvested. Early season is lighter and grade A, then the season moves into a bit darker - grade B and late season, heavy and very dark grade C. My neighbors are usually tuckered out before Grade C.

[Pan]

I would really love to try some Grade C one of these days. The stronger the maple taste, the better.

[Moopheus]

You might be disappointed. It seems there is no longer a USDA standard for Grade C, what was grade C is now grade B, and Grade B is "dark" grade A. Below Grade B is commercial grade, and it's not sold retail. Commercial grade syrups may not necessarily be pure maple syrup, and are used to make syrup substitutes with 2% syrup. Apparently as the buds start appearing on the trees late in the season, it makes the syrup bitter.

[Pan]

Yeah, bitter maple syrup really wouldn't be fun!

[docsconz]

Here are more photos:

The Sugar Shack

Maple Steam

The evaporator doing its job.

Boiling down

The leveler

The raw sap: The lighter sap came first, the darker sap is more recent and will be closer to Grade B.

The sap is collected here and then pumped up to a holding tank.

The hose to the tank.

The gravity feeder holding tank for sap. The sap gets pumped up into this tank and is than gravity fed to the evaporator.

The final concentration underway.

Bottles waiting to be filled.

Checking the consistency with a hygrometer

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble

Just about the right consistency when its boiling like this.

Pouring through a filter to get any particles.

Look at the color

Coming from the filter

After filtration

Bottling.

That's all for now.

[Pan]

Thanks, Doc. That was terrific!

[Lavender]

Wow, the first photo says it all - the Sugar Shack is Rockin'! All the photo's that followed are maple syrup on the cake. Thanks for the pictorial, especially for those of us in the nether regions, who are far removed from the scene. I will report AZ was only 82 degrees today, thanks to some desperately needed and welcomed rain. The trade off is that we can grow fresh herbs here year around, AND the pool is ready. However, so far, only Enzo the choc. lab. was ok with the 65 degree water temp. I'm going to give it a couple weeks.

[Lavender]

It may have already been covered, and if so I apologise, but what is Grade C used for in commercial use if it is bitter?

[gus_tatory]

docsconz: this should be a eG Culinary Institute class on making maple products. i live in Quebec (home of the maple ) and i don't think i could do a better job explaining/illustrating than you have. thanks.

and on that note, i think there's some maple syrup, possibly in cahoots with vanilla ice cream, calling my name in the kitchen...

edit to fix: substandard spelling.

Edited March 14, 2004 by gus_tatory (log)

[Moopheus]

It may have already been covered, and if so I apologise, but what is Grade C used for in commercial use if it is bitter?

Generally it's used in commercial baking applications where it'll be sweetened with corn syrup and the like. A lot of it gets used in fake maple flavored syrup, the kind that say '2 percent real maple syrup' or some such in the ingredients list. Really low-grade stuff is apparently used for curing tobacco and meats.

[woodburner]

Another great report doc.

I'm a sap for this kind of stuff.

woodburner

[Katherine]

A local farm here in Maine collects their sap in special plastic bags, which are closed except for the spigot port. More sanitary that way, with less chance of debris entering the container.

In case anybody is thinking of trying to boil their sap down in a kettle over a wood fire outdoors, forget it! My ex-husband did this one year. We had a year's worth of syrup that was full of smoke and wood ash. Eeeuuww.

[docsconz]

Some of the sap in the collection buckets today was frozen overnight. The sap-ce was collected andkept to melt:

I got to taste some fresh maple syrup just off the stove:

Wow, was that good stuff. The grade right now appears to be somewhere between A & B. It really is special. I was fortunate enough to be given the jar that I am holding in my hand.

On a side note: another name for the maple syrup poured over fresh snow is "JackWax". This syrup is not quite the same as that in my bottle. It is thickened even further before being applied to the snow. On contact with the cold snow it becomes more solid and is eaten like candy.