We have just three maple trees within a quick walk from the house. But they're big maples with a combined circumference of about 30 feet. This year I thought I'd try tapping them and try my hand at making some maple syrup. I had watched old timers make maple syrup when I was a little kid at our cottage in Baysville and I remembered the basics of the process. I also did some online research and got advice from some local guys who had boiled down their fair share of sap. From start to finish it was a pretty big process, a lot of work, a lot of fun and, once I tasted the end result, completely worth it.
I couldn't resist designing up a quick label.
I drilled 2 taps per tree. Trees this size could probably handle 3 or 4 taps.
When the sap gets running at top speed we're talking maybe 40 drops per minute. I was collecting between 6 to 12 litres a day and the sap was really beginning to pile up around the farm. Sap in the fridge, sap in the freezer, sap stored in 6 gallon water jugs outside in the snow . . . . It takes 40 to 50 litres of sap to make just 1 litre of maple syrup so you can never really have enough tree plasma.
I boiled the sap down over a 2 day period over a wood fire. Earlier this winter I had cleared out a small stand of dead cedars so there was no shortage of good easy burning wood at hand. The cedar gave the syrup an incredible smoky and unique flavour and I think it even enhanced its colour.
These 2 bottles represent the result of 18 days of sap collecting and 2 days of fire stoking and boiling. Best stuff I've ever had.
Love the label!
ReplyDeleteDude, you are amazing. Label looks amazing.....where did you get that cool bottle with the "cork" topper?
ReplyDeleteRobert@AmericanAntler
It's an old whisky bottle. Can't remember which brand. Possibly Bushmills? But yeah, the cork top is perfect for syrup.
ReplyDelete