If I wanted to buy maple syrup for pancakes or waffles, what should I look for?
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I love me maple syrup and everything associated with it.
We can get fresh maple syrup here in Ohio but it’s nothing like the stuff we get in western New York where I grew up.
I’ll wind up spending a couple hundred dollars at Sprague’s Maple Farm in Portville NY when we head back there at the end of the month.
I’ll need to get a gallon of syrup, three or so containers of maple cream, a couple pounds of granulated maple sugar, maple candy, some of their maple kettle corn, their maple BBQ sauce and anything else they want to sell me.
We’ll also eat at their restaurant where they serve the best breakfast ever. Their homemade maple sausage patties are what dreams are made of and their maple cinnamon rolls approach greatness. They also have a homemade maple sugar applesauce that I probably could eat a quart of.
One year they made and sold bourbon barrel aged maple syrup, it was something special and I wish they would do it again. It was the best maple syrup I’ve ever had.
One of my favorite things to make with pure maple syrup is Bourbon Maple Bacon Onion Jam.
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klflowers I posted my cook of the Bourbon Maple Bacon Jam on the Condiments Recipe Page. It’s like the fourth or fifth post down. You can find it there.
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My brother in law has been making maple syrup for years now on his farm, it is a small batch operation he taps around 100 trees, he boils in a SS pan over a wood fire in the sugar bush. I am one of his helpers/wood cutters we use our Argo to collect the sap most years.
Making maple syrup is hard work and after 2-3 weeks he usually pulls the taps. In a good year he would make 20-25 gallons, he pulled the taps this week as it has turned cold here. The best syrup in my opinion is the first syrup made it is lighter in colour, the syrup gets darker as the season goes on. It is maple syrup when the it boils at 219F which usually takes about 3 days of boiling and the pan filled about six or seven times.
Here is a picture from this year, cold sap has been added to pan and the pan has lost its boil, this pan is 7 x 3’ x6” deep. You need warm sunny days and cold nights for sap to flow, once it turns warm for a few days and nights the trees bud and sap turns bitter the season is over. This is the old way to make maple syrup.
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This is really interesting. I've never seen the process before.
Also, if any of you producers are willing to sell two gallons, I make an awesome Maple Port (16% plus ABV) and I prefer to buy homemade over commercial syrup.Comment
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It is expensive, and I haven't made any since 2016 when I could buy homemade maple syrup from various people on other forums I used to frequent. It was about $60/gallon back then; I don't know how much it costs now. 2 gallons of the syrup will make 4 gallons of port - it is one of the best alcoholic beverages I've ever made. I age it on used oak cubes from Spirit of Texas Distillery's Pecan Street Rum.
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roses are red, violets are purple, sugar is sweet like maple surple.Comment
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Whelp, tapping was going to happen today and tomorrow. We got a fresh 3-4 “ of snow last night with more on the way for Sunday. Next week looks better for daytime highs above freezing.
I might get out and tap one or two by the house just to see what I get.Comment
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Absolutely incredible! Cannot imagine the education this has provided you, thank you for sharing!Comment
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No trees tapped yet this weekend. Might just have to settle for more prep work. Getting buckets lined up, checking taps and lines. More to follow.
in the meantime……here is a shot of the first production run from last year! I figured since this year is delayed a bit, I should give the people a little sugar!
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"I don't know what the definition of porn is, but I know it when I see it"....thats porn. -
That is some nice clean syrup there!! I tried to make a few paths in the three hours I spent in the skid steer today. Apparently we have very little frost since it snowed so early and has never quit. I made a mess in my yard and quit.. I will be a good year to tap but you are going to earn it this year!! -
Yep! No kidding. I am going to go for it on Wednesday. Temps look pretty good. next week will be in the lower 40's and 20's at night. Backroadmeats
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I am thinking I will go out and tap on Wednesday evening.
Temps will be in the mid-30's to lower 40's during the day and freezing at night. This will be perfect. we do a have a little dip in the temp on the weekend, but it looks like we might get some sunshine on the back end of the weekend. The following week will be in the lower 40's and below freezing at night! We might be on the way to sugar season!
I am going to dig my taps out tonight. I will take some pictures so people can see what they look like. I will also be post some pictures of us tapping the trees and putting the taps in the trees.
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This sounds like so much fun!Comment
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New improvement to Rutty Buck Syrup Company: Reverse Osmosis System.
One of our main goals every year to make sure we make improvements to our process. Our first major improvement was to buy an evaporator to make our process more efficient. Before that, we used stock pots over a camp fire!
Last year, we tapped way more trees, and chose to use real Orion pre-filters with Orion felt filters when taking the concentrated sap to the final boiling step, right before it becomes Rutty Buck Syrup.
This year our main improvement was the introduction of the RO system. This will concentrate our raw sap from the trees. Which, in turn, will save us big on fuel, time and allow us to produce more syrup in a shorter amount of time. In years past, we have had to dump sap because we simply can't process it fast enough, we are hoping this will help with that issue.
Today, I unpacked the RB-10 Reverse Osmosis System that we purchased from RO Bucket. These are perfect for small operations like we have. This will take a large bit of the water out of the sap. Which means.....less water to boil off. We discard the fresh water and keep the concentrated sap for heating in the preheater before it goes into the boiling pan.
Here is the set up.....
This shot is above the bucket, which contains the filters for the RO. The whole system is contained in the bucket. Which means it is mobile and we can easily move it between syrup camps. The 40-GPH pump is on the bottom of the bucket. We will have a 275 Gallon- IBC Tote to dump the fresh sap in. The sap will be pumped from the IBC Tote, through the 2-10" 5-micron pre filters. From there the raw sap will run through 2-8 GPH membranes. These will separate a ton of water from the sap. This process will take 16-gallons of raw sap and concentrate it down to 8-gallons of sap. (with 8 gallons of water as discharge from the system) The concentrated sap will then flow into a 55-Gallon Poly drum that will be fed into the preheater, and then ultimately the evaporator pan.
will make sure to post some pictures of the RO system once I have it all rigged up and ready for some raw sap.
**Next Up: We are tapping the trees on Sunday. All next week looks like prime sapping time and the flow should be heavy. Stay tuned! The next pictures will be of the tapping process and bucket set up.
Thanks for reading!Comment
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Please let us know how the RO filter works out, with an output of 2-8 GPH it will take a while to fill your pan, I am wondering if it will be able to keep up? I think it will have to run continuously? I also wonder if the filters will stop the white foam from forming when the sap starts to boil? Good luck.
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Man, that is some serious crap!!Comment
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