That stuff is an illicit drug.also look like a ton if fun. Real life sugarshack
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All the sudden, I have so much more respect for this! Wowza! #gratefulComment
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Last weekend, we did our first official boil and we opened up Syrup camp! Here are the results.
Brix @ 50 F 66.8 %
Color: Golden.
Tastes: Delicate flavor, light buttery flavors through out
Texture: Thin. (Especially at higher temps)
Total Yield: 88 Ounces
We are very happy with our first batch of Rutty Buck Syrup. It is said that most sugar makers agree that Golden syrup is the best syrup that is made during the season. As we collect sap from our trees, it enters the buckets and it starts to oxidize immediately. This is where our cold temperatures come to our aid. Yeast and bacteria break down sucrose in the sap into smaller molecules of fructose and glucose. The cold, slows this process down. While the warmer the outside temperatures come, more and more sucrose gets converted. Just like in BBQ....the warmer temperatures cause the fructose and glucose to go through.....you guessed it....the Malliard reaction. (Browning) When exposed to heat, the higher levels of fructose and glucose in the sap and the longer we boil it, the darker our syrup becomes. (Large operations boil under vacuum to control the color of their syrup, by how long they boil that sap) So the faster we collect and get it boiled the better. SInce I have a full time job and I can't boil every day, this is quality control hurdle is tough for us to overcome. This is part of the reason retired sugar makers have a huge advantage in the sugar game!
As the season progresses, we have lower and lower sugar content in our sap, and thus, we have to boil longer and longer to create more syrup. Thus, we have darker syrup was the season goes on. You will see this in real-time as I update this thread.Comment
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Yes, that is what we shoot for. However, with our equipment, it can be tough to dial in perfectly. I love the light texture of the golden syrup. The later batches have a thicker mouth feel, however, I am not sure if the syrup is actually thicker or if it’s the way my taste buds influence the mouth feel. If that makes sense…..
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So is the lighter amber colored syrup better than the dark amber? More flavorful and or sweeter?Comment
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Well, of course this is all subjective. Grade A Syrup or the syrup that most producers shoot for is typically lighter in color. It is sweeter tasting, yes. More flavorful? IDK, that is up to you. To me, the darker, more robust syrup later in the year is better and more flavorful Is has a heavier taste, almost smokey and peaty. Judges and the mainstream might not prefer it, but I do.
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Cool Spin! And yes there is nothin like the real McCoy.
If I might add what with the temp fluctuations & such, this winter has sucked.Comment
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My current bottle, from NY.
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I wasn’t expecting syrup already!
So.
1. it sounds like the early bottles are the best ones for competition but do you need to store them in a cold and dark place to keep them competition ready? We don’t want browning right?
2. I kinda agree that the later bottles sound more tasty for personal consumption. Is that the plan then or enter them all in different types of competitions?
3. Due to the longer boiling process are later bottles more concentrated or the same but take say 50% more sap to make the same amount of syrup?Comment
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The only competition we enter in is the Minnesota State Fair. They have four categories. Golden, Amber, Dark and Very Dark. We will enter for each category only depending on what kind of yield we get this year and how our syrup comes out of the evaporator. Last year we enter 3 categories. We did okay, but we has ZERO care for our Brix rating.....this year will be different!Originally posted by STEbbq View Post
We really do this as a way tog et together after a long winter (usually) It is just good to get outside, enjoy the sun and make a ton of food, enjoy some beverages. The competition thing is more just because we have the bottles made and it is fun to go out to the fair and see all the other Sugarmakers. You know it is always fun to go out and talk shop. Plus, we always need another reason to go to the fair and hangout!
The later bottles are not more concentrated as far as sugar goes. They simply have a most robust flavor and darker color because of the growing I described above. To me, the more robust flavor has a thicker mouth feel, but I think that is mostly in my head. However, I have heard that it is amazing in cocktails. ( Huskee texastweeter and CaptainMike might be able to shed some light on that as they have tasted some of the Rutty Buck Syrup from last year) While it does take more RAW sap to make the syrup, once it hits our evaporator it matters very little because I am running all the raw sap through our RO system. That gives us a consistent sugar concentration when it hits the pan. typically 4% Brix. However, the color still remain dark because typically the sap is warmer before collection and more browning has had time to occur.Comment
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Work to be done today in the sugarbush folks. We had a good sap flow yesterday. I’ve got 40 gallons to boil down. We had roughly 65 gallons of sap total yesterday. The rest of the sap went into the storage tanks for tomorrow’s boil. I will add more pictures throughout the day today of the process.
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Okay folks, the evaporator is shut down and the coals are cooling. I had to do some maintenance on our RO system. That is replace the membranes and flush the whole system to make sure it was cleaned out and ready to go for today. I had what I suspect was mold issues in the system. A costly mistake on my part. These are 400 GPD membranes, but since we are running 34 F sap, that gets cut down to about 125 GPD membranes. That is totally fine because we are not running that much sap. You can see in the photo below that I was right, MOLD! This was from not storing them properly with a sanitized solution. Lessoned learned. Anywho, I got the new membranes installed and she was all ready to go.
I was able to concentrate 40-Gallons of raw sap into 26-Gallons of sap concentrate for boiling. The boil went from about 0845 to 1445. I am doing the final boil as we speak. I would say we have over a gallon of syrup from today's haul. In the photo below.....the red line is my concentrated sap, and the blue line is my permeate or water.
You can clearly see the color difference in the concentrate and ther permiate. The concentrate does have a sweet taste to it, even though it is only changing the sugar content from 2% to 4%. The permeate gets reused to flush the system after processing. What I do not use in the flushing, gets dumped back by my trees for them to soak up.
Here is a good shot of the sap right before I draw it off the evaporator. At this point, we are running at about 214 F. I do not want to risk scorching the sap, so I manually remove the pan and place it on a table for filtering into our finishing pot. Liquid gold, but we are not there yet!
Here is a shot of the sap, just before it becomes syrup. This stuff needs to be boiled down to 219 F or so. The sheen on the top of the sap is sugar sand caused by the heating process. That will be filtered out tomorrow during the bottling phase. (More on that tomorrow)
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The boil is on!!
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I've been thinking...friend of mine whe is a bartender in NY reached ot to me last week because I didn't swing by his bar while up there explained it was lent. He has a concoction he wants me to try and if I approve add to the menu. ITS basically a maple old fashioned but using house made Evan Williams bottled in bond bourbon that's been used to "wash" bacon grease, rosemary maple syrup, savory bitters, and a candied bacon stir (he used my rib rub recipe I gave him a couple years back plus extra brown sugar to candy the bacon). Then the cocktail is smoked. Once off Lent I may try it. Do you recommend the darker more robust maple for this?
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We had a great boil on Saturday. In the RO we processed 70- gallons of raw sap into about 45-gallons of concentrated sap. I was running the RO a little thin on Saturday. As the sap we were collecting was already pretty heavy.
This weekend we made another improvement in our quality control. We have moved away fro our simple and cheap refractometer. We invested in a Murphy Compensation Cup. This little number makes it really easy to test our Brix accurately. This allows us to measure our sugar concentration without having to compensate for the temperature on the syrup. This also you to be much more accurate. Given the air pressure, the final boiling temp is syrup can change. This type of testing eliminates the guessing part of testing with temperature alone.
Here is how it works. Once you are on the finishing boil step of your sap, you fill the cup with your boiling sap. (At this point, it is almost pure Maple Syrup) Once the Murphy Cup is filled, you place your hydrometer (Glass Tube) in the cup and wait for it to float. This will give you a specific gravity reading on the hydrometer. Once the reading on the hydrometer matches the dial on the cup, you are at 66.9%. Perfect maple syrup. Why is this easier? Normally we have to take the (falling) temp of the syrup, and then test the Brix with the refractometer. The problem is, once you take the syrup out of the boiling pot, place a few drops on the refractometer, close the slide, the temp has decreased dramatically. This, in turn, effects the accuracy of the reading. Since the Murphy Cup automatically adjusts for temperature, you can get an accurate reading at any temperature, even as the temp of the syrup drops.
Overall, this made us much more confident in our results this weekend. Additionally, it made the whole process much more enjoyable with less guessing and more certainty. I do not have our totals for the session on Saturday, but they are bottling it today, so I can add that as I know.
I did a boil on Friday as well. This syrup hit 66.9% Brix and has a wonderful golden color to it. There is nothing like seeing it shine through that spring sun! (next time I will clean the outside of the bottle for you.)
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Another great part of syrup camp is the time we get to spend together as friends and family. I was able to enlist my nephew to help me this weekend. He loves being active and being apart of syrup camp. Plus, it if it keeps me from having to climb in the truck to get more firewood, I am down. Here is Johnny, Jules and Liv gathering the last of the wood out of my truck. (I think the girls just make Johnny do all the work)
Here is a good action shot of Johnny skimming the foam off the evaporator pan. This helps us remove particulates that floats to the top, as well as helping the boil roll faster and hotter. Plus, it is fun to do!
I also had the kids out in the sugarbush, checking the buckets. This weekend was slow as far as sap was concerned. The trees are still trying to manage these crazy temperatures we are having.
Here is my buddy adding more concentrated sap to the top warming pan. It will sit in this top pan until we are ready to add more sap to the main evaporation pan.
Finally, here is a an action shot of us drawing the sap off of the main evaporator pan and into the filters. This is not quite syrup yet. We are probably running at about 40% Brix at this point.
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