2022 Maple syrup wrap-up

 I went out today and got less than 2 liters of somewhat cloudy maple sap, this was from 2 days since I didn't go out the day before.  Also, the sap doesn't taste as sweet as usual.  I think it's probably time to pull the taps and end the 2022 season.

According to my somewhat slipshod record keeping I've processed 244 liters of maple sap or 61 boils of 4 liters each.  11 trees were tapped so that's an average of 22 liters per tree (over 5.5 gallons).   That boiled down to roughly 10.6 liters of what I call "pre-syrup" - it's brown, sweet, a little cloudy and runny.

But true maple syrup is 2/3 sugar, 1/3 water, so additional boiling is required to get to true syrup.  Assuming an average 40:1 boil concentration ratio that means that I'd have to boil that 10.6 liters of pre-syrup down to 6.1 liters of real syrup.

I think I'm going to skip that, just use it the way it is.  It won't be that much more runny than real syrup and it won't be quite as sweet but  it'll be good enough and certainly better than store bought corn based syrups.  I'll get out the pressure cooker and put it into jars for shelf stability.  I won't be giving it out due to the cloudiness which I don't remember happening last year.

In 2021 I processed over 460 liters of maple sap, I had so much that I actually canned some of the sap just to keep it from taking over my fridge and also keep it from fermenting.

One thing: it will be nice to have a little quiet in the house, the fan on the distiller

is quite loud and has been on almost continuously for a month or so.

If I do the maple sap again I should buy a refractometer (optical sugar meter) for the sap and also keep better records, this is science !

Bottom line: 2022 was a less than great season, not sure what I'll do in 2023, we'll see.  

Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm