It was cold outside last Saturday, with what felt like gale force winds. Really, the temperatures were hovering just above the freezing mark, with winds at about 45 km/hr, gusting higher. However, the few trees we tapped had been running and we had 5 or 6 gallons of Maple sap collected. It was forecast to be a high of -8 on Sunday, so out we trudged to see if we could find the fire pit under all the snow. We spent 5 hours outside and a day's worth of wood. Luckily we had a few cedars downed a couple of years ago, so it was softwood that we wouldn't burn to heat the house, that fueled the fire pit for this venture. It would have been less wood if it hadn't been so windy.
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| The sap is finally running! |
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| One of two buckets with sap. It's just barely sweetish tasting. |
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| Just starting to boil. It took forever because it was so windy. |
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| Makeshift wind break to try to keep the fire burning. |
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| Finally, after over 4 hours, the sap has started to colour. |
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| 5 gallons of sap yielded 2 cups of syrup. |
I heated up the final syrup in the house, filtered it though paper coffee filters and bottled it up. The next batch will be filtered, heated up and then put into sterilized jars for storage.
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