Art Mulder
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- 3,383
- Location
- London, Ontario
Did something a bit ... different with wood the past few days. Normally I'd be cutting it or gluing it or such like.
Last week we tapped it!
My son wanted to earn his "Maple Syrup" badge. And it seemed like a fun thing to try out. We love maple syrup, so we thought we'd experience a bit of the work involved in producing it. The local TSC store provided some spigots and buckets. The backyard just happened to have two sugar maples growing in it (and yes, we verified that first!). So off we went.
It's really quite amazing how quickly the bucket can fill with sap.
The next step is to boil it down, which we did yesterday.
Here I'm filtering the sap through a coffee filter before putting it on the stove. The ants found the buckets within 2 days, which is kind of amazing, seeing as how it is still pretty darn cold out. I would have thought they'd be hibernating still.
And here's what we got for our efforts
Hours of boiling -- next time we're going to run it much hotter I think. Hmm, this probably wouldn't even cover one meal of pancakes in our family of six. I knew going in about the 40-to-1 ratio, but it's still pretty amazing to see the results.
We're still collecting. Might have another boil off next weekend, if the weather continues right. But I don't think I'll go into business..
Last week we tapped it!
My son wanted to earn his "Maple Syrup" badge. And it seemed like a fun thing to try out. We love maple syrup, so we thought we'd experience a bit of the work involved in producing it. The local TSC store provided some spigots and buckets. The backyard just happened to have two sugar maples growing in it (and yes, we verified that first!). So off we went.
It's really quite amazing how quickly the bucket can fill with sap.
The next step is to boil it down, which we did yesterday.
Here I'm filtering the sap through a coffee filter before putting it on the stove. The ants found the buckets within 2 days, which is kind of amazing, seeing as how it is still pretty darn cold out. I would have thought they'd be hibernating still.
And here's what we got for our efforts
Hours of boiling -- next time we're going to run it much hotter I think. Hmm, this probably wouldn't even cover one meal of pancakes in our family of six. I knew going in about the 40-to-1 ratio, but it's still pretty amazing to see the results.
We're still collecting. Might have another boil off next weekend, if the weather continues right. But I don't think I'll go into business..