Okay! We started recently with how to tap maple trees and collect sap; now we’re going over burning off. Sap is almost entirely water, so we use the burning off process to evaporate the water and leave behind the sugar syrup. This is something you want to do outside, as it takes something like 30-40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup. If you’re doing the math with me that’s a lot of water being released into the air, and in the confined space of an indoor kitchen you just might drown yourself with the humidity you’re creating. It’s just probably not a good idea.

As we talked about last post, if some of the sap freezes discard the ice to get rid of some of the excess water, as the sugar itself will not freeze. The Iroquois, the confederacy of Native American tribes that lived around us in Upstate New York, made their own maple syrup by allowing for it to freeze and taking off the top layer of ice every morning. Though this will work, we’re going to expedite the process by putting it over an open flame. The Iroquois had to have been a very patient, dedicated people if they made use of freezing to get their maple syrup!

1. Make An Evaporator

There’s no need to get elaborate here. My evaporator is just cinder blocks holding up a couple of large, metal buffet trays. I put a piece of stove pipe at the end for the ash and smoke to escape far up from where I’m working, because I do not want ash in my maple syrup. Chances are neither do you.

2. Start a fire in the evaporator

Fairly self explanatory, although I will give you a tip from my scoutmaster neighbor: kindling from spruce wood is a natural fire starter. It’s far easier to get a fire going with it than without – especially during damp, late winter conditions.

3. Add the Sap

Place the sap over the fire and let it boil down, stirring occasionally. I strain the sap through cheesecloth before burning off to get out any bits of this-and-that that might have accrued during sap collection. As it boils off, add more sap. Don’t let it boil down completely and actually burn (burning off is a poor phrase to use, I don’t know who coined it), just keep adding more until you’re left with enough to bring inside and finish off in a large pot in the stove. Stay vigilant and keep adding logs to the fire to keep it nice and hot.

Note: burning off can take several hours. That’s okay – as a matter of fact, that’s a good thing! Use it as time to read, to visit with family or friends or anything else other than sitting there and scrolling through your phone. This is a great opportunity to spend some time unplugged and clear your head. I highly recommend it!

4. Finish off the Sap Inside

Put your almost syrup into a large pot on the stove indoors (I strain it through a cheesecloth again; trust me in that you REALLY do not want any residue in your maple syrup), and this time you want to be stirring more often than not. Wear an oven mitt as you stir because it will get very hot. You can purchase a hydrometer to let you know when the sap has officially become maple syrup, or you can use a kitchen thermometer to figure it out – when the syrup reaches 220* degrees Fahrenheit it’s done. Do keep an eye on it, because I’ve found that it will sit at 212 degrees for quite awhile and the leap from 212 to 220 happens over a period of just a few minutes.

This is another little chemistry lesson for the kids, and perhaps for adults too who want to know why this works:

Water can only reach 212 degrees before it evaporates. That said, sugar can heat to be much hotter. The sap will sit on the stove at a maximum of 212 degrees Fahrenheit when the water content is too high simply because it cannot go above 212 degrees. HOWEVER…. once the sugar is in a high enough proportion to the water, the solution will heat to greater than 212 degrees.

*104/105 degrees Celsius for our readers who have reached us from Europe and Down Under…. any readers from Canada?? We’ve heard from a few places overseas on here but no Canadians. Drop a message!

5. Strain it one last time and seal it in mason jars (oh, and eat some!)

At this point, there isn’t any bits of nature in the syrup. However, sometimes the syrup will start to get granules of maple sugar in it that sit as a sediment on the bottom. This is okay, and there’s no reason not to have it on your pancakes as it’s just sugar. You don’t actually have to strain it, but if you’d rather not have that you should. Use 2 layers of cheesecloth, since the sugar crystals are pretty small. You can use a coffee filter, but you’d need the patience of the Iroquois because it takes a LONG time for the thick syrup to pass through it, and you’ll probably find that you have to change out the coffee filter multiple times.

It’s that simple!

And just to follow up from my last post: my test taps proved that I was a little too early. But, we have perfect weather coming up this week, and a test tap that I put out over the weekend has yielded some sap. We’re on for the year!