I was told by a friend that spring seems to come more quickly when you have maple syrup to boil down! Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know, but it sure adds festivity to the coming of spring (which is already a wonderful thing)!
We got some spiles (the metal spouts you plug into trees) for Christmas this year, and then Casey researched the ins and outs of the process, as he is so good at doing. I swear he does more research and reading now than when he was in school! đŸ˜‰
Anyways, here is the first boil-down session, which we did right in our kitchen. This was about 3 gallons of sap (that was all we got from the two trees through most of March- it was a cold winter!)
Here you see Casey’s idea to prepare pancakes ahead for the morning. đŸ™‚
And this here was our final product. You can see by the reference point of the apple that we only got about half a pint from the 3 gallons! But most of the pay-off was the fun and experience for the future.
And it is pretty exciting to put your own syrup on pancakes. It tastes like the real thing- and it is!
P.S. the first batch of syrup ended up being too thick, and crystallized into sugar, which was just as delicious. The second time around we made 3x as much, and it was just right.