We made SYRUP!!

We made SYRUP!!
Real, honest to goodness, SYRUP!!

After boiling down our 2 and 1/2 gallons of sap we got 1/2 cup of syrup! We would have had a little bit more, if I hadn't been so excited and poured some of it over my hand while I was trying to filter it. Hot syrup is like melted wax, folks. It burns and sticks to ya while it is burning!!

But, it tastes sooooo good! We had some drizzled over our vanilla ice cream as a treat. That was after we each had a spoonful straight from the jar, of course. We made sure to save some for Sam, Rachel and Samantha. I can't wait until next year when we tap more trees and can make even more of it!

Making syrup

This year we decided to foray into syrup making. Our taps were back ordered for weeks and we feared we were going to miss our opportunity. But they came a few days ago and the girls and Sam put out 4 taps with buckets. So far we have collected over 3 gallons of sap. The girls and I did the math and when we boil it down we will get about 1 cup of syrup. Enough for one plate of pancakes in this house.

We did a test run yesterday on top of the woodstove. Unfortunately our woodstove's top is not quite flat so the sap over cooked in some places. The girls did enjoy scraping the sweet syrup glue off the bottom of the pan though! Today Sam is going to try it over the gas grill outside as one of the books suggested.

We figure we'll iron out all the wrinkles now and next year we will be ready to go.