When I made my sandwich from scratch,
I attempted two different sugar sources. Sugar beets, which failed to grow, and honey for my root beer.
I'm heading to Central Minnesota for yet another source of sugar. Maple syrup is derived from the sap of the maple tree.
During the winter, the trees store starches in their trunks which it then converts into sugar.
The temperature changes from day to night in the spring causes sap to flow on the tree and allows them to be tapped and drained.
The drain maple sap is mostly water, and it need to be concentrated by a factor of 40. Before it becomes actual maple syrup
We're in Northern Minnesota where my brother and his family have been making maple syrup for the past couple years and they're going to show me how it's done.
So this end goes in the tree and this sticks out.
And then this will just go over it and hang on it like that.
Okay.
That's the tree. So this is how we collect it
We're drilling to a depth of 2 inches here in a slightly upslope, and then we have it marked here for 2 inches.
So give it a try here. when you get it up make sure you get the hole clean so they don't have any sawdust in
there so that it interferes with the flow of the sap, so
go ahead and [heat] anywhere on here in the soft side of the tree then the
The sap tends to flow best on the southern side of the tree, but received the most heat from the sun throughout the day.
I'd be perfect
Here's your spile, and what we're doing. Then is we drill a hole into the tree and we're basically severing those straws
So when the sap goes up instead of continuing up the tree it comes out the spile and we collect it in the bag
whoa, this is good. I think I'm tasting more of the sawdust then the actual syrup.
We're good. You tapped your first tree.
This year we got these plastic
Spiles that have with a holes on them and so we can basically two
Trees or two taps into one bag so we can put since this is also a maple
And it's greater than ten inches in diameter. We can tap this one
and run it into this bag so
Just tap it till it sets.
That it?
There we go all right. That's have to choose
After tapping the trees we took a break while the day warmed up the sap flows best in the warmer temperatures
So after a warm afternoon, we came back and collected the Sap
Once the Sap was collected into buckets. We transferred it into a large barrel with a net to strain out any ice
Once the barrel was full it drained on a long hose that ran down the hill to another barrel in the back of the truck
Saving us the hassle of carrying the Sap all the way down the hill.
Once transferred to the truck it was brought back to the house to boil it down.
The Sap is drained once more to remove any dirt or particles that might have gotten in.
Then in a large pan all the sap is added,
and the wood stove is lit.
Over the next several hours this sap will slowly boil down till it reaches a more amber color.
Before it gets too thick, it will be drained and brought inside for the final boiling where it can be controlled more closely.
So we're getting pretty close now. This is boiled down
When we brought it in it was it was almost a gallon,
and I think we're going to probably end up with about three quarts
The hydrometer is just going to check the percentage of sugar in it, and so this will float in this cup here based on how
Much sugar is in it, and we want it at this hot test line, right here, this red line.
So we want this to float with the syrup being right there. Okay.
Now we got it floating.
so we can see here when we look we are actually right at
the red line there, and now it's syrup.
We're going to can it in glass Mason jars, and so what we need to do is sterilize our jars.
I have the oven set at 200 degrees and we're going to put all the jars in there for about 20 minutes.
And then I'll sterilize them. Okay.
So now we're going to scoop it in fill the jar up.
Till they'll be a quarter inch headspace. Okay.
All right, and then in 24 hours. We'll have a maple syrup.
Watch new episodes of how to make everything Tuesday and Thursday brought to you by soylent, because food doesn't have to be complicated.