The sap has run the last day or two and dad got 12 trees tapped. Because of work and basketball schedules, he has been running the sap lines in the dark. He says it's pretty cool to be out in the snow at night with the coyotes howling nearby.
This first batch (not much of it yet) has been evaporating in the house since the evaporator won't be complete until Saturday. We let it evaporate and moisturize the house on the wood stove overnight and then boil it off and finish it during the day. So far, about five gallons of sap has given us about a pint and a third of syrup. We filled the little bottle above to give to Barb, our hair cutter lady.
As the sap gets more concentrated, bubbles begin forming on top of the rolling boil.
When it gets very close to being syrup, the bubbles get smaller and often try to overflow.
It is ready when the temperature is 7 degrees above water boiling temp - we don't have a good thermometer, so we use the spatula test. It is ready when the drips "apron" off the bottom instead of dripping off.
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