I DID IT! I MADE MAPLE SYRUP!

April 11, 2014

After 30+ years thinking about it, I finally made some maple syrup. Don't laugh but here it is. This came from a silver maple tree in the city so we get the added taste of pollution too. Haha!


I boiled down nearly 2 gallons of silver maple sap and what you see above is what I ended up with (there would have been a little more but I ruined the 2nd half I boiled by getting distracted on the telephone - note to self: don't answer phone when boiling sap). 
My husband drilling a hole for the spile.  If you look closely you can see the clear sap rushing out of the spile as soon as we put it into the hole that was drilled.

I don't really care about the quantity this time around I'm just excited that I was finally able to do it. The syrup came from a single tap of my sisters silver maple so if I were to tap that thing several times I'd probably have had a whole bottle. This year was just a little experiment to see how the whole process went, next year I'll be on the hunt for sugar maples and I'll extract much more.
It took one week to get the bag as full as you see it in the picture. It would run ok for a few hours in the day (mostly dripping) but it was just too cold of an early spring to really get going. On the right I'm boiling it down. Next year I'll do it outside.

Since I only had about 2 gallons to work with I boiled the sap inside the house on my electric stove. It took a couple hours but it was fun. Aiyana was the first to sample the end result and her response was "it needs more sugar." My husband was the second person to sample and all he said is "it sure tastes different than the high fructose corn syrup version." 😂

This is my disaster. I'm starting to think disasters are a common theme of my blog. LOL! Of my life. LOL! With every new adventure I start off with a disaster. I thought today was going to be perfect, I should have known it was too good to be true. Second batch of syrup smelled good but turned out yuck and I wasn't sure how to keep going with it to turn it into maple sugar. For the record, I've learned to love disasters... it helps me learn quickly what not to do next time 😉

I'll be eating it (not the burnt stuff) over french toast this weekend.

Happy Friday Everyone!
Epicure68 said...

That's so wonderful! I think it's really cool that you made your own syrup. I remember watching a film in elementary school of them tapping maple trees and pouring some of the final product onto snow to eat and thinking how marvellous that must be.

I had a chunk of maple sugar once and it was great, so I'm sure you're going to perfect that recipe and make something wonderful.

I love how you're turning a potentially bad situation into something good, it's very inspirational.

Michelle said...

Thanks for the idea! I never thought about pouring it on snow and eating it that way. Aiyana would like that. Next year when we tap again and there is snow on the ground I am going to do that.

Up north the people make sugar maple candy. I wish I knew how to do that. I've read you boil it down until it becomes pure sugar but I don't how to do that without burning it :( I'd like to learn though.

SoapSudsations said...

You'll probably eventually find something on the internet on how to make sugar maple candy, just have to spend a few more hours on the internet a day. ;)

meemsnyc said...

Ooooooh! This is something I have always wanted to try! One day! It must be fun to tap and make your own maple syrup!
http://nycgardening.blogspot.com

Teresa Robeson said...

A good number of my friends make maple syrup (I guess it means I have very interesting friends...like you!). We've not tried it yet because we have maybe 2 sugar maples on the property, not enough to make it worthwhile. I know you can tap other trees too but they don't generally produce as much. Also, hubby doesn't like the idea that maple syrup has a higher glycemic index (which was why we were using agave syrup for a while).