Aunt Jemima's maple syrup envy. Vol #3 - The soggy mountain boys start burnin' sap!
Soggy mountain boys today...
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My brother (top photo, right) and I taking a photo op break while burning sap into maple syrup. Watch the video below - it'll explain all the details so I don't have to repeat them here. Let me just say this process is laborious and tedious and time-consuming and the result is very little maple syrup. Which is why it's so expensive. But the time spent with my brother is priceless.
Here's a 2nd video - just watch the beginning to see the color grades of the sap as it thickens. The rest of the video repeats what I went on about in the 1st vid. You'll want to click on READ MORE! to see more pictures of the still - I mean, the evaporator that my brother constructed to burn the 150 gallons of sap we collected. It's a pretty impressive set-up.
Here's a 2nd video - just watch the beginning to see the color grades of the sap as it thickens. The rest of the video repeats what I went on about in the 1st vid. You'll want to click on READ MORE! to see more pictures of the still - I mean, the evaporator that my brother constructed to burn the 150 gallons of sap we collected. It's a pretty impressive set-up.
NEXT POST: Vol #4 - "Gimme that old time radio".
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The evaporator - without the pans on top.
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You can see where the fire is built. The boiling pan stretches from the back of the chimney to the front of the evaporator in order to create a draft and speed up the heating process. Me must've burned 2 1/2 full trees throughout the weekend.
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And my brother in 2010.
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1 comment:
wow. i have never seen anything like it. what a great experience. thanks for taking the time to document and explain the process... COOL! :)
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