Day 166 of 365

Sugar Shack

That's what my house has become.

For the last few days I have been collecting maple tree sap. It wasn't difficult. The trees did most of the work. I was a tiny bit stressed when all of my containers were full. I had no idea it would flow so fast and abundantly. I filled so many buckets that all three of my refrigerators were full. It takes about 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. My trees have given me about 30 gallons.

Day 166 was all about processing that sap into syrup. I've been planning this for a while and it seemed like the day was going to require a bit of construction.

After hours of online research and more hours of how-to videos and schematic diagrams I decided to go off the trail and walk the road less traveled. I poured my sap into a huge nesko cooker.

The boiling started in the middle of the night and I've been nurturing it every few hours. This sap is cooking off and I could smell that maple scent in my house as it started to evaporate. I boiled a few gallons on the stove and fed that in as the nesko liquid continued to disappear.

It's going to be a very long day. The great thing about using the nesko, aside from not building a firepit, is that I can do other things while that pan of sap is boiling down.

So far it's looking pretty good. I have reduced that 30 gallons of clear sap to about 3 gallons of dark liquid that smells like a pancake house on a warm summer day.

In a few hours I should have this cooked to syrup perfection.

Day 166 was humid and sweet.

Love & Light