That’s the verdict for Sugaring 2022. I’ve heard that the sugar content in the sap wasn’t very high this year, and I believe it. I was surprised at how little syrup we got for how much we boiled. Another thing we’ve been told is that the later sap runs were “buddy”, meaning that the taste is a bit off from the trees budding. Except they weren’t actually budding so that is this year’s peculiarity. Nothing to complain about though, it’s been a good year.
Kids love the little basket, but they aren’t to put anything in it while the evaporator is going. Yes we learned it the hard way.
Another lesson learned the hard way: preheating the mason jars to reduce the thermal shock on the glass when the hot syrup goes in.
Getting there…
We use a hydrometer for higher accuracy, and we’ve learned to draw a little ahead of time as the syrup keeps evaporating during filtering.
When all is said and done, about 2 gallons for the day with a lot more sill in the pan
We finally did it 🙂 After many failed attempts. This last prototype worked really well.