Four quarts is a gallon.
We were finally able to finish our syrup making this weekend. This is our second year making syrup and we learned a great deal both year. Mainly, SOMETHING HAS TO CHANGE. It was quite the chore this year. We tried the propane burner, which was painfully slow and oddly messy. We moved on to the wood fire, which was also slow and so time consuming.
We finally threw out the white flag of surrender and moved inside to the stove. Keep in mind that my stove currently has this nice glitch wherein you can only use one burner (two, if you’re lucky!) at a time without losing power. To the whole house.*
We were able to make it work, but it was a little messy. It produced a lot of steam and, despite the oven fan running on high (LOUD!), I was constantly wiping sticky condensation off of the fan and cabinet. The girls kept the humor by singing “Boil, boil syrup pot! Boil my syrup, nice and hot!” Luckily, the boil overs were kept to a minimum.
But we survived! And we have a gallon and a half of beautiful syrup for our efforts. It was worth the trouble, but we would really like to set up some sort of evaporator next year. Sixty gallons of sap was definitely the limit for this make-shift set up.
Have you boiled gobs of sap to syrup? What’s your favorite set up?
The part of our operation that did work well was the new digital thermometer with an alert monitor. It was purchased originally for the BBQ and Coldsmoker but works great with boiling sap from afar.
Leila Lawler makes her own maple syrup, have you checked out her website to see if she has any tips?
I have not! I’ll read what she has to say.