Make your own Maple Syrup!!

While driving down the road in our rural community, sap buckets line the maple trees. Maple season usually starts in mid. Feb. and runs through early April, weather depending. The extra cold and wintry March weather made for a late (and kind of slow) maple season this year. We tapped about 15 trees, got 5-10 gallons of sap per day (depending on daytime and nighttime temps, which should be 20's at night and 45 degrees during the day) and  have about 2 gallons of fresh maple syrup from our own trees. Just for the record, it takes about 35-40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup, which makes it a very special treat!

  Making your own syrup is quite easy. This was our first year and we found it to be fun and rewarding experience. We borrowed sap buckets and taps from our old neighbors (they had a ton of extras on hand). Steve did some research on how to tap the trees and we had a nice family walk in the woods on that mid-March day.

How exciting to see that our project actually worked and the buckets started filling with sap!!

Next year, we agreed that a small evaporator might be a nice investment for us. But, for now...a few large stock pots will work just fine for reducing the sap. *Strain the sap through a cheesecloth before reducing!!* 
I have a canning room and an extra stove/oven in my basement (which I love and use more than I thought I would). It came in very handy for this project! You can notice that the sap is starting to take on a light "amber" color.

Finally, after a few hours, it's finally starting to look like syrup!! A candy thermometer is a must!

The syrup is starting to thicken and foam. Definitely DO NOT walk away from it when it reaches this stage. It can scorch very quickly and easily.  Finishing temp should be about 7 degrees above boiling (Boiling is 212, so I did mine to about 220 degrees)

Strain the finished syrup for a 2nd time through a cheesecloth and into clean mason jars. Add lids and rings (I didn't even bother with processing, as the syrup is so hot at this point and the lids will seal on their own as they cool). Now, make some pancakes with real butter and enjoy!