Okay, so I'm not going so far as to say I'm addicted to this whole maple syrup thing. But I do find myself skimming Web sites, looking at evaporation pans, considering the obvious merits of continuous shallow flow, and wondering whether automatic dump would be worth the extra cost.

We used what we had on hand to work with this year -- essentially, two turkey fryers. We set ten taps spiles in eight trees. The daily flow ranged from a half gallon to over five gallons. How much over? Well, that's difficult to say when you're using a 5 gallon bucket.

On Day One, we collected about 18.5 gallons of sap. One tree's sap had a slight amber tint to it; from the other trees, the sap looked like water. It was slightly sweet...but I wondered whether we had already missed the best stuff. One of the improvised evaporators ran for eleven hours, while the other ran eight hours. I'd guess that between the two of them, we used the equivalent of one of those backyard grill fuel tanks. It was late, and the juice now all fit into a single large pot (about 1.5 gallons), so I put that in a fridge overnight.

The next day, I entrusted this nectar to my mother-in-law for final stove-top processing. We had three candy thermometers between us, along with the advice of AgTalkers to boil to 218-220F and stop.

[Fun Fact #1: Did you know that candy thermometers aren't particularly accurate? Precise, maybe, but not accurate. You will need to calibrate!]

MIL has a very old (mercury indicator), very nice Taylor thermometer. But as this somewhat concentrated sap began to boil, her thermometer registered 221F. Hmm...don't think so. So, I broke out the shorter, glass-covered, spirit-filled thermometers from home. The pot we were using at this point was the bottom of an old pressure cooker, so the newer thermometers could not attach to the thick sides.

[Fun Fact #2: Did you know that the steam above a boiling liquid is the same temperature as the boiling liquid? Holding a short candy thermometer just inches above a boiling liquid with you bare hands is to be avoided!]

Both of these modern candy thermometers read below 212F -- so we put a small pot of water on the range to boil. Once it reached a rolling boil, we started checking our gear. Taylor said water boils at 221F. The two modern rigs read 205F and 208F. I decided we would add seven degrees to the Taylor and use it. We would boil to an indicated 228F.

Well, we were looking at several more hours at a simmer/slow boil. So, I left on some errands and checked back four hours later. The sap now looked like thin syrup and the aroma -- with its vanilla and caramel notes -- was much more concentrated now. I figured one more hour, so I walked to our house next door. Before the hour was up, she called and said I may want to take a look. Soon!

She was stirring it pretty much continuously by this time. The liquid level was low enough that it was hard to get the Taylor bulb down into the boiling goo. When I did, it read 231F, heading to 232F. Oops, guess we overshot!

We killed the heat and poured the golden liquid into a large Pyrex measuring cup. It said 1.8 quarts -- right on the mark, given a 42:1 ratio. Relief!

The flavor was incredible! Even the crusty bits on the spoon and inside the pot -- it tasted like a very sweet maple candy!

Then, I noticed that our syrup was...changing.

[Fun Fact #3: Maple syrup is 66% sugar, 33% water, and apparently 1% natural flavoring that makes you want to keep eating!]

As our syrup began to cool, pure maple sugar began to precipitate to the bottom. The final boil was gentle enough that there was no scorching or burning, but we removed enough water that the maple sugar could no longer all remain in solution at room temperature.

So...here's my question for seasoned syrup makers: Can I just blend this over-sugared syrup to the next batch in its final stages? That should re-dissolve the sugar and I don't think it would hurt the flavor by bringing it back to a quick boil. But I sure would hate to mess up this close to the finish!

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