Beginning in the Bush:
Purchase the desired amount of spiles. Depending on where you are located different places will sell them. Try local farm, feed, or hardware stores. If they can't be found locally, you could always try online.
Properly identify maple trees on your property.
Tap the trees and collect the sap. Sap usually begins running when the night still dip below freezing and the days are warmer and above freezing.
Sap reduction:
Place gathered sap into a pot and boil, boil, boil. It takes several hours and many liters of sap to get maple syrup.
We recommend boiling the sap outside as it will definitely steam up your house and add far too much moisture! We strainer the sap through a tea infuser into a large pot. We used an induction burner on the back porch and let it boil all day added sap as it reduced. If you had the option you could boil over a fire and save on electricity. With young children in the house I do not have the time to watch and tend to a fire so we opted for the burner. Always be sure the burner is away from small people and that they do not have access to it, as the sap with reach exceptionally hot temperatures.
Once the sap has reduced for several hours, we transferred small amounts at a time to the stove inside. We then boiled it to 104-107C or 219-200F. Once it reached that temperature we strained into a heat safe glass jar and let cool before storing in the fridge.
Syrup:
The syrup will change throughout the season. We begin the season with a light syrup in colour and delicate in taste.
Mid-season we move to an Amber which is a nice balance between a hint of maple and bold flavours of the dark.
Finally we close out the season with a full- bodied dark syrup.
This syrup is amazing on not only pancakes, but for cooking, baking and just plain eating. . . .
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