How to Get Maple Syrup for Enjoying in Your Kitchen
The first thing you must do if you want to make homemade maple syrup is to collect some maple sap. You can achieve this by locating at least one maple tree. Sugar Maple is the type of maple tree with the highest amount of sugar.However, you can also use the sap from other maple tress types like Ash-leafed Maple, Silver Maple and Red Maple but you will not get sap as sweet as that of Sugar Maples. The Sugar Maple is the best to use for making pure maple syrup or maple cookie recipe. Furthermore, you need to be certain that the trees you pick have at least a diameter of ten inches and a height of four and a half feet.
Next, use a drill to make a hole in the tree’s trunk. This hole must be 2-3 inches deep and 7/16 inch wide. If there are some loose wood, clean it out of the hole. After doing so, tap a spout lightly into the hole using a hammer. A spout is available in hardware shops, feed stores and farm supply stores.
Get a clean bucket and hang it onto the spout to catch the maple sap as it drips out. This bucket should be non-corrosive. Furthermore, a container with a lid is recommended because this will prevent any matter such as wood, insects and rainwater from falling into the sap.
Once you have collected enough sap, put it in containers and have it refrigerated until you are prepared to proceed to the boiling process and turn it into syrup. Note that if you want to make a lot of maple syrup, you also need to collect more than a lot of sap. This is because only one gallon of maple syrup can be made from 40 gallons of sap!
You need to boil the sap fresh from a maple tree because it contains only about two percent of sugar while the rest is water content. Thus, it needs boiling until much of its water content evaporates. Use a pot or pan that is made of stainless steel for boiling. Boiling the sap outdoors is more favorable because for sure, a lot of steam is involved.
The sap with better quality is the sap that boils faster. Once the sap boils, measure its temperature and write it down. Later on, you will need again this initial temperature. Go back indoors and complete the boiling there once the sap starts to become thick. Measure the temperature of the sap from time to time. You will know that it is ready when its temperature is already hotter than the initial temperature by 7 degrees Fahrenheit.
Once the syrup is ready, use a food-approved filter, strainer, or clean cheesecloth and strain the syrup so that any trace of debris and crystallized sugars can be removed. And there you have it; you have created homemade maple syrup! You can even make different maple syrup grades.
