My word does this bring back memories of my youth in Vermont helping to gather sap with a horse and sled. we used to put some of the finished syrup on the snow ie: ( sugar on Snow) You have a very nice setup and I'm happy to see you still using wood vs. propane.
We moved 2 hours away for the city 5 years ago and tried to make maple syrup for the first time this year. We only taped 2 trees ( as a test) . We used propane to boil it down. Big mistake. It's great syrup. But we needed to find a cheaper way to do it if we are going to do it on a bigger scale. This video gets a thumbs up. Thank you and cheers.
You beautiful, beautiful creature. As soon as Alfred started talking about his evaporator, I thought “I need to find a drawing of his design. Thank you for including his contact info!
Shout out from Guilford, good to see my people maintaining that Vermont reputation for thinking outside the box. Vermonters get it done! Hope you and yours stay safe and healthy. Respect.
It's a hobby of mine too. I'm super small scale on a dual burner propane stove. I can make maple syrup for about 9-10 bucks a gallon. I usually make about 2 gallons to get me through the year. It's a lot cheaper to make your own then buy it in the store. And like you said, it's easier to put more on when you make your own. Cheers and happy boiling!
Great job man! I could tell you've done this with so much passion and that's why your syrup came out so tasty. I was on my way back from Montreal Formula one back in 2000. (event I had gone to see quite a few times) and I stopped in a small place in Vermont called Newport (route 105)...just off the road. I asked the local family to walk around their property and take a look...wow, it was quite amazing. They've produced maple syrup for generation. Their whole life is MAPLE.
Doctor's definitely don't have this question figured out yet. There's no question diabetics feel thirst/headache symptoms, but so do non-diabetics consuming sugar? One is fat, the other not? One has diabetes, the other doesn't? Why? Doctor's claim to know, but they don't. Claiming to know is perhaps the biggest problem? Demonstrates a lack of curiosity and worse, a reticence and resistance to finding out?
Love the music. There is something about boiling the sap that is peaceful, plus it taste so darn great.. Never like syrup till a few years ago when I started making my own.
Alfred is the man...what a setup!! Such an interesting video and a fun hobby. We don't have many Maple trees on our property but we do have a ton of Black Walnut...I've thought about collecting sap from them to boil to syrup, but the sugar content is really low so we'd have to collect quite a bit. Fun video, thanks for sharing!!
Thank God for people with an engineering brain! I could never come up with something like that..🤷🏻♀️🤣 but I do have a friend that has this mindset and he comes up with stuff like this.....his wife days it's exhausting living with him 😂😂
Really interesting Alfred mentioned syrup hangover, I've been working hard to eliminate sugar but ate a candy bar this week and it's first time ever I noticed a hangover from sugar.
I get learn about so many unknown things through these videos, never tasted maple syrup or had an idea about how its made....interesting video..thank you Morgan!!
Maple syrup is not available in India commonly, we dont have Maple trees in most part of the country, not sure is there are any in the Himalayas. Hyderabad (the city i livie in) is an arid land. I'll try to buy some maple syrup online.
Great video ~ it’s beautiful seeing how giving folks are. Love the concept of it raining inside the maple syrup evaporating tent. How cool! You have a good friend in this man!
Alfred is a ridiculously smart dude he's awesome loved this video ...even though I'm definitely not going to be making maple syrup at my house I GA i love these videos
Sure. Send me a message through my website and I can probably send you a pic. It's just a simple wood frame with greenhouse plastic. Alfred has ambitions to make a really sugar shack, but I don't that's happening for the upcoming season.
THANKS FOR THE INTRESTING VIDEO! I think all your turkey cooker needs is a wind screen! I put a 55 gallon open top drum around my 🍁 evaporator a.k.a. turkey cooker. I cut out the bottom then cut 4 half moons holes to make 4 legs and to allow for air flow. This makes it wind proof and very energy efficient. I was cooking 🍁 sap in a 25mph wind this year. I also tapped into my house 500 gallon propane tank (after the house regulator) to constantly supply the cooker. This works very well and is hassle free as long as all the connections are safe and outside. I use 15 taps to make about 2 or 3 gallons of 🍁 syrup a year. WHAT A GREAT SPRING PASS TIME! 🤠
It’s a fantastic hobby! Grew up with Karo syrup, could not afford maple syrup. If we were lucky, get the dark Karo. I had pure maple syrup when I was an adult, for the first time - a true revelation! In my sixties now, and always have pure maple syrup in the fridge - and I don’t skimp neither. Gods work boys - just like making good ale. I am not a bible thumper, but got to believe that gifting some syrup to a friend has to reduce your sentence in purgatory.
When testing with the hydrometer are you cooling the sample to get an accurate reading. Most hydrometers are only calibrated to around 20c. I use brewers hydrometers for my job daily which have a temperature correction thermometer and scale built in.
The syrup hydrometer that I have has two test lines, the hot test line is for 211°F, which I guess is the estimated temperature that the syrup would be once in the hydrometer cup, immediately upon drawing off. I believe that is a figure that the maple industry has decided on. There is a cold test line too, I forget what it is though.
Ok ... Who else came here from the video in March 2022??? Well I did and all I can say is everytime Alfred came on the video or his name was said...🎶🎶🎶 My buddy Alfred 🎶🎶🎶 went running through my head!!! 🤣🤣🤣
I had a setup that worked good. We had about 30 taps out, on pipeline. I picked up a barrel stove kit and made my arch out of that, with a stainless steel pan set inside it. Held about 20 gallons. Used an old furnace burner to start the fire, burned big knots that were hard to split. Took about an hour to bring a pan to boil, burning .75 gallons per hour of kerosene. Built an A frame shed over it, with a good sized vent in the top. Made a lot of syrup with it.
Beautiful arch and evaporator. He should have built a longer and narrower arch/ pan to evaporate faster and utilize a smaller but just as intense fire, however the heat from the fire is heating the bottom of the pan longer before going up the stack. He could also weld up a preheater steam hood so his raw sap goes into the pan a just under boiling temp and the hood would make a good supply of hot water to rinse or wash items off in the sugar house. I miss sugaring in NH so much
We have the cabin but a bad evaporator u have a great evaporator but no cabin. Lol. We are actually going to try and build one this year. Our preheated is made of clean radiators that can capture distilled water that we use for a makeshift sink. I like ur setup
Great video. I like the set up. I am guessing you are doing a reburn set up but not sure. When you were saying you had a baffle that made the gases move to the front then follow the bottom of the pan through a manifold i just asumed that it was a reburn. I have some questions for you if it is a reburn set up. thanks
Please don't drink too much sugar Alfred, we need you for many years of videos. The hangover you're describer is probably a mix of GI distress and postprandial hyperglycemia.
Would have been interesting to see the process you use to bottle the syrup. I make a (very) small amount in Minneapolis and when I get to the bottling stage it's a bit messy. I always add a small amount of hot syrup in at a time because I'm afraid of causing the bottle to break.
Could you capture that steam and bottle it as distilled maple water? Would it have a maple flavor to it? I saw them selling "tree water" in the supermarket the other day. Nothing like maple syrup. Are there other trees types that you could make "syrup" from?
The tree water you see in stores is just pasteurized maple sap. I don't think the distilled steam would do much for you. You can tap a wide variety of trees including black walnut, birch and sycamore.
Not sure how long you've been in Vermont, but this seems like a standard boiling rig. I grew up boiling sap. Now I get all my syrup from a farmer down the road.
Sounds to me like he's managed to design it so that there is something like the catalytic combustor in my Dutchwest Airtight woodstove (no it's not my sugaring stove lol) but it pulls the heat from the smoke so there is very little smoke visible at all from the top of my smokepipe, just heat haze
THANKS FOR SHARING THIS VIDEO WITH US THAT IS AN AMAZING SET UP FOR A FUN HOBBY. ALFRED'S WEBSITE ON THE BOTTOM WASN'T LINKED TO CLICK ON AND TRIED IT AND COULDN'T GET ANYWHERE
Would you be able to wrap a 3/4" copper pipe around the stack multiple times and have the cool sap flow through this on its way into the first raw sap tank to pre -heat it with the stack heat? Basically a rudimentary version of a boiler economizer? Also, if it's "raining" in the hut isn't this an indication that the relative humidity in the sugar shack is high which means the boil off isn't as effective? Should you not vent the evaporated water out of the hut?
I read an Indian captive narrative where the boy who had been taken told about how the tribe he was with poured the syrup into shallow bark trays and let it sit out overnight. In the morning the top ice was thrown away since the sugar solids settled and the water component froze. This was done multiple nights until they had "syrup". It must have tasted completely different since there would have been no heat cooking and carmelization of the sugars. There were no metal cooking vessels prior to the white man coming but obviously maple sugar could be made without heat processing in metal pots.
I thought the ice in buckets was water. At least that's what I read online and when I myself tasted the ice it after taping my trees, it did just seem like water to me too. I didn't detect that slight sweetness.
This is fantastic. I tap about 30 trees and am thinking of expanding my efforts. Are the plans for this evaporator available anywhere? I would love to sink my teeth in to a project like this.
I like what I've dubbed an "embarrassment" of syrup on my stack. Cut a hole in the center of the stack and save that bite. Fill the cavity with syrup cover that bite and go. When you eat your way to fresh cake fill up the cavity again. Boom. Love it.
Id like to get in touch with alfred about that evaporator... im building an evaporator down in Pawlet VT because i cant afford something like my grandfather has with that 3x8 made by Grimm I really like the idea of a brick arch I feel like it looks more aesthetic than the generic stainless steel arches you get from Leader, Grimm, CDL, etc and i feel like i could build a brick one to my needs without spending an arm and a leg because i priced out just a basic 2x4 Leader Evaporator and the whole arch, pan, stack setup was around $8,000
QUICKER BOIL Thanks for sharing your informative video about evaporating maple tree sap. Some questions come to mind: Q1: Does wood provide a "quicker" boil that natural gas, propane, butane or other fuel? Apparently, the metric for a "quicker" boil is gallons of sap per hour out of a given evaporator pan of specific Length x Width x Depth and Percent Capacity. Q2: In what qualities does a "quicker" boil produce a "better" sap? What is the metric for a "better" sap quality? Viscosity? Smoothness? Consistency? Q3: When tap water is boiled, the evaporating water carries away all of the minerals to produce pure H20. When fresh vegetables are boiled in water, the evaporating steam carries away minerals, vitamins and living enzymes that are leeched from the vegetables. When maple sap is boiled, does the maple-fragrant evaporating steam carry away the minerals, vitamins and living enzymes of the maple syrup? Q4: Does wood-fired sap produce a different flavor of syrup? If so, what is the taste of wood-fired sap compared to other-fuel-fired sap? Would a blindfolded person be able to detect a difference in taste?
Better off letting the tree heal on its own. A plug is dead wood which will invite fungus, bacteria, and insects. The tree will heal over with living tissue.
What a wealth of information Alfred has. Please thank him for sharing.
We could use a new video 2021 with the maple man. This was a great episode. Thank you.
My word does this bring back memories of my youth in Vermont helping to gather sap with a horse and sled. we used to put some of the finished syrup on the snow ie: ( sugar on Snow) You have a very nice setup and I'm happy to see you still using wood vs. propane.
Thank you! Wood is so much more cost effective than propane, too.
We moved 2 hours away for the city 5 years ago and tried to make maple syrup for the first time this year. We only taped 2 trees ( as a test) . We used propane to boil it down. Big mistake. It's great syrup. But we needed to find a cheaper way to do it if we are going to do it on a bigger scale. This video gets a thumbs up. Thank you and cheers.
Alfred is giving me a very cool Rick Moranis/Bob McKenzie vibe. Coo loo coo coo, coo coo coo coo!
You beautiful, beautiful creature. As soon as Alfred started talking about his evaporator, I thought “I need to find a drawing of his design. Thank you for including his contact info!
Good luck with your build!
Good luck with your build!
r/ihadastroke
@@namelessgames1608 how is that an r/ihadastroke?
Your buddy Alfred is the coolest dude ever.
Leaning post
right!
Shout out from Guilford, good to see my people maintaining that Vermont reputation for thinking outside the box. Vermonters get it done! Hope you and yours stay safe and healthy. Respect.
But Bernie is a dipshit. Why you keep voting him in?
I love Alfred! I always look forward to seeing him in your videos. He is so amazing, brilliant, and just fun to learn from.
I live in Wisconsin. About 30 miles away, there is a company that has a reverse osmosis service that concentrates the sap. Saves lots of time and wood
I had to go back and search your videos to find Alfred & his evaporator, now I need to study his design
Loved his "door" on the sugar tent. ;-)
It's a hobby of mine too. I'm super small scale on a dual burner propane stove. I can make maple syrup for about 9-10 bucks a gallon. I usually make about 2 gallons to get me through the year. It's a lot cheaper to make your own then buy it in the store. And like you said, it's easier to put more on when you make your own. Cheers and happy boiling!
And happy boiling to you, too! How has the season been treating you so far?
Very cool, now I want you to show us the whole process and even how to tap trees. By the way your farm house porch is amazing 😊
Thank you! I’ll probably make a syrup how to video as soon as the sap starts running.
It's so crazy to see the 'old' farm in the old videos!!!
Love your videos! Vermont is such an awesome area, visited it in 2013 I think and loved it. All the best from Barcelona, Spain.
Great job man! I could tell you've done this with so much passion and that's why your syrup came out so tasty. I was on my way back from Montreal Formula one back in 2000. (event I had gone to see quite a few times) and I stopped in a small place in Vermont called Newport (route 105)...just off the road. I asked the local family to walk around their property and take a look...wow, it was quite amazing. They've produced maple syrup for generation. Their whole life is MAPLE.
Mighty dark looking stuff you got there!
Intense thirst and a hangover feeling might be prediabetes. Have Alfred
check with his doc.
@Fgg Fgg but it’s the intense thirst my sister got diagnosed last year and the months before she was always so thirsty
Doctor's definitely don't have this question figured out yet. There's no question diabetics feel thirst/headache symptoms, but so do non-diabetics consuming sugar? One is fat, the other not? One has diabetes, the other doesn't? Why? Doctor's claim to know, but they don't. Claiming to know is perhaps the biggest problem? Demonstrates a lack of curiosity and worse, a reticence and resistance to finding out?
I was so sad to see my buddy Alfred and not year the music jingle :)
I heard it in my head though
Woah, Alfred is both cool and smart! He needs a UA-cam channel too!
Alfred seems genius level. Very impressive.
Love the music. There is something about boiling the sap that is peaceful, plus it taste so darn great.. Never like syrup till a few years ago when I started making my own.
My man Alfred knows his stuff
Alfred is the man...what a setup!! Such an interesting video and a fun hobby. We don't have many Maple trees on our property but we do have a ton of Black Walnut...I've thought about collecting sap from them to boil to syrup, but the sugar content is really low so we'd have to collect quite a bit. Fun video, thanks for sharing!!
Go for it! We’ve done some homescale boiling with a simple propane burner and a stock pot-not nearly as efficient, but it gets the job done.
Walnut has some weird alkaloids probably wouldn't be too good. You can trap birtch too but it's very watery.
Thank God for people with an engineering brain! I could never come up with something like that..🤷🏻♀️🤣 but I do have a friend that has this mindset and he comes up with stuff like this.....his wife days it's exhausting living with him 😂😂
This vid is giving me a hold my beer while I grab the welder moment. Awesome, thanks for sharing!
Thanks! I would love to see what you create!
Keep a bottle of bourbon handy for the syrup sampling!!! Awesome video Gold Shaw!
Ha. We might get quite sloppy!
Awesome video. Love the choice of music too. Thanks for sharing
Really interesting Alfred mentioned syrup hangover, I've been working hard to eliminate sugar but ate a candy bar this week and it's first time ever I noticed a hangover from sugar.
Thank you for the video. Great friend.please tell him thank you. My son and I enjoyed it very much.
After you posted your comment, I texted it to Alfred. He appreciates your kind words.
I get learn about so many unknown things through these videos, never tasted maple syrup or had an idea about how its made....interesting video..thank you Morgan!!
Never had Maple Syrup? Oh dear. I might have to change that when the sap starts flowing again this spring!
Maple syrup is not available in India commonly, we dont have Maple trees in most part of the country, not sure is there are any in the Himalayas. Hyderabad (the city i livie in) is an arid land. I'll try to buy some maple syrup online.
Maple syrup is a party in your mouth.. it is good for cooking too, like sweet/spicy 🤤
Thank you for taking us on this cool experience!
Great video ~ it’s beautiful seeing how giving folks are. Love the concept of it raining inside the maple syrup evaporating tent. How cool! You have a good friend in this man!
what a beautiful evaporator, a skilled mason built that, i know being one, would love to see a video of the build
A farm in Durham has a awesome setup with lines that go directly to the house takes collecting out of the equation
Really good video👍🏻🇨🇦 way of life with maple trees
Loved the video and evaporator!, gotta step it up and sell the syrup!.
For the love of the syrup!
Alfred is a ridiculously smart dude he's awesome loved this video ...even though I'm definitely not going to be making maple syrup at my house I GA i love these videos
Morgan, if you make a trip his way again, I would love to see the shack around this evaporator!
Sure. Send me a message through my website and I can probably send you a pic. It's just a simple wood frame with greenhouse plastic. Alfred has ambitions to make a really sugar shack, but I don't that's happening for the upcoming season.
I decided to go check out some of your older videos.. Never too much syrup ain't that the truth!!!!
Hi........Gold Shaw Farm, thank you for sharing your video homestead 👋 bye 👋 bye 👋 bye 👋 🎥👍👍👍
That's impressive ingenuity and workmanship!
Alfred is a true artist!
THANKS FOR THE INTRESTING VIDEO! I think all your turkey cooker needs is a wind screen! I put a 55 gallon open top drum around my 🍁 evaporator a.k.a. turkey cooker. I cut out the bottom then cut 4 half moons holes to make 4 legs and to allow for air flow. This makes it wind proof and very energy efficient. I was cooking 🍁 sap in a 25mph wind this year. I also tapped into my house 500 gallon propane tank (after the house regulator) to constantly supply the cooker. This works very well and is hassle free as long as all the connections are safe and outside. I use 15 taps to make about 2 or 3 gallons of 🍁 syrup a year. WHAT A GREAT SPRING PASS TIME! 🤠
Thanks for the suggestion!
@@GoldShawFarm Friend me and I'll share a video of my maple syrup setup. You'ld be the first, so there's a learning curve for me.
It’s a fantastic hobby! Grew up with Karo syrup, could not afford maple syrup. If we were lucky, get the dark Karo. I had pure maple syrup when I was an adult, for the first time - a true revelation! In my sixties now, and always have pure maple syrup in the fridge - and I don’t skimp neither. Gods work boys - just like making good ale. I am not a bible thumper, but got to believe that gifting some syrup to a friend has to reduce your sentence in purgatory.
That pan is really freaking cool!
Hey, Alfred, that's a cool shack...!
When testing with the hydrometer are you cooling the sample to get an accurate reading. Most hydrometers are only calibrated to around 20c. I use brewers hydrometers for my job daily which have a temperature correction thermometer and scale built in.
The syrup hydrometer that I have has two test lines, the hot test line is for 211°F, which I guess is the estimated temperature that the syrup would be once in the hydrometer cup, immediately upon drawing off. I believe that is a figure that the maple industry has decided on. There is a cold test line too, I forget what it is though.
Ok ... Who else came here from the video in March 2022???
Well I did and all I can say is everytime Alfred came on the video or his name was said...🎶🎶🎶 My buddy Alfred 🎶🎶🎶 went running through my head!!! 🤣🤣🤣
Alfred is really a good and truely a nice guy friend, and they are hard to find
My friends in Rutland, Vt would boil sap and I love the smell. Some people down here in Fl didn’t even know what real syrup was. Nothing like it.
If Alfred is selling any of his syrup I would LOVE to buy some!!
I don't think he has any to sell yet. Sap is just starting to run.
This is a wonderful video. Very informative and I just thought you guys were great. Thanks Bravo
Hey! Saw you on Freedom Live and added your channel. Take care!
I had a setup that worked good. We had about 30 taps out, on pipeline. I picked up a barrel stove kit and made my arch out of that, with a stainless steel pan set inside it. Held about 20 gallons. Used an old furnace burner to start the fire, burned big knots that were hard to split. Took about an hour to bring a pan to boil, burning .75 gallons per hour of kerosene. Built an A frame shed over it, with a good sized vent in the top. Made a lot of syrup with it.
That's impressive!
Nice modified rocket stove. Wish we had some trees we could tap out here!
It's an incredible design!
I thought I was the only one who got boiling hangovers! What a beautiful brick evaporator.
Alfred does some amazing work!
Beautiful arch and evaporator. He should have built a longer and narrower arch/ pan to evaporate faster and utilize a smaller but just as intense fire, however the heat from the fire is heating the bottom of the pan longer before going up the stack. He could also weld up a preheater steam hood so his raw sap goes into the pan a just under boiling temp and the hood would make a good supply of hot water to rinse or wash items off in the sugar house. I miss sugaring in NH so much
Awesome job, what a great hobby
We have the cabin but a bad evaporator u have a great evaporator but no cabin. Lol. We are actually going to try and build one this year. Our preheated is made of clean radiators that can capture distilled water that we use for a makeshift sink. I like ur setup
I get the hangovers as well longest boil we did this year was 14.5 hours just about 300 gals of sap. Needless to say the next day sucked. Lol
Wow. what a sweet video, pun.
Pretty sweet evaporator 👍🏻
Alfred is amazing guy.
Great video. I like the set up. I am guessing you are doing a reburn set up but not sure. When you were saying you had a baffle that made the gases move to the front then follow the bottom of the pan through a manifold i just asumed that it was a reburn. I have some questions for you if it is a reburn set up. thanks
Is there any way to possibly get a construction print of the heater and the stainless pan
Very cool process-thank you! How is the tree physiology affected by the gathering of sap?
Normally the tree is ok because you dont put in more taps than the tree can support and you move the taps every season so it can heal
That eas very interesting. Extracting sugar from a tree. Do u know if us possible in warmer climates too? If si which trees?
Please don't drink too much sugar Alfred, we need you for many years of videos. The hangover you're describer is probably a mix of GI distress and postprandial hyperglycemia.
That dude has quite the personality... you need to make a show with him in it
Nice setup. Any chance of evaporator schematics or a video on the how it was made/designed?
We might make a video soon on this. Stay tuned!
Would have been interesting to see the process you use to bottle the syrup. I make a (very) small amount in Minneapolis and when I get to the bottling stage it's a bit messy. I always add a small amount of hot syrup in at a time because I'm afraid of causing the bottle to break.
Bottle won't break at 218 degrees. Rock on
I thoroughly enjoyed this video. We don't have maple trees in south africa
Could you capture that steam and bottle it as distilled maple water?
Would it have a maple flavor to it?
I saw them selling "tree water" in the supermarket the other day.
Nothing like maple syrup.
Are there other trees types that you could make "syrup" from?
Birch
The tree water you see in stores is just pasteurized maple sap. I don't think the distilled steam would do much for you. You can tap a wide variety of trees including black walnut, birch and sycamore.
Not sure how long you've been in Vermont, but this seems like a standard boiling rig. I grew up boiling sap. Now I get all my syrup from a farmer down the road.
Sounds to me like he's managed to design it so that there is something like the catalytic combustor in my Dutchwest Airtight woodstove (no it's not my sugaring stove lol) but it pulls the heat from the smoke so there is very little smoke visible at all from the top of my smokepipe, just heat haze
Best on waffles and pancakes...Concord grape jelly PLUS maple syrup! Num yum yum...
Both times I've seen Alfred in your videos it's to do with burning stuff. Fire bender confirmed xD
My buddy swear his system is crazy pure, so let’s head down there and start cooking!
Buddy: Say my name
Warning! This video is before the Song; This may shock some viewers.
Time? for Gold Shaw Farm to thin the woods and plant lots of maple?
THANKS FOR SHARING THIS VIDEO WITH US THAT IS AN AMAZING SET UP FOR A FUN HOBBY. ALFRED'S WEBSITE ON THE BOTTOM WASN'T LINKED TO CLICK ON AND TRIED IT AND COULDN'T GET ANYWHERE
Thanks for the heads up! I think I fixed it.
At the end of your boil, how do you get all the syrup out of the evaporator?
We love maple syrup!
I like your music choice for the video, what is it called? I went to the link provided above but could not find it.
I think it was called maple syrup
Would you be able to wrap a 3/4" copper pipe around the stack multiple times and have the cool sap flow through this on its way into the first raw sap tank to pre -heat it with the stack heat? Basically a rudimentary version of a boiler economizer? Also, if it's "raining" in the hut isn't this an indication that the relative humidity in the sugar shack is high which means the boil off isn't as effective? Should you not vent the evaporated water out of the hut?
I read an Indian captive narrative where the boy who had been taken told about how the tribe he was with poured the syrup into shallow bark trays and let it sit out overnight. In the morning the top ice was thrown away since the sugar solids settled and the water component froze. This was done multiple nights until they had "syrup". It must have tasted completely different since there would have been no heat cooking and carmelization of the sugars. There were no metal cooking vessels prior to the white man coming but obviously maple sugar could be made without heat processing in metal pots.
I thought the ice in buckets was water. At least that's what I read online and when I myself tasted the ice it after taping my trees, it did just seem like water to me too. I didn't detect that slight sweetness.
Great video
Great video!
This is fantastic. I tap about 30 trees and am thinking of expanding my efforts. Are the plans for this evaporator available anywhere? I would love to sink my teeth in to a project like this.
I don't think there are plans online, but you can email Alfred through his website at www.oldgoatmasonry.com
@@GoldShawFarm Thank you very much.
Sslfamilydad made one and has a video I guess that's what got me this recommendation.
I like what I've dubbed an "embarrassment" of syrup on my stack. Cut a hole in the center of the stack and save that bite. Fill the cavity with syrup cover that bite and go. When you eat your way to fresh cake fill up the cavity again. Boom. Love it.
Whoa! That is innovation right there.
Id like to get in touch with alfred about that evaporator... im building an evaporator down in Pawlet VT because i cant afford something like my grandfather has with that 3x8 made by Grimm
I really like the idea of a brick arch
I feel like it looks more aesthetic than the generic stainless steel arches you get from Leader, Grimm, CDL, etc and i feel like i could build a brick one to my needs without spending an arm and a leg because i priced out just a basic 2x4 Leader Evaporator and the whole arch, pan, stack setup was around $8,000
Would of like seeing what you took home from your syrup! 🤔
Is there anyway to get a link to his farm and be able yo get some of his maple syrup from him
Great video, looking for trees now!
Awesome! Hope you found some.
where are u in MI?
QUICKER BOIL
Thanks for sharing your informative video about evaporating maple tree sap.
Some questions come to mind:
Q1: Does wood provide a "quicker" boil that natural gas, propane, butane or other fuel? Apparently, the metric for a "quicker" boil is gallons of sap per hour out of a given evaporator pan of specific Length x Width x Depth and Percent Capacity.
Q2: In what qualities does a "quicker" boil produce a "better" sap? What is the metric for a "better" sap quality? Viscosity? Smoothness? Consistency?
Q3: When tap water is boiled, the evaporating water carries away all of the minerals to produce pure H20. When fresh vegetables are boiled in water, the evaporating steam carries away minerals, vitamins and living enzymes that are leeched from the vegetables. When maple sap is boiled, does the maple-fragrant evaporating steam carry away the minerals, vitamins and living enzymes of the maple syrup?
Q4: Does wood-fired sap produce a different flavor of syrup? If so, what is the taste of wood-fired sap compared to other-fuel-fired sap? Would a blindfolded person be able to detect a difference in taste?
Thank you for this video!
Why did your buddy not re plug the holes from last year.?
Better off letting the tree heal on its own. A plug is dead wood which will invite fungus, bacteria, and insects. The tree will heal over with living tissue.
Very neat, I want one! I bet it could convert over to a kickass brick oven pizza maker! What did it cost him to make it?
He said it was about $400 in materials, but he did the build himself. He's a master mason.
@@GoldShawFarm I have a family member that is a master mason as well and I always talk about wanting to build a pizza oven! On a trailer!
Awesome!
It was a little closer to $2k, I had about a grand in the stainless steel components alone (not including the pan).
At what point do you filter the syrup? Do you make any maple sugar candy?
I usually filter before and after boiling. Two steps usually gets all of the grit out. I’ve never made candy.