Greetings good gentles, it's been a few months since we have posted any updates so we'll try to include everything we've done since January.
JANUARY
Get ready for the sugaring season
Wood (as always)
Livestock (chickens and sheep)
FEBRUARY
Rent a restaurant (yes you read that right)
Get things ready for the restaurant
MARCH
Open the restaurant (called MAGGIE'S)
Make upgrades to the restaurant
Maple sugar (late April)
APRIL
Finish the boiling for maple sugar
Start the spring chores
MAY
More spring chores
The Restaurant
In January Margaret and I spent our time dealing with the livestock, getting wood in for the month and making sure the maple sugar pots and pans were ready for sugaring. I finally got a very sweet little sugar pan made up at a local metal fab shop called VANDEX Inc. I dealt with a chap named Fred who was very helpful and he had a stainless steel sugar pan made up about a week after I ordered it. It is 32" X 18" X 8" and boy does work a treat. I used less fuel to boil the same amount of sap as last year. I also used a couple of the big pots from last year to preheat the sap before it went into the pan. This kept the boil going fairly constantly. It takes about an hour to get the sap to steaming temps and another 30 minutes to full boil. I processed about 750 litres of sap and got 11 litres of syrup. That's a ratio of 68:1 which is not great, however, we did reduce the syrup to a fairly sweet syrup so our actual ratio is more 35:1 which is really good.
Sugaring this year was a little disjointed with us being involved in getting the restaurant ready to open. I will say however, that new pan made all the difference in boiling time with actual time spent firing the pan was only 40 hours instead of the previous 60 or so hours. Time saved, fuel saved and we have a sweet, somewhat bitter syrup to enjoy over the year.
Till next time (which will be tomorrow), take care
Margaret and Ken
JANUARY
Get ready for the sugaring season
Wood (as always)
Livestock (chickens and sheep)
FEBRUARY
Rent a restaurant (yes you read that right)
Get things ready for the restaurant
MARCH
Open the restaurant (called MAGGIE'S)
Make upgrades to the restaurant
Maple sugar (late April)
APRIL
Finish the boiling for maple sugar
Start the spring chores
MAY
More spring chores
The Restaurant
In January Margaret and I spent our time dealing with the livestock, getting wood in for the month and making sure the maple sugar pots and pans were ready for sugaring. I finally got a very sweet little sugar pan made up at a local metal fab shop called VANDEX Inc. I dealt with a chap named Fred who was very helpful and he had a stainless steel sugar pan made up about a week after I ordered it. It is 32" X 18" X 8" and boy does work a treat. I used less fuel to boil the same amount of sap as last year. I also used a couple of the big pots from last year to preheat the sap before it went into the pan. This kept the boil going fairly constantly. It takes about an hour to get the sap to steaming temps and another 30 minutes to full boil. I processed about 750 litres of sap and got 11 litres of syrup. That's a ratio of 68:1 which is not great, however, we did reduce the syrup to a fairly sweet syrup so our actual ratio is more 35:1 which is really good.
Sugaring this year was a little disjointed with us being involved in getting the restaurant ready to open. I will say however, that new pan made all the difference in boiling time with actual time spent firing the pan was only 40 hours instead of the previous 60 or so hours. Time saved, fuel saved and we have a sweet, somewhat bitter syrup to enjoy over the year.
Till next time (which will be tomorrow), take care
Margaret and Ken
