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March 15, 2007

Collecting... Part 1


The sap has been running and the boys have started to collect!! Travis is removing one of the buckets and pours the sap into another bucket to carry to the jeep.


At this point the sap is poured into a large gathering tank (ok, you'd recognize it from Walmart as a trash container).
Austin is doing the pouring. He is filtering it to remove any larger debris such as bark from the tree or whatever...


The kids have used sap in the coffee maker to make their coffee in the morning! Since I don't drink coffee I just take their word on it being good! :) This year they have been using Travis's jeep to collect in!! I guess there is enough room... in years past we've used the family van keeping the back hatch up for easy access.




Here's a full barrel of sap..... isn't it beautiful! Nice and clear... Now to answer to one of the questions from the previous post, it takes about 33-40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup!! (The variance is the amount of sugar in the sap.) After making it... we can surely understand why it is sooo expensive to buy!

From here we head to the arch........

2 comments:

Karen said...

WOW! Growing up, I saw the buckets on the trees, but I never peeked inside and saw what was inside. I imagined them filled with sticky yellow goo like pine sap. In the pictures it looks like water--is it watery or thick?

I bet that coffee was delicious, too--I had a coconut mocha latte today that tasted like a Mounds candy bar. YUM.

And 33-40 gallons??? Yikes. Like you said, no wonder it's so expensive!

Melanie said...

Maple sap has the consistancy and color of water. If you taste it... there is a mild maple flavor. The reason it takes so much sap is because it gets boiled so that the water is 'evaporated' off and the sugar is what is left behind. As the water leaves the sugar becomes a thick & sticky & super sweet syrup!

YUMMY! I've never tried the coconut mocha latte... that sounds VERY GOOD!