My dear friend, Cindy and her husband Dave from Hidden Pond Farm http://www.cindypetters.blogspot.com/ invited us to witness first hand the workings of making maple syrup from start to finish.
The sugar shack at Lee Farm in Skaneateles, NY.
After entering the sugar shack we found the sugar boys at work in a mist of stream. The maple trees had been tapped for about a week with sap filling the buckets daily.
The sap drains by gravity into the evaporator, the sap boils down through several different chambers. It becomes finished maple syrup when it reaches 66-67 % sugar content at 7.1 degrees F above the temperature of boiling water.
When the syrup reaches the correct density and temperature, it is filtered and sugar sand is remove before it is hot pack in containers.
Thanks, Dave for the special tea you brewed.
I think their was a little something in our special maple tea.
Sunday breakfast...New Hope Mills Buttermilk Pancakes with applesauce and Hidden Pond Farm Maple Syrup. Thanks, Cindy and Dave!
