Maple Sugaring - Results

The results of our maple sugaring project are plentiful. For one, we enjoyed learning about it from actually doing it ourselves and watching it up close and personal over time. For another, we like sharing what we learn and do with others, and this project allowed us to do that plenty. It still is!

And frankly, we enjoyed the process itself. I find great satisfaction in knowing my efforts bear visible/tangible fruit.

There is of course the obvious result of the product itself. We LOVE maple syrup and will enjoying eating it all year. There is the satisfaction in it being our OWN maple syrup, from our own trees, in our own backyard!

You can see in the picture above roughly how much we made give or take a little from what we've already eaten (for example, the pitcher is actually empty in this photo, but it was full last weekend!)

I think it comes to close to a gallon and a half all together. Fantastic!

Finally, in the picture below, you can see the "grades" more or less. It is what it is. You can't control or determine the outcome of your syrup or its flavor. Generally, when you first begin your boiling, you get "fancy" grade (the lighter stuff, which is more delicately flavored). It gets darker and more robust in flavor from there. This is not hard and fast but is often the case as the season progresses. The "fancy" is generally not as prevalent and is therefore more expensive.

Our family's preferred is the medium amber, and that's (I think) what we got for the most part. I don't have a kit to tell me how to grade it, but you get the idea. In the photo, I represented each "boil" of the four we did with a representative container where you could see the color. The light stuff is from our first boil - fancy. The next one (which I had to sit on top of another so you could see it properly - ignore that one on the bottom please) is a just a little darker ("light amber"), but the flavor that much richer. It was heavenly. The last two boils gave us more or less the same results as each other, and are definitely darker than the first two ("medium amber"). These are our favorite.

We're done boiling, but I presume it would just get darker from here.

Thanks so much to all who have followed our blog through this process. It's been fun, and we're all cleaned up and put away until next year (or the year after depending on what we decide when the time comes). It definitely is something we'll do again in time, and it was a lot of fun and very rewarding.