HOW TO MAKE & MARKET MAPLE SYRUP
(Page 8 of 15)
FIREWOOD
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Firewood to fuel the arch is frequently available for the
cutting and hauling. Lots of people (here in Michigan,
anyway) have dead elm trees on their property that they're
glad to get rid of. Sawmills frequently give away slab wood
and hundreds of trees are cut every day and never used on
land "developments" and the right-of-ways for roads and
power lines. You'll soon find, given your choice, that dead
elm is adequate but apple burns longer and beech and maple
hotter.
Cut the firewood into lengths that'll fit the firepit of
your arch (logs larger than seven inches in diameter
usually must be split to burn well) and stack
it—under cover if possible—where it will be
handy for the boiling. If your sugarhouse is big enough,
you can even store the wood right inside . . . but the
ventilation must be adequate, in that case, or the steam
from cooking might well make the unused fuel too wet to
burn.
THE PAN
If at all possible, secure your syrup-boiling pan first and
build the arch to fit it . . . or, if your evaporator is
already con structed, find a competent sheetmetal man and
have him make a pan that exactly fits the arch. You can
estimate the capacity in gallons of a given pan by
multiplying its length times width times depth (in inches)
and dividing by 230 (cubic inches per gallon).
Should you acquire, as we did, a pan that has been
previously used for syrup making, you may find that a
whitish tartar residue has built up on the inside of the
container. Don't be dismayed. This is a natural by-product
of the boiling and does no harm. If a pan looks badly
scorched, though, don't buy it because no amount of
scrubbing will make it clean enough to produce a really
high-grade syrup. Don't start with someone else's problems.
Our pan is baffled (see diagram). A baffled pan is not
absolutely necessary for cooking syrup, but it does do a
better job than a plain flat pan. The built-in guides, you
see, divide the pan lengthwise into compartments which are
not entirely separated but which feed into each other
through small apertures (letters C, D and E in our example)
at the ends of the baffles. The sap goes into the first
compartment at point A and, as the solution cooks down and
more sap is added, the concentrated solution progressively
moves into compartments 2, 3 and 4. This results in an
ever-increasingly concentrated solution which is, finally,
withdrawn at point E.
The boiling pan's inlet and outlet are situated on opposite
sides of the end of the container which sits away from the
chimney. The inlet can be either an opening into the pan or
simply a pipe which extends over the edge of the
receptacle. The outlet is an opening in the side of the
container near the bottom of the fourth compartment. Make
them both of standard plumbing fixtures equipped with
shut-off valves. Be sure to wash these fixtures in hot
soapy water and scrub them inside with a bottle brush, both
before and after use.
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