Thread: Road pics

Originally Posted by carlmaloschneider

So what exactly is happening there? I thought you just walked up to a tree, put a little tap in it, hung a bucket from the tap, and went home to drink whisky and beer and whisky, shoot mooses and hit each other with hockey sticks...

You missed step four: taking what collects in the bucket and boiling most of it off. On average it takes somewhere around 40 litres of sap to make one litre of syrup. As it comes from the tree, the sap is very watery with just a hint of sweetness. I think it actually tastes great like that and am just waiting for someone to market it as a health drink.

Anyway, after it's collected, the sap is put in some kind of boiler or other and reduced until it has a high enough sugar content. Then it is bottled. And *then* we proceed to the whisky, beer, moose, and hockey stick portions of our days.

Most big operations now have connected their trees with lines/hoses that collect the sap and run it direct to where it is collected. When you are tapping hundreds of acres of trees, that's a lot of running around with buckets.

Originally Posted by Cangooner

You missed step four: taking what collects in the bucket and boiling most of it off.

Some of the fondest memories I have of my grandfather are of maple syrop time. I remember carrying sap pails that i could hardly lift and now when I see those things, they are soooo small it makes me laugh. I remember him laughing at me for drinking raw sap and spending the next day
on the sh***er mostly though the long evenings under an outdoor canopy with the boiling pans just sitting, and idolizing my grand dad
Thanks Cangooner.
Mike

Originally Posted by Cangooner

You missed step four: taking what collects in the bucket and boiling most of it off. On average it takes somewhere around 40 litres of sap to make one litre of syrup. As it comes from the tree, the sap is very watery with just a hint of sweetness. I think it actually tastes great like that and am just waiting for someone to market it as a health drink.

Anyway, after it's collected, the sap is put in some kind of boiler or other and reduced until it has a high enough sugar content. Then it is bottled. And *then* we proceed to the whisky, beer, moose, and hockey stick portions of our days.

Most big operations now have connected their trees with lines/hoses that collect the sap and run it direct to where it is collected. When you are tapping hundreds of acres of trees, that's a lot of running around with buckets.

Wow, and here was I thinking you just guzzled the stuff straight from a tree! My wife bought some *real* maple syrup a while ago for a special recipe, it was really expensive. Apparently the other stuff the sell here is just maple flavoured syrup. Here in AU we can eat witchety grubs (never tried one) and of course the odd fruit and stuff but we don't have anything as wonderful as Maple Syrup. We don't have anything as wonderful as Ice Hockey, either, though Aussie Rules footy is pretty harsh. In fact, a kid died just last weekend, very tragic. You think they'd think to put SOME sort of protective gear on themselves...

Originally Posted by Cangooner

You missed step four: taking what collects in the bucket and boiling most of it off. On average it takes somewhere around 40 litres of sap to make one litre of syrup. As it comes from the tree, the sap is very watery with just a hint of sweetness. I think it actually tastes great like that and am just waiting for someone to market it as a health drink.

I made a batch of beer once substituting Maple sap for the water in the recipe. Not bad! I would recommend it. Use a lighter recipe not an IPA or Stout.

If you boil it a little to long, whether on purpose or not, it then turns into candy. mmmm

P.S. Boiling the syrup not the beer to long.

What a Morning!

I Looked out the window this morning to see heavy fog. Was slightly annoyed that daylight saving had ended and I'd missed the really NICE really early morning light. Grabbed my old digital camera anyway for the 'road pics' of the drive to work. Almost died several times as I veered here and there on and off the road like a drunken maniac as I saw this and that I wanted to take a picture of...

Here are the results. I love the lens flare on these; I was shooting directly into the sun. The first one was 'Photoshopped' a bit in GIMP to remove another tree to the side, but the others have just been cropped and rotated a little...I don't normally like my digital photos, preferring those from my Medium Format cameras, but I like these. I've named them as you can see...

In Dreams All Things Are Possible


Ominous


Sometimes In The Morning I'm Not Here