Boiled about 12 gallons of sap concentrate at 6% last night and ended up with roughly .75 gallons of Fancy Grade (*ahem* Grade A, Golden Color and Delicate Taste)
My new jars – pints and 1/2 pints in glass jar forms – should be arriving by truck today. I’ll then bottle the rest.
The honey jar you ask? That’s my fair submission for this year. So the interesting thing for judging maple syrup is that they put the maple syrup into honey jars. It holds a pint of syrup and by doing this each maple syrup product can be evenly judged side by side to each other for color and clarity.
Learning from some of the local old-timers that did the syrup competitions they made sure they put in the cleanest syrup, cleaned the jar and then froze the syrup. Not sure how sound that advice is, but I’m going to do it. I put it directly into my freezer. Then they’ll take out the syrup a week before the fair.
So is this one a winner? Maybe not in the end, but it surely is the best one I’ve made since doing this. Consistent early boiling, early season high-sugar sap, and the RO machine allowed me to put together this potential blue ribbon winner.
Few more photos:
