Thanks

Making the filters hot with water is very useful (especially if you use hot sap from the evaporator, which doesn’t dilute things quite as much) when using a filter press. The correct terminology for filter presses, by the way, is “damned filter press,” but “filter press” will do as an abbreviation. The filter press is a device that forces maple syrup through a series of plates that alternately have paper filters and often a white power substance called filter aid or diatomaceous earth. Those paper filters tend to break when pressure builds up from too much sugar sand building up or the maple syrup lacking enough heat to run quickly through the machine. That’s why preheating the filter with hot liquid can allow you to get much more maple syrup through the filter press.

[The Damned Filter Press]

Now, with a gravity filter system, such as the one you’re using, where you just let the maple syrup run through a cloth, there does not seem to be any benefit from pre-wetting the filter. It sounds to me like your problem is that you are using a cloth that is too coarse to filter much of the sugar sand. Cheese cloth is only good at filtering out the very largest of chunks. In order to get your maple syrup at all clear, you’re going to have to use either a wool filter or one made of a synthetic wool, such as Orlon.

We use cloth diapers as a first filter, drawing it through the diaper right off the arch. We tried cheese cloth, but it was simply too course a filter to take much out of the solution. As a final filtration step, we use the filter press to polish the maple syrup, taking out pretty much all the very fine particulate matter left in the maple syrup. By using the course filter of the diaper first and by pre-heating the filter press, we get much more maple syrup through the filter press before having to break it down, clean it and then set it up again.

I do not recommend that folks with small operations get a filter press. They are argumentative, balky, stubborn, capricious machines with personalities akin to the staff at your local DMV. People buy them because they’ve grown in maple syrup production past the point where gravity filters can keep up with the maple syrup produced. I miss those days when our trusty gravity filter kept up with our arch.

[The installation this week of the decidedly low-tech "new" stack]

Very few of them came with directions. The couple manuals that did come with them. turned out to be written in French. Even after translating them, they weren’t very helpful. But that’s sugaring. Part of the fun is the fiddling with the equipment to make it all work together efficiently, causing all sorts of opportunities for arguments and mayhem.

It kept us in the shack more than we should have been and spending less time out in the woods. I’m looking forward to this coming boiling season to get out into the sugarbush a little more often, checking lines and spending less time with wrenches and duct tape.

This past week we had a couple warm days, including a beautiful 40-degree run overnight with mist and rain that must have had the sugar maple trees ready to pop with sap. We and most others were caught out unready to tap (still are), and now it’s cold again. I’m betting on this coming weekend, after Valentine’s Day to tap out. We should be ready by then, even though we still have lots of line work to do.

As far as new technologies we’re introducing in 2009, we have a short list. We’ll have steam hoods this year, which isn’t that big a deal. They came with the used evaporator we bought. This directs the steam out the ports in the roof. We may also introduce automatic draw-off, which is a clever device that senses the temperature of the fluid in the sugar pan and opens up a valve only when it reaches the boiling temperature of maple syrup. This will free up an extra hand in the sugar house, although it does involve a lot of fiddly settings and is yet another thing that could go awry. I broached the topic with the guys, and they all furrowed their brows.

Other than that, our priority has been redoing many of the older lines we use, so that we can get much more sap this year to feed the larger evaporator. We completely re-did our bush in Strafford, expanding it to about 1050 taps, and just this past week started running line to an additional 200 trees here in Thetford, making for a combined total of about 1,600. With good vacuum and a good sap year, this might provide as much as 700 gallons of maple syrup, doubling or tripling our production from last year.

First some useful facts:

- Syrup brought to proper thickness (>67 percent sugar) won’t develop any molds. Any syrup you purchase should already be to this density, so you shouldn’t have to thicken it.

- However, temperature changes can sometimes allow a microlayer of water to form on top of that syrup through condensation. That sugary water layer is a perfect environment for things to grow.

- Syrup packed between 180 and 190 degrees Fahrenheit will start off sterile, making it very difficult for growths to take hold, so long as the container is air-tight.

- Raising syrup past 190 degrees can cause certain particles called sugar sand to come out of solution, causing the syrup to become a little cloudy. This affects appearances, but not flavor or texture.

- Hot syrup spilled on people will continue to burn for a great deal of time. It is much more dangerous than hot water, so you need to take great care not to allow the hot syrup to touch anyone.

So, with these facts in mind, here is a series of steps to take a gallon of syrup and repack it – a common task.

(How NOT to heat of syrup. John with is “mini evaporator”)

1- Take your smaller containers and make sure they are clean. My favorite smaller container is the classic Ball jar – either a quart or a pint. Boiling them is best, but some people just pour the hot syrup right in out of the package, as it will sterilize anything inside. For more on container choices, click <a href=”/2008/11/29/containers-and-maple-syrup.aspx”>here</a>.

2- Set them aside, with caps off or ready to be taken off, in a place where you can comfortably and safely pour.

3- Heat up the syrup in a stovetop pot that has a very steady handle, or better still, two handles. Insert a candy thermometer in the fluid so you can get a sense for how quickly it is heating up. Optimally, you will just hit 190 degrees. The longer that syrup is hot, the darker it will get, and the thicker it will get, although it would take some time to increase the syrup’s grade or make it so thick as to cause texture problems.

4- Once the syrup makes it to temperature, turn off the heat. Then, pour the syrup into the containers, trying to leave only a little space left over. These relatively full containers will provide less room for air, which can hold moisture that can later condense. You will spill some syrup in this process; just make sure you don’t spill it on you.

5- Immediately affix the caps onto the containers and tighten them. If you are using jars, you will likely want to be wearing gloves for this, as they get quite hot. If you would rather not wear gloves, you might try putting the caps on after each pour, as the glass will not yet have absorbed as much heat from the syrup.

6- Turn the containers over on their sides, so that the heat of the syrup can sterilize the underside of the cap. Leave them there for 10 minutes, and then turn them upright.

7- Space the containers out to cool. If you stick them next to each other, they will take a great deal longer to cool, and they will darken.

Once you complete this process, you can use the smaller containers one at a time to ensure your year’s syrup supply lasts without growing anything interesting on top. In general, you can expect packed syrup to last about a year before it does something bad – usually developing a growth or sometimes just fermenting. Once you open syrup, put it in the refrigerator, and so long as it doesn’t develop a layer of moister on top, it will last a similar amount of time.

Oldtimers say that when syrup molds over, you can cohesively pour off the junk on top and just continue to use it. We prefer to just make more. If your syrup ferments, it is a sad and completely lost cause.