How to Boil Maple Syrup – Steps:

Best maple extract substitutes. Great maple extract substitutes are maple syrup, maple candy, maple butter, maple coffee creamer, and molasses. If you’re not form North America then maple extract is definitely something you’ll never get your hands on, but maple syrup can be found even in remote corners of the world.

Either use tap water, sap or syrup that isn’t syrup yet. The quickest way would be to use water since there is no sugars in it then the next fastest would be sap. That route you can say that nothing but sap from a maple is in there. I used the stuff out of my syrup pan that wasn’t syrup yet to thin my heavy syrup.

1. Set up a turkey fryer or wood fire in a safe place.
2. Fill a boiling pot with 5 gallons of sap.
3. Boil the sap for approximately 4 hours.
4. When you have about a half gallon left in the pot, finish boiling on a stove.
5. The syrup is done when it reaches 219°F or 66% sugar content.

The best sap flows come when nighttime temperatures are in the low 20s and daytime temperatures are in the 40s. The longer it stays below freezing at night, the longer the sap will run during the warm day to follow. If the weather gets too cold and stays cold, sap flow will stop.

40 to 1

Usually about 40 gallons of sap are required to produce one gallon of finished syrup. Actually this figure can vary from 20 to 60 gallons or more depending primarily on sap sugar content. A large amount of water must be evaporated from the sap to produce the finished syrup of 66 to 67 percent sugar.

The general rule of thumb is that it takes 40 parts maple sap to produce 1 part maple syrup. This translates into 40 gallons of sap to produce 1 gallon or syrup (or 10 gallons of sap for one quart of syrup).

Well it turns out you only need one decent size maple tree to make your own maple syrup at home. One large tree can produce enough sap to boil down into a quart of syrup. If you have several mature maple trees in your backyard like I do, you could make over a gallon of maple syrup every year.

It takes at least forty years for a maple tree to grow before it is big enough to tap. On a good growing site, and if treated well, a maple tree can be tapped indefinitely.

Although sap generally flows during the day when temperatures are warm, it has been known to flow at night if temperatures remain above freezing.

Maple syrup does not really need to be refrigerated. However, refrigerating maple syrup will retard the growth of mold. If a container of unrefrigerated maple syrup is not checked often, enough mold may grow in the syrup, to ruin the flavor of the syrup. Maple syrup may also be frozen.

Before opening, all maple syrup can be stored in the pantry about a year. After opening, genuine maple syrup should be stored in the refrigerator and will last about a year. Opened jugs of imitation maple syrup can be stored in the pantry for about a year.

Glass is best Glass bottles are perfect for keeping the syrup bottle at room temperature. It works just as well as canning in the conservation process.

Once opened, you’ll need to store it in the fridge. Since it’s a natural product with no preservatives, pure maple syrup can go bad. Once opened, store pure maple syrup in the refrigerator to prevent it from spoiling or growing mold.