Cooking it Down

When I first opened the maple syrup buckets on my birthday, Ann's parents got really excited about them. They said cooking down the syrup was a big deal when they lived in Canada. It was often done outside, to avoid getting sticky steam all over the house. People would have sugaring  parties, where they had big kettles outside that they kept a fire under for two or three days, taking turns staying up all night, monitoring the syrup and tending the fire. They would even burn old tires to keep the fire going. Ann's Dad said the process was someting that you must endure at the time, and enjoy in retrospect.

We're told it takes about 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. The thought of a 40 gallon container of sap intimidated me. So we're working on a considerably smaller scale here. Who needs a whole gallon of syrup? So Ann's been collecting a couple of gallons of sap at a time and just putting it in 7-quart pots on our wood stove in the living room. Only two of our trees (a maple and a walnut) have been producing much sap, and we get  a useful amount in about two days. It cooks down in about a day, and there isn't any sticky steam on anything. We have about two cups of syrup now that we've cooked down. The cast-iron pot that's covered in enamel that I gave her for Valentine's Day (aren't I romantic?) works well for this. It gives a good, even heat, it holds its heat well, and the enamel makes for easy clean-up afterwards.