Our Second Year Making Maple Syrup in Our Back Yard - 2020 Totals

We pulled our taps today and officially ended our 2020 maple syrup season. I was a little sad to see the season end, but with the snow off the garden there's plenty of other things around here to keep me busy.

We did a few things differently this year, the main one being my boiling setup. My husband was never happy with the cheap cobbled-together six block setup I used last year, and started with again this year.

We searched online for better DIY setups, and finally settled on this one: 

Side View

firebox view

We bought the blocks (thirty-six 8"x8"x16" cement blocks) for under $50 (they just happened to be on sale for 98 cents each at Menard's that week), and it was well worth it for how much easier and pleasant it made the process. The high chimney had a great draw, so once we got everything snugged up, it was almost smokeless for me sitting next to it (you can see steam rising from the pans in the pictures above, not smoke). In our first version, we'd only had the firebox two blocks high, which meant bending almost to the ground to fill (not a big change from my old six-block version). We decided to raise it up another block high to make it easier for me to ladle sap from one pan to another - my back is mostly back to normal after my herniated disc last summer, but I'm not eager to aggravate it again! The taller firebox weakened the chimney's draft, though. To fix this, we filled in the bottom of the firebox up to the level of the first blocks with dirt. We lined the bottom with a piece of stainless steel roofing panel that was lying around (hooray for obtanium!) to keep the wood off the cold, wet ground. This also made it easier to clean out the ashes between boiling sessions (the ashes and biochar were then sprinkled on the garden beds, of course!). 

With the fire more contained, it was also more consistent, which made the boiling much more efficient. Since I could boil more in one sitting now, I was able to put in more taps and gather more syrup each day. We went from 16 taps last year to 23 this year; a couple of those new trees were really prolific, and our production jumped from 3 1/2 gallons of finished syrup last year to 10 gallons this year. 

Another upgrade this year was the purchase of a Brix tester (see link below, or click here to see the one I bought) (I learned about this tool in the book Sweet Maple by Michelle Visser - which I highly recommend! It's full of useful information about all aspects of the maple syrup making process, as well as directions on how to make maple cream and maple sugar - and of course plenty of tasty maple syrup recipes!)

My syrup always seemed thinner than what I'd purchased from the store, and after problems with two inaccurate thermometers, I decided to stop messing around and buy something more exact. It's a little picky to work with, but well worth it in my opinion just for the peace of mind that I was doing it right. It lets you know exactly when your syrup is at the right concentration (66-68% sugar, or "Brix")

If you don't want to spend that much just for peace of mind, I've found that bringing your sap to the point that it sheets off of a spoon is a good non-technical (and free!) way to know that your sap is done (here's a quick 12 second video I took tonight to show you what it looks like, in case you don't know - I didn't!) This is the same as the test you'll see in many old cookbooks for knowing when your jelly or jam will set.

So, here's my final numbers for 2020:
Number of trees tapped: 23
Number of days I boiled sap: 13
Cost of new supplies: $175
     $100 (more taps, bags, and hangers)
     $45 (blocks for new evaporator)
     $130 (Brix tester)
Value of finished syrup (local price $12/quart) $480
                                     Net savings: $305

So my investment that just broke even last year ($150 in supplies for just over 3 gallons of syrup), easily absorbed the cost of the upgrades I made this year and still saved over $300. Not a bad return for a few sessions of sitting around a campfire on a sunny spring afternoon!

Fast and Easy Ricotta Cheese

In the last few months, I've finally gotten back into the habit of making cheese regularly (click here for my basic cheese recipe from way back in 2013). And since I usually make about four gallons of milk's worth at a time, that leaves a lot of whey behind. Being a waste-not-want-not kind of girl, of course I use it to soak my chicken feed (whey contains albumen, a protein that laying hens need for egg development) or add to my garden (whey is a rich source of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and many other micronutrients, and can be applied directly to the garden). But before I use it for either of those, I cook it one more time to make ricotta cheese.

I had read that you could make ricotta simply by heating the whey leftover from making a rennet cheese until a fine cloud of cheese forms just under the surface. Then you simply strain it through a cloth overnight and voila! a lovely dish of creamy ricotta.

While this method does work, the yield is ridiculously low and the process is excessively putzy. The cheese made this way is extremely fine, and quickly clogs up the straining cloth. If you want to keep the whey draining, it's necessary to scrape down the cloth almost constantly (which takes HOURS for this quantity of whey), and even so you end up with only about a cup of cheese (from the aforementioned nearly four gallons of whey).

I was just about ready to give up on making ricotta altogether. It was just too much trouble for so little results. But then, a few days ago, I was re-reading David Asher's The Art of Natural Cheesemaking (you can see my review of the book here) and saw his recipe for "fast ricotta". And just like that, I found the solution to my problem. In his recipe, he not only boils the whey briefly (where the first recipe simply heated it until the cheese started to separate), but he also adds 1/4 cup of vinegar. This made a HUGE difference. From the same whey, in less than half an hour (with no scraping of the cloth), I made a full quart of ricotta cheese.

What a relief! I have to admit, the kids were laughing at me as I did a happy dance around the kitchen. It was so much faster, and so much easier. Manicotti Monday has been saved!

In case you'd like to try this for yourself, here's what I did:

Fast and Easy Ricotta Cheese
Heat the whey leftover from making a rennet cheese; bring to a boil. You don't have to stir; the boiling will take care of that for you. Add 1/4 cup of vinegar (white or apple cider vinegar both work fine) or 1/2 cup of lemon juice and bring back to a boil for a moment. Then turn off the heat and let stand for 5-10 minutes.

Line a colander with a damp cotton dish towel and set into a pot large enough to catch your whey. Scoop out the cheese (or just pour all of it through the towel if your pot is small enough; I have to ladle most of it out before I can lift the pot). Most of the whey will drain immediately, but you can hang it if you'd like it to drain more.

Here's my setup (very fancy, I know)

When it's drained to your liking, scoop the cheese into a container and refrigerate. Ricotta is a soft cheese, so you should use it within a week.