bottles of gold

Sugarin' continues around here, though the sap is flowing slowly. Warm one day, freezing the next...where are we anyway? But nature's mood swings are working out o.k because she's given us some time for a major re-working of the system. Observe above, system number one. Good in theory: evaporating pan fits nicely on wood cookstove top (one can even warm up new sap in a pot on the corner--or as we later learned in the oven! Adding cold sap to your already boiling sap slows the whole process down, so you want to warm the new sap before adding it to what's in the pan).

Despite it's fabulous looks, this system has flaws. The cookstove is nicely insulated and does what it's supposed to do, cooks things at a fairly slow and steady temp. But we wanted to boil the sap hard and for several hours. In order to do that, we had to get that thing raging- seriously the oven thermometer read almost 500 degrees! Yikes. Afraid of warping the stove at temps this high, for that long, we finished that batch and came up with plan B.



Meet the rustic, kickapoogian sap-cooker. Much better. What were we thinking getting all fancy like that? What ya need is a good hot fire right under the pan to get that sap rolling and evaporating in no time. Course you have to be careful you don't burn it, what with the fire so close and hot. But with Andy looking for any excuse he can find to head on down to the sap-cooker (i'm sure he's got a cooler of beer down there somewhere) we had no burning on this batch!


Evaporation in action! I kind of giggled at the stove-pipe on the "open" fire pit system. But it works! Definitely smokier than the wood cookstove set-up, but maybe that's what gives all that good kickapoo gold it's hearty flavor anyway!



The girls have caught the fever too and we are living, breathing and reading about sugaring around here.

This week the first of the gold hit our pancakes. Iris was so proud and was sure it tasted better than any syrup she'd ever had. I must say, from tree to table with our own hands, she sure is right!