Male: So finally, here we are. We’re at my friend Bill’s sugar shack. This is a really, really fun place to be and Bill is one of the first people that I met when I moved to this town. He’s got one of the biggest hearts in the world and I’ve been asking him for a while now if I could come interview him making syrup, and it’s been kind of a weird, weird spring here at the south. It hasn’t been running very well, so finally it’s started running and I call him and he says I’m boiling sap so I came over and I’ve spent two days with Bill in our little house here and it’s been a really lot of fun. So let’s go inside, and Bill is going to give us a tour, and I have some little anecdotal stuff as well to chime in on and I think he really like this. All right, let’s go.
Bill: That’s look like a little yellow. Part of it because it’s in a galvanize tank, part of it you’re looking through it approximately 8 inches of sap. Okay. You can see when you hold it up to the light.
That’s not green not that yellowish color that you see in there it’s nice and clear. It’s testing about 37 to 1 today, which is so relatively sweet.
Male: How do you figure that out?
Bill: I have the hydrometer that’s calibrated in Brix scale.
Male: Okay, all right, that’s the Brix thing then.
Bill: It test the viscosity of the sap. It’s calibrated at 38 degrees Fahrenheit, so if the temperature of the sap is 38 degrees it would relatively accurate. That’s even right there about 2.3 so that’s how we test our sap to get an idea. It says right there Brix for sap at 38 degrees Fahrenheit. This sap is warm today because it was kind of warmed out when it got so warm today when the sun came out, that’s about 52 still. About 52 degrees that’s why I want to get this boiled. I have to put pack ice on it to cool it down. It was hanging in a bucket today on that warm tree.
Male: Yeah.
Bill: That’s what we want a little bit earlier. I needed the sap in here because it as running out of sap and I don’t want to shut my fire down.
Male: Yeah.
Bill: So I sent the boys and they’re on their way to get it. They got to buy 160 strong ice. We don’t get rich and I give it to people who help us and I give it to neighbors and I got a big family.
Male: I walk up the hill. These guys have a cloud of steam coming out of this little shack, it was a beautiful picture.
So that’s letting in as much sap as there is water evaporating off right now.
Bill: Right. See that float right there, you can see it in this side a little better, see it right there.
Male: So that float level determines how much of the sap comes in to the tray?
Bill: The amount of sap that is coming in near through that float, it’s the same amount of liquid that’s cooling off from the steam going up through the roof.
Male: So then, it goes through these different channels?
Bill: No, it comes through here and it goes into that piece of pipe right there. Some of the newer operators have a preheater. I never felt I needed a preheater because the sap is coming in there, it’s probably 40 degrees.
Male: Yup.
Bill: Okay, the sap that’s in there, it’s probably between 95 and 110.
Male: It gets hot real quick.
Bill: It’s hot very quick. Now in order for that to get from this baffle into this bay which is the center bay it has to go all the way down underneath this pit right here, you can see there’s little opening underneath this pit.
Male: Right, these little holes?
Bill: And it goes down through here, and goes into the hole in this bin, it goes down that bay, it comes out to the cup that’s on this side, then it goes through this bay, and this pan the baffle which is going in the opposite direction there’s also a hole down there.
Male: Right.
Bill: That’s how it goes into this bay. Then in order to get from this pan to the finish pan, it comes out through another cup, runs through another U-pipe comes in here, comes in this bay, that one will open as well.
Male: And there’s another hole here.
Bill: Yup.
Male: So this is the finishing pan here.
Bill: Yup and this is where we draw off way over here on this end.
Male: All right.
Bill: Well obviously when it’s coming in is sap, there’s more water than sugar obviously. As the steam goes off, you got more of a sugar content in each bay.
Male: Right.
Bill: So, as each bay boils off, you get more steam, you have more sugar content, the cooler sap is coming on behind it, it’s pushing the thicker stuff forward. So here, it’s probably boiling at 213, 215, and this bin is between 217 and 218 and this pan is between 218 and 220. When it gets to be 219 or 220 that’s when my product is right. Maple syrup boils to approximately 7 to 7.5 degrees hotter than water boils. Water boils at sea level at 212 degrees.
Male: Right, so it has a higher boiling point than water.
Bill: It has a higher boiling point. This arch residual by my father in about 1980. It belong to my great grandfather, who owned this farm before me. He came here in the mid ‘40s--he came here during the Second World War. My grandfather-in-law, my wife’s father, grandfather, he was the 00:06:12 teacher at the Gilbert School.
Male: So the sugar shack had a history.
Bill: This sugar shack had a history. The original little square building was put here in the 40s, they use to boil outside on an open pan. Then a bunch of the school boys came, there was a barn down here in the bottom of the hill from a farm that fell down in a big snow storm in the 40s, and the boys brought the scrap lumber in here and build a little shack in the woods.
Male: How many gallons are in this at one time?
Bill: There’s probably between 20 and 25 gallons in here.
Male: I think it’s amazing.
Bill: Still done in the old-fashioned way, but it’s the same process, it doesn’t mean you never know what to do. You have to eliminate the water from the sap to get your sugar content, bring it to a boil and purify.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services