79: making maple syrup, modern trash compactor, the arcade, house of blues, free stamp, a big chandelier, at cordelia
Hiram
I must be the worst guest in the history of being a relative. For most of the day I just sat in the living room and worked on the blog, although I'm still so far behind that you wouldn't know it.
At one point, Cousin DeeAnn and Jim started telling me about the process of making maple syrup. It's really interesting, and I kept peppering them with more questions.
What I learned: * It takes forty gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. * "A sugar bush" is a grove of maples. * How much sap they get depends on the temperature, and the best time to tap is in the Spring. The trees have been hibernating all winter and sense the temperatures becoming warmer. When the thermometer climbs above freezing then the sap rises, and if it drops below freezing the sap drops. Therefore, if it's above and below freezing on the same day then they can get two "runs." * Bacteria can start growing in the sap or syrup if it sits in buckets or tanks too long. * The sap is in the xylem and phloem, just under the bark, which is how deep you want to hammer in the spile. * Jim, his brother Jeff, a cousin, and a nephew do 1-3 taps per tree, and 1500-2000 taps per season over 4-6 weeks. They alternate sugar bushes, and just the collection part takes about 5-6 hours daily, which involves a lot of slogging through forests with heavy buckets of sap. They pour the buckets from the trees into 5 gallon buckets, then dump those buckets into 200-300 gallon tanks. From there it goes into the 700 gallon tank in the Sugar House where the boiling takes place. * They use a wood fire to boil the syrup, but a lot of other places use propane. Many producers use flexible piping to connect multiple trees in a sugar bush. Gravity then causes the sap to flow to a large collection tank. It's convenient and less labor intensive, but the downside is that it's also unsightly because it's left in place year-round. * The sap initially runs through a reverse osmosis filter that reduces the water by 50% while doubling the sugar content of the raw sap - that helps reduce boiling time. * Then the sap is boiled to make concentrate, after which it goes into a pan (about 4 X 12 feet) with a fire underneath. It's slightly angled, so the heavier syrup goes to the bottom and eventually to the next section. * The longer the sap sits in the tanks, the deeper the color becomes, and the more flavor it develops (although overcooking it can also darken the color). Chefs and bakers prefer darker colored syrup because of the richer flavor and the slightly thicker consistency * It then goes through back-and-forth channels, still using gravity to bring the denser syrup to the finish line. * Their Sugar Shack produces about a gallon every half hour or so, and you can tell it’s ready when the “brix” is at the goal of 70. Brix is a scale used to measure the percentage of sugar in a liquid. If someone says their syrup is “72 brix,” it means that the syrup is 72% sugar. The percentage of sugar in the syrup is checked with a hydrometer, with "seven" (i.e. 70%) being the goal. * All of that is why maple syrup typically sells for $60-$70 a gallon: They collect sap for about 5 hours, then they boil for the rest of the day. If the weather is perfect, they may work 8-10 hours/day, but it's usually longer, and even longer still if they have a good run. It can be exhausting, especially for the older guys in their 60s and 70s. * Their small family-run farm, Pioneer Ridge Tree Farm, produces 200-300 gallons of syrup every year, which requires about 12,000 gallons of sap.
While we were chatting, DeeAnn mentioned that most syrup in restaurants is maple flavored corn syrup: "Ick. We’ll eat our restaurant waffles and pancakes dry rather than have to choke down the fake stuff. We have principles, you know." I don't even think tshe's being a Syrup Snob, just good taste... because "maple flavored corn syrup? Ick! She also let me know that at some of the better restaurants you can get real maple syrup by request. I should've asked what a "better restaurant" is.... I'm guessing NOT Waffle House or IHOP.
If you have any questions about the process, just leave them in the Comments section. DeeAnn will be reading this and I'll defer to their expertise on answering them.
We enjoyed hanging out in the backyard until the mosquitoes shooed us away. I think this is called "goose's head."
We walked through The Arcade to get to our restaurant. It was the first building in Cleveland to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places (1973).
Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters stopped at this House of Blues during their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame celebrations and threw an unannounced “pop-up” concert.
Here's the World’s Largest Outdoor Chandelier. It weighs about 8,500 lbs (3,855 kg), contains 4,200 crystals, stands 44 feet above the street, and measures 20 feet tall by 20 feet wide. It was built with weatherproof materials so it can withstand snow, ice, and wind.
