In Videos: Christopher Kimball Sugaring Maple Sap
While perusing Cook's Illustrated editor Christopher Kimball's Twitter feed, we found this video of him and his crew "sugaring" maple sap—boiling it down to syrup. (After the jump.) February through April (depending on local conditions) is the traditional season for maple syrup production in the U.S. and Canada.
It's a little difficult to hear voices in the video because the sugar house's equipment is loud, but someone made sure to pump the soundtrack up—it's Kimball's band, Shady Grove. Yes, Christopher Kimball is in a bluegrass band. Who knew!
Christopher Kimball Making Maple Syrup
Previously
How to Make Maple Syrup
Northerners - ever tap a maple tree? [Talk]
Turkey Talk with Cook's Illustrated's Chris Kimball
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6 Comments:
I'm jealous! Last weekend I cooked down my first batch on the side burner of our gas grill. I started w/ 2 1/2 gallons of sap...ended up w/ 1 1/2 pints of syrup! Tasted great though. We had a freeze after that, so no sap was flowing until yesterday. This weekend I'll have a few more gallons to cook down. Unfortunately w/my small scale method it takes longer... 6 1/2 hrs for that batch....luckily I didn't have to spend the whole time watching sap boil! lol
mepolo at 12:58PM on 03/06/09
My friend, Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm here in Oregon, wrote that his family had a "sugar bush" in Stockbridge, MA. Lately he's been thinking it might be possible to make syrup from cane sorghum, and since his field peas experiment failed, he's planning to plant the sweet sorghum in their place. You can read his whole piece here. Has anyone tried growing it or making syrup from sorghum?
GoodStuffNW at 1:14PM on 03/06/09
I am currently reading "Little House In The Big Woods" to my nearly 6 year old daughter and the chapter about boiling maple syrup is so wonderful. The whole book (the whole series, actually) is amazing food reading. Get it to read to your kids and you will enjoy it yourself. I promise.
louclakat at 1:44PM on 03/06/09
Some of my fondest childhood memories were in the sugar shack. There's nothing better than a glass full of hot syrup.
christopher at 3:13PM on 03/06/09
Thanks for that. It was certainly less sappy than one of Kimballs' editorials.
chanterelle at 1:56PM on 03/07/09
"It was certainly less sappy than..."
ARGH!!!
Garvey at 10:25AM on 03/10/09