We’ve been collecting sap from our trees for a week now and have quite a bit.  Sap is largely water, so it take an enormous amount of sap to make a small amount on syrup.  Forty gallons of sap will boil down to make about one gallon of syrup.  That’s a lot of water to boil off!

Needless to say, boiling sap creates a ton of steam.  For this reason, we boil the sap outside.  I started boiling on a little propane burner, but it’s proving to be a very slow process.  Not to mention, we are tearing through the propane.  Yikes! $$

Andrew decided to boil it over the open fire and that has been productive (and fun!).  He built a big fire in our fire pit and the sap has been boiling away quite quickly.

My white canning pot has been charred black!  I think it will clean, but if you’re fussy about things such as this, use a black pot!

Once some of the sap had boiled down a bit, we used it to make our french press coffee.  The decadence!  It was quite delish, with a slight hit of sweetness.  If you are normally a froo-froo starbucks “coffee” drinker, this might not seem delightful, but to a cream-only-coffee drinker, it was a treat!  (Full disclosure, I love me an occasional starbucks coffee-with-my-sugar!)