Maple Syrup | Part 3

Once the syrup gets to a very dark colour, we start using the hydrometer to measure the thickness so that we can tell whether it's syrup yet or not. 

We all love smelling it, can you tell? :)

Adding syrup to the hydrometer 

Measuring . . .

It's almost syrup!! 

Checking some more

Oh yeah, forgot one very important detail. It is very sticky in the kitchen when we're finishing off the syrup :P

And this is our filter. It causes so much stress. . . :P

It can NOT move. It needs to be in the centre, 'cause if it's not, the syrup drips out the side of our coffee urn. That's why the chairs need to be balanced out, which is why we're stacking hymnbooks, my very thick English binder (all those essays and paragraphs. . . :P), a Webster dictionary, and a history book on the chairs.
The outside filter is extremely thick wool, so the syrup goes through rather slowly. The hotter the syrup is, the faster it goes through the filter. But the syrup gets cold very quickly, so then it just clogs up the filter and we have syrup stuck in the filter. So then we have to take out one of the thinner, inside filters to clear stuff up a bit.

Everything has to be done very quickly so that the syrup has less time to cool and so that the container doesn't overflow.

So now we've kinda figured out a system.

Mom pours,

I (most of the time) fill up the bottles,

and Tiger Lily screws on the rings and caps.

Let's just say that finishing off the syrup is a very, very stressful time. (keeping it real here ;P) It's all rushed to get everything done quickly without spilling a single precious drop :) But this year we've actually relaxed. . . a bit. Well, anyway, enough to let Dare Devil help with the filling up of the bottles. We wouldn't even have dreamed of letting this (dangerous) guy help out before. :P

And then to seal the bottles, we lay the 125mL, 500mL, and 1 L bottles on their sides, and the 125mL bottles upside down.

Tiger Lily taking separating the filters

This picture speaks for itself :P

No, that's not a ton of syrup stuck in the filter! 

It's actually niter, some icky sticky gooey stuff that is produced whenever
the syrup is boiled to a certain temperature. It won't harm you, but it's not good to eat.
Very sandy and gritty. 

Mom was nice and put it all neatly on a plate so that I could take a
picture of it. Anyone want a niter pancake? :P

Of course, after we're all done, some of us want to lick the remaining syrup from all the spoons and cups and things. I mean, who wouldn't? :P

Tiger Lily: May I have some syrup?
Mom: . . . . . . . . . . . . .   :D

She got her way in the end :)

The finished product!

This bottle below shows the actual colour of the syrup. It's way lighter than the bottles above!

And that's it! I hope you all enjoyed these posts! :)