I just had a wonderfully Meh breakfast!

@capnjb
'bot obviously didn’t pay attention to you!

@chienfou Bah humbug!

@capnjb @chienfou
/showme a giggling celtic bad ass goddess

@Cerridwyn Here’s the image you requested for “a giggling celtic bad ass goddess”

@capnjb @chienfou or maybe I should have said cackling

@Cerridwyn @chienfou Do not summon my Irish wife

@ironcheftoni Do you ever make waffle eggs? It’s wonderfully random. I like random

edit - And there will be no Secret-Not-So-Secret waffle egg club Also, don’t close the lid.

@ironcheftoni I haven’t done that in years. Hmmmm…

@capnjb sadly no since i don’t eat eggs. It’s a texture thing.

@capnjb @ironcheftoni more for me. But I get the texture thing. There are definitely Foods I won’t eat not because of taste but because of texture. Like anything cooked and slimy like cooked mushrooms or eggplant or some squashes. And yes I guess it would depend on how they’re cooked but you know childhood memories

@capnjb @Cerridwyn @ironcheftoni I am with you on the texture issue. There are a couple of things I like the flavor of but the texture is way to slimy for me.

@caffeineguy Wow, nice!

More details since I’m at an actual keyboard now… Up in NY we (w/ friends) tapped ~30 trees; We probably collected a total of about 300 gallons of sap over a few weeks; friend took at least half; My NY neighbors each got 5-10 gal of sap and ‘enjoyed the experience’ of making their own. My primary home is MD, so I brought about 50 gal of frozen sap home with me to boil during my work-from-home time. I gave ~8 gal of sap to an outdoorsy family with kids that I knew would appreciate the process; I didn’t think I was going to get through all 50 gal before it warmed up and possibly spoiled. A lot of folks (like my NY friend) do a big outdoor fire w/ rectangular hotel pans. He can make it through about 100 gallons in a weekend. I can usually reduce about a gallon an hour inside w/ my single 1800W induction cooktop (A $100 Amazon special).
Regardless, this was our second year, I think I’ll end up w/ about 3 gallons of syrup. (I still have 8x 3-gal icecream tubs filled with sap in our upright deep freezer)

@caffeineguy
That is really cool. This are the kind of project we did with the kids when they were young. Made them appreciate where things came from/how they were made.

@caffeineguy
From 50 gallons of sap you only get about 3 gallons of syrup? That’s nothing. Granted I don’t know the process, I should, I’m gonna look it up. Seems like you should get a lot more syrup.

@caffeineguy @Star2236 That’s actually pretty accurate. It’s usually 40:1-60:1 depending on the varietal etc.

@caffeineguy @sillyheathen
I just read about it and watched videos, that’s insane. Now I really understand the high cost. It would be cool to make but that a commitment for sure.
Can sap go bad if you don’t keep it frozen?

@caffeineguy @Star2236 most spoilage has to do with ph and water content because certain conditions promote growth of microorganisms. Now this can be a beneficial thing for methods like fermentation but it can also promote growth of molds and bacteria that are harmful if ingested. Because you remove the majority of the water from syrup, it makes the liquid typically inhospitable for things to grow in it. If the syrup is exposed to air, you might see surface growth of some kind due to oxidation but typically syrups have too high a concentration and too low a water content for things to grow in. Also I’m a nerd and not an official microbiologist so I’m more than happy to get schooled because I love learning.

@Star2236 Yeah, I think between the two of us we collected maybe 300 gallons of sap in total. I probably took about half of that, and gave away about 25-30 gallons of sap to neighbors to boil. I think some of our trees were silver maples and not sugar maples, which are more like 50:1 ratio. I’m working through another 12 gal tonight/tomorrow, and still have 4x 3gal ice cream jugs in the deep freezer. Each 12 gal batch (48 qt) will yield maybe about 1 quart.

@sillyheathen @Star2236 And yeah, sap goes bad when the temperature rises. Above freezing during the day, then dropping to freezing at night is pretty ideal. At some point, if it gets warm out it spoils in the buckets. Later on, once the trees bud out the sap changes too. If you’re using a big 175gal tote, it can be very sad if it grows mold or something and needs to be dumped. I usually try to get everything boiled at least once and/or thrown in the deep freezer if I won’t have time for it.

@caffeineguy Do you wander through the forest tapping trees or are there dedicated Tree Tappin’ Farms? Woodlots? Orchards?

@bee1doll LOL-- we’ve got a property in upstate NY w/ about 20 acres of forest.

@caffeineguy ~bowing down to the North-East~

@bee1doll @caffeineguy I’ve got 100 acres in upstate New York (near Jamestown). We timber it about every 15 years. It’s all hardwood and the company that does it for us replants the oaks when they fell them. We are probably going to timber it next year… maybe I’ll see if they can clear 20 acres and put in sugar maples instead I REALLY want to build an off-grid cabin on that property.

@bee1doll @caffeineguy @capnjb
Excellent idea! (Both of them)

@capnjb Nice! I’m sure you know about the forest tax exemption for over 50 acres w/ a forest management plan. Sadly, we’re ~12 acres short of being able to pull that one off. NYS’s tree nursery will sell you saplings for like $1 certain times of year.

@caffeineguy There is a natural gas well on the property that pretty much covers all the taxes. But I haven’t looked into exemptions. Thanks

@caffeineguy There is a natural gas well on the property that pretty much covers all the taxes. But I haven’t looked into exemptions. Thanks And our forestry company (is that the correct term??) replants as part of our contract with them. And they don’t clear cut, they take the tallest and the best and let the rest continue to grow. They clear about half of the trees and replant in a fashion that encourage new growth.

@caffeineguy @capnjb that is very cool.

You can tap other trees like black walnut. I tapped 10 big wild ones of mine the first or second year I was here. Like 10 years ago. Thought I would make it a thing. But you get less sap than maple. And the timing is tighter I think, although I only tried like one or two years.

Only got a couple gallons and reducing those on the gas stove took forever. And I probably should have reduced it more.

Doesn’t a meh breakfast require octopus though?