Maple Syrup: Upsizing the Cooker

Two years ago we harvested our first ever maple sap. I posted about tapping, collecting, and cooking down the sap into sweet syrup. This year we purchased 8 more taps (not that we used them all) and enlisted our previous Pig Partner to tap trees on his land. His trees are twice the size of ours, and the sap was flowing strong, so THIS upgrade became necessary:

Woah. That's One BIG Pot!

In 2011, our large roaster oven was sufficient to process the sap from our few, relatively young trees. It had some issues, however. Some of the sugar caramelized and even burnt on the sides of the cooker. When we added more sap, it washed that char off the sides, resulting in a very dark finished product:

Delicious, but a Bit Darker than Ideal

This new system, which consists of a very large aluminum stainless steel stock pot on a propane burner from a turkey fryer, isn’t without its issues, of course. As you can imagine, it takes a very long time to heat up a pot of that size, even with the large propane burner. A heavy metal frame had to be fabricated to hold the immense weight of the pot and liquid. Also, since there is no room for it in the house, we must complete the operation in Mr. Farmer’s Man-Cave, which is not the cleanest place in the world. Outside contamination is a constant concern, so all other shop projects had to be suspended for the sugaring. The setup makes temperature tricky to maintain as well (see the sheet metal reflector on the wall behind the pot?). The direct heat from the flame also requires constant attention to prevent burning. This means that Mr. Farmer has gotten very little sleep the past 2 weeks while he stirs the pot every half hour or so. It makes for a tense household, to say the least.

Of course we are very excited about the finished product that we should have soon. The last of the 2011 syrup went with a visiting friend home to England, and we can barely wait to have more!

Hillbilly Ingenuity: Uses for Maple Sap and Syrup

Those of you who are unfamiliar with your Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder (and shame on you if you are unfamiliar, by the way), might be surprised to hear what a special treat white sugar was just a handful of generations ago. In pioneer times, when "town" might be a day or more drive from the homestead and when supplies might only come in by train every few months, white sugar was a commodity almost akin to gold or steel. It was rationed in leaner times and generally only used for special occasions and when visitors arrived. The amount that we dump into our hot beverages in the morning, sprinkle on our cereal, or use to make candy (gasp, I even do this when there is no particular holiday in sight!) would be considered almost vulgar in those times. Less-processed raw or brown sugar were more common for everyday use, as was molasses. But if your Little House was in The Big Woods, your primary source of sweetness was maple sap and syrup.

  

 

It can take up to 50 gallons of clear, watery sap to make a single gallon of syrup, and it takes time to do that evaporating without burning it. When there is a huge vat cooking away within full view in your dining room, it is difficult to wait. So, we have found that there are many good uses for maple syrup, sap, and partially-evaporated sap:

  

• Sweeten hot cereal such as oatmeal, farina, or corn mush by adding a splash of syrup or 
• Replace the water in the recipes for hot cereal with fresh or partially evaporated sap 
• Top desserts like ice cream or pie with a drizzle  
• Add it to tea or coffee 
• Heat a mug of sap for a warm, sweet drink 
• Replace the sugar or liquid sugar in a cocktail with sap or syrup 
• Anything else you can think of!

  

If you have the patience, sap can be cooked all the way down to dry sugar. So far, we have not had that kind of patience, but imagine what this list would look like if we did!!

 

Maple Sap Cooking Down to Syrup
(It's so hard to wait!)

Hillbilly Ingenuity: Maple Tapping Time!

That's right; it's that time again....

Sap-Catching Bucket

When the weather is above freezing during the day and below freezing at night, the maple sap flows. In my neck of the woods, that is approximately February 15 to March 15.  So, here we go again!


(Note: Last year we did not have enough cold weather, so the sap was bitter, and we made no syrup at all. This year looks very promising so far!)

Hillbilly Ingenuity: The Roto-Flogger

Inspired by mechanical chicken-plucking machines, Mr. Farmer was determined to invent a device for easily removing the bristles and outer skin from pigs. The design was similar to the standing poultry-plucker, which has a revolving drum embedded with rubber fingers that beat and pull the feathers from a chicken. However, you can't just pick up a two to three hundred pound hog and lean it up against a rotating drum; that would be a bit much to ask of even Young Master Farmer, who is brutishly strong. Out of necessity, a mechanical pig stripper would have to be portable.

The scaled-down, portable design began with a 4 inch, PVC pipe end cap. Mr. Farmer drilled 4 equally spaced holes in the sides of the cap and inserted 4 rubber bungee cords as a replacement for the rubber fingers. The reinforced ends (with the hooks removed, of course) held the cords in place.

He drilled another hole in the center of the cap, inserted a long, threaded rod, and capped it off with a nut on each side. He attached the device to a hammer drill, and was ready to rock and roll!

We call this the ROTO-FLOGGER because of the long, whip-like rubber ends.
Other names we kicked around included the Hair-Whip and the Squealer-Peeler.

As usual, the hog was dispatched, and a 55 gallon drum of water was brought to a boil. Since Mr. Farmer and the Boy were handling this one alone, the old setup with the large, flat rock and metal A-frame were employed for the processing. The pig was dipped for the prescribed amount of time, and the Roto-Flogger made its maiden voyage:

(WARNING: I took this video of the second attempt, the side and back end of the pig, so it is less disturbing than the head view. BUT it is still a video of hair and skin being torn off a hog's hip with a homemade, miniature weed-whacker. Discretion advised. )

Ok, so maybe seeing the dark bristle and skin turning pretty pink looks impressive, but after the first minute, and the second, that small patch of pink was still the only progress that was being made. In fact, this was faster:

(If you were ok with the first video, you will be fine with this one, too.)

Actually, even THIS was faster and more productive than the Roto-Flogger:


(PG at best)

So, in the end, a couple clean patches on the side of the face and a couple cool-looking test patches on the hams were all that the machine produced. The rest of the processing was done the old fashioned way: Dipping in hot water, scraping with a knife, soaking towels in hot water, and picking off hair by hand. Even Mr. Farmer's attempt to improve the process by cutting notches in the rubber bands to grab the hair a bit did not help much.

We are not giving up, however. We are working on the design a bit. We may add more flails. Perhaps we will change the length or shape of the whips. Perhaps a leather whip would be more effective. We'll be doing a bit of research and testing, and I will report back.

Back to the drawing board...

Hillbilly Ingenuity: Replacement Parts

Well, it's that time of year again. Many of our friends have "bagged their limit" of deer, and those deer need processing. Since we're the only game in town when it comes to a large smokehouse, we became very popular just before Christmas. Friends and their families came by, some with bag after bag of chopped up venison, ready for grinding, stuffing, and smoking. We have made many MANY pounds of ring bologna and kielbasa (click meat-treat of your choice for a recipe).

The downside of doing all this work is that we are very hard on equipment. The average household grinder, for example, is not designed to handle a hundred pounds of meat each year. So, we should not have been surprised to find that the bearings in the grinder had worn down so small that they were falling out. When the other grinder that we had on hand for parts was disassembled and its bearing retrieved, we found this:

That is NOT going to work. Nope.

So, Mr. Farmer did what anyone would do: He went to the Auto Parts Store. He was sure that they would be able to sell him the right size bearings to get him up and running again. He was mistaken. So, undaunted, he went to the bike shop, just to find the shopkeeper locking the front door. She was sympathetic to his plight, however, and re-opened the store. She found the right bearings and rung him up. The total was just over a dollar. Mr. Farmer had no cash on him, and she had already settled out the charge machine. The Christmas spirit was in her, however, and she agreed to trust him to come back and pay her another day.

He did go back and pay her a few days later (much to her surprise) and the day was saved. Another hundred pounds of meat became another pile of treats. Now if only there were spare parts available for vacuum-sealers... (or coffee grinders... or many of the other items we have purchased and flagrantly ignored the warning, "For Household Use Only," printed on the box!)

Cooking: The Christmas Ham

Our Christmas ham this year was our own. We raised it, slaughtered it, butchered it, cured it, and smoked it ourselves. But this post isn't about how this ham came to be preserved and flavored- it is about how it came to be consumed.

A couple years ago I saw a ham special by Alton Brown of "Good Eats" fame. He prepared what he referred to as a "country ham," which is a ham that is dry-cured then smoked. Country ham is drier and saltier than "city ham," which is wet-cured (brined, essentially). It requires special handling, or you get a stringy, dry, pork-jerky instead of a tasty, salty-sweet pork treat.

We soaked the ham for a couple days. Mr. Brown's suggestion of using a cooler with a drain plug was brilliant. That way you can change the water easily- just let the old water out and put new water in- No Lifting! We left the hock attached while soaking, while he suggested it be removed first. As far as I can tell, it didn't make a difference.

From that point you cook it like normal... oh, wait, no. Instead of just plopping it in a roaster pan (or in our case, our handy-dandy portable roaster oven- the same one we cooked down our maple syrup in), you plop it in a roaster pan with a bunch of Dr. Pepper! Alton's recipe called for a liter of soda, but our ham was big, so we got a 2-liter bottle. Sadly, even that was not enough to half-cover the ham as prescribed by the recipe. What to do? Well, Mr. Farmer is no slouch when it comes to food. He claims that he might even have a thing or two to teach Alton Brown. So, naturally, he came up with a solution: Why not cook a maple-cured ham in maple syrup? We still had a quart or so in the fridge, and another half-gallon unopened on the shelf from the last sugaring. The trees will start running again in just a few months, so we had more than enough on hand to splurge a bit on our Christmas ham. Two liters of Dr. Pepper and a quart or so of homemade maple syrup almost half-covered the bottom of the ham.

As you can probably guess, the ham was amazing. Would I be writing a blog post about it if it wasn't? Every time Mr. Farmer makes a ham (or bacon) I always say the same thing, "Wow, Honey, I think you really got the process down now. This is the best ham (or bacon) yet!" Somehow each one is still even better than the last. I can't wait for the next one!

(PS - I almost forgot - 400 degrees for half an hour, then 15 minutes per pound at 350 for the rest of the time. Cook the side dishes after it is out of the oven so that it can rest. Taa Daa.)

Cooking: Macaroni Salad Shortcut

Here's a common scenario for your consideration.

Telephone rings.

Friend/Neighbor:   Hey! What are you doing for dinner tonight?
Mrs. Farmer:   I dunno; just throwing something on the grill, I think. You?
Friend/Neighbor:  The same. Wanna do it together? At the lake?
Mrs. Farmer:  Sure. I have hot dogs. I don't have buns though.
Friend/Neighbor:  I have buns. I have cheese and crackers!
Mrs. Farmer:  I can make a salad. I have paper plates and Kool-Aid!
Friend/Neighbor:  I have ketchup and mustard. See you in a half hour?
Mrs. Farmer:  You bet!

In recent days it has become clear that this scenario is going to continue to play out again this summer, over and over, just as it has in years past. It is a blessing and a curse, all at the same time. Impromptu barbecues at the lake are a lot of fun. They are a relaxing way to get together with friends. The kids can eat quickly and then run off to enjoy a little fresh air (and NO video games!) with their buddies. There are no dishes to wash, except for the serving pieces. The only downsides are the sunburn, the bugs, and of course the rush to get a nice salad made in under an hour when the cooked pasta needs to chill.

I found a solution to the hot pasta issue that works just perfectly... a stainless steel mixing bowl. When I need a pasta or macaroni salad in a hurry, I cook the noodles, drain them, toss with a little oil, and place in a stainless steel bowl. Then I put the bowl into the freezer for a few minutes. The metal bowl transfers the cold so quickly, that I can usually have ice cold pasta in 15 minutes or so. I have found that I do need to stir/toss the macaroni a few times during the cooling, otherwise a few noodles on top freeze while the ones in the middle remain warm. I just leave the spoon in the bowl for ease.

Happy grilling season, everyone!

I was just barely able to make the bowl fit this time!

Hillbilly Ingenuity: Meat Grinder

When I wrote my essay on Getting Dirty, I forgot one of the key types of dirty jobs: the Dangerous ones. I was reminded of this the other day as I assisted Mr. Farmer in feeding piece after slimy piece of meat and fat into the meat grinder for Kielbasa and German Ring Bologna. The job was unpleasant in every way possible. We had to stand for hours in the walk-in fridge, which is kept slightly colder than your household refrigerator. The meat had to be taken out of many small bags, and the bags were dripping everywhere. Then the meat had to be cut up and fed into the grinder- without adding your fingers to the mix, of course. During the process I was reminded of just how impressive Mr. Farmer's grinder setup is.

Disassembled When Not in Use

The pre-fabricated part of the project started with the stand from a saw, and a hand-crank meat grinder. That particular grinder was chosen for its ability to be used with a motor. The motor, incidentally, was salvaged from a soft serve ice cream machine. He wired the motor into a switch on the side of the frame, and welded angle-iron supports on the bottom of the table to hold the motor. The top of the table was replaced with a piece of salvaged maple flooring, and a large notch was cut out of the wood to allow the fly-wheel to spin.

The main issue was, and remains, vibration. The motor turns the wheel on the grinder, which turns the gears and the auger. All this motion is hard on the frame. It had to be re-welded several times before a suitably strong arrangement was found. Occasionally during the grinding process, when a particularly large or partially frozen piece of meat was put in the hopper, Mr. Farmer would have to put his foot on the support brace. That was quite a feat of balance to observe. Still, if you make your sausage by the 25 pound batch, an electric meat grinder is something you wouldn't want to do without.

Gardening: Rock Walls

"...Something there is that doesn't love a wall, that wants it down..." -Robert Frost, Mending Wall

Every spring it's the same thing: walk around the yard, rebuild the rock walls. Snow and freezing cause the rocks to shift. Dogs and children can't resist walking on them. Plant roots pop up. Heavy rains wash them down. The cycle of rebuilding the many rock walls that surround our raised garden and flower beds is a never ending chore for which there is no technological solution that I can see.

"...The gaps I mean, no one has seen them made or heard them made, but at spring mending-time we find them there..." -Frost (Again)

The good news, however, is that where I live Mother Nature has provided an endless supply of material to build and rebuild with. Anyone in my vicinity who has tried to plant a lawn or install an above ground swimming pool will testify to the intrusion of what the locals call "Pocono Potatoes." These flat stones that magically grow up from the ground year after year make lovely stone walls, and they are usually a size that even I can manage. As usual, what most people consider a hindrance, I consider a blessing.

I will probably continue to blame the yearly near-destruction of my stone walls on my own failing as a mason. I will also, however, keep rebuilding the walls each year as long as I am able. It is good exercise for the body and mind, and maybe one day I will learn the secret to a sturdier wall. Either that or I will learn a lesson of acceptance of whatever it is "that doesn't love a wall, that wants it down."

My Bulb Garden, and Its Failing Wall

Hillbilly Ingenuity: Butcher Paper Dispenser

It's butchering and packing time again, and the question of how to package meat is one we often consider. We once used vacuum seal bags and a vacuum sealer, but found that to be time consuming and expensive. The cost was not worthwhile since we were consuming the meat far faster than the recommended shelf life, so the extra protection from freezer burn just wasn't necessary. Additionally, the wear and tear on my machine caused it to fail in a fairly short amount of time. Zipper bags are more economical and convenient, but not always strong enough or reliable enough of a seal. So we are currently experimenting with a double wrapping of plastic wrap and butcher paper.

The only problem with this method so far is convenience. Admittedly, the ability to write on the paper or tape directly is great. The two wraps are economical when purchased from a commercial supply house. The paper, however, is unwieldy, and heavy, and does not come with any kind of dispenser/cutter as the plastic wrap does. Our partner/neighbor/friend put together a device to help deal with that issue.

Meat Packing Station/My Dining Table

The structure is basically like a commercial paper dispenser. The box is made of scrap plywood. The roll is supported by a piece of concrete reinforcing metal bar. The cutter is a piece of 90 degree angled aluminum which was repurposed from the lid of a terrarium, held down by bungee cords. There is even room underneath for a box of plastic bags.

Cooking: Making Scrapple- The Dirty Work

Waste Not - Want Not.

In case you didn't know, Scrapple is a kind of sausage that includes "everything but the squeal". This combination of flour, corn meal, broth, seasonings, and offal (organ meat and other parts generally discarded) is somewhat of a local delicacy, but it's one I grew up with and have been missing over the past few years. The bad news is that it takes quite a bit of good, old-fashioned, hard work to make.

This past weekend I had the pleasure of being a part of that process. Many pig parts had been boiling in a large stock pot on the stove for nearly a whole day. Once they were cool enough to touch, they had to be separated. I pulled on a pair of black rubber gloves and just dug into the pot with my hands. I used a big stainless steel bowl to hold the bones. I separated the meat into a scrapple pan, and the fat, skin, cartilage, and small bones into another. It was slimy, drippy, messy, dirty work- and I had not had my morning tea yet.

My Low-Tech Meat-Separating Station

When I was finished, I bagged up the clean meat and the fat/grizzle.  The bones went into a warm oven to roast before the final smoking for the dogs (ours and our neighbors'). Maybe, if I'm lucky, I won't have to do that again. Ick. 

Hillbilly Ingenuity: New Hog Processing Equipment

REMINDER: "Processing" refers to everything that happens to the pig between its slaughter and being ready for cooking. Discretion is advised.

***

We really stepped up production on pigs this year. Instead of 3 or 4 for the whole season, we are acquiring hogs for breeding, for butchering, and for whole roasting. We have named some of the animals and even brought in partners to help keep things going physically and financially. Our little farm is turning into a real operation.

We are slaughtering and butchering 5 pigs this week, so a better setup was needed. The men put together a bigger, better processing rig that solves many of the issues of the previous arrangement. They started by lashing a large log to two tall trees in the side yard. This new beam is not only far higher than the old metal frame, but it is more secure and even more aesthetically pleasing, since it looks like just another tree when not in use. That makes me very happy.

Very Stealthy, No?

Ergonomically speaking, this system is way ahead of the last. The animals now hang at chest level for easy cleaning and gutting. The low-to-the-ground processing stone has been replaced by a normal height counter top that was salvaged from a kitchen refurbishment and built onto a useful stand. They even welded a barrel stand out of angle-iron that is at a far steeper angle for easier dipping.

Iron Stand for 55 Gallon Dipping Drum
Similar Stand in the Rear for Heating Water

The overall setup is really very impressive:

I'm Very Proud of Them

Hillbilly Ingenuity: Old Hog Processing Equipment

REMINDER: "Processing" refers to everything that happens to the pig between its slaughter and being ready for cooking. Discretion is advised.

***

For the past few years, we have been processing pigs (and the occasional deer) on a rig in the side yard. The main component was a heavy metal frame from an engine hoist. Mr. Farmer attached a series of pulleys to lift the animal into the air. To the chain or rope, he hung a piece of rebar, bent and sharpened to hang the beast by its ankles. Below the rig was a large, flat rock sitting on logs. The rock was plenty large enough to hold a full-grown hog, and easy to clean with a hose. A barrel of hot water was leaned up against the rock for dipping the animal or burlap sacks to aid in the removal of the hair.

The Old Setup
This is SO Last Year....

The system was not completely without issue. Larger or taller animals would sometimes graze the rock while hanging, so occasional repositioning was needed. The low level of the rock is very hard on the back, requiring constant bending and stretching during the hair removal. Worst of all the rig, while heavy, would occasionally tip if the animal was pulled (i.e. while skinning a deer) creating a dangerous situation and an inconvenient mess of an animal. Clearly there was room for improvement....

(To Be Continued Tomorrow)

Pigs: How to "Weigh" a Pig

Live pigs are hard to weigh. At 8 weeks old they weigh more than a bag of dog food. At 10-12 weeks old they weigh more than a bag of hog feed. After that, the idea of lifting them without heavy equipment is completely out of the question. Moreover, they are squirmy from the day they are born. And since pigs don't like to have their feet off the ground, they scream like banshees when picked up. All this makes routine weight checks by traditional methods hugely inconvenient.


Fortunately, farming is science, and science comes to our rescue once again. Some ingenious farmer at some point recognized a mathematical correlation between the size and weight of a pig. Apparently you can estimate with some accuracy the weight of pigs over 150 pounds by squaring their girth behind the shoulders, then multiplying by length from back of head to tail and dividing that product by 400.

(girth x girth x length) / 400 = weight in pounds

By this formula, a pig that is 40 inches in girth and 45 inches long would weigh about 180 pounds:

(40 x 40 x 45) / 400 = 180

If the pig is less than 150 pounds, you adjust the formula by adding 6 to your result.

(girth x girth x length) / 400  + 6 = weight in pounds

So, a slightly smaller pig, 35 inches in girth and 32 inches long would be 104 pounds:

(35 x 35 x 32) / 400 + 6 = 104

So there you go: your math and science lesson of the day. I hope I got the parentheses in the right places.

Now if only they were easier to catch...

Hillbilly Ingenuity: Cooking Maple Sap

The sap stopped running 2 days earlier than Mr. Farmer's March 15 end-of-the-season projection. By that time we had already started cooking the sap into sweet syrup. It is pretty amazing to think that there is anything other than water in that perfectly clear, barely sweet sap that runs out of the trees like water out of a faucet. For at least hundreds of years, however, people have been boiling or steaming off the water and rendering a delicious treat. The season is just a few short weeks; it takes 40-50 gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup. That syrup has to last my pancake-loving family a whole year, so I have had to turn down multiple offers from people who wished to buy some. Mr. Farmer says that next year we'll have to tap more trees so that we can share.


Once we had 10 gallons collected, I lost the use of my dining room side server for several weeks. It was occupied by our 18 quart roaster oven. This particular piece of equipment is extremely versatile. We have used it for everything from keeping beans and kraut warm at picnics to roasting a full sized turkey or ham. My mother bought it for Mr. Farmer years ago, and we take great joy and pride in finding new uses for it. This year we used it to slowly steam the water off the sap. The low and slow method assured us of not burning our precious syrup, and it worked like a charm.

Thanks, Mom!
You are now officially an enabler of my husband's eccentricity!
(Sap in the Cooker)

Each day we added a few gallons of sap to the large cooker. To simplify the straining process later, we ran the sap through a coffee filter. Basically we covered the bottom end of a large, clean, plastic funnel with a coffee filter, held it in place by hand, and poured the sap through the funnel. (Yes, our hands got sticky. We had to wash them before AND after.) When the syrup level went down by an inch, we added another gallon. And another. And another. And another. Overnight we turned the heat down and covered it, since we couldn't watch it while we slept.

The first few days were a little disappointing. The level kept going down, so we knew there was evaporation happening, but the liquid remained clear. Mr. Farmer hovered over that cooker like a newborn baby: checking the temperature, stirring, adding more sap, dipping out a jelly-jar's worth to check the color and viscosity, shining a flashlight to see if there was any burnt sugar or sediment on the bottom of the cooker, and of course tasting. Finally, after nearly a week of care and worry, the syrup started to turn golden brown and sweeter.

After some thought and discussion, we decided to just keep one big batch rather than trying to bottle repeatedly during the process. When the sap stopped running and syrup turned dark brown and deliciously sweet, Mr. Farmer started bottling. There was a bit of sediment at the bottom of the cooker. While I am certain that it was maple sugar and not any kind of contaminant, it doesn't make for pretty syrup, so we strained it. Mr. Farmer rigged a funnel with a clean cloth held tight by a rubber band and set it in the mouth of a clean, half-gallon mason jar. He poured the syrup through the cloth/funnel assembly and I put on the lid and ring.

Our yield was just under 2 gallons this year. Keeping in mind that this pure, homemade maple syrup is far thinner than your traditional store-bought, artificial colored and flavored syrup, I figure we have just enough to get us through the year without ever needing to buy any. It pours so fast that I imagine we will use more of it that you would use of corn-based syrup. Plus, it is a little less sweet, so the kids will likely use more on their pancakes and in their oatmeal than they would normally. How sweet it is!

Our First Finished Maple Syrup
March 2011

Hillbilly Ingenuity: Tapping Maple Trees

I got ahead of myself a bit when I put up my post about collecting maple sap. After all, I was both a little excited about the prospect of real maple syrup and also a little put out about getting my feet wet. So, when Mr. Farmer decided to put another tap in another tree, I followed him around with a camera to document the process.

First, he drilled a hole about 4 feet from the base of the tree. The slightly upward angle is important, and the hole should be slightly smaller in diameter than the tap, and slightly deeper.

Then he bangs the tap in with a hammer:

And it starts running almost immediately!

In this case he used a gallon sized mayonnaise jar from a friend who works at a deli to catch the sap.

After some fiddling, he found he could cut a hole in the side of the jar to hang it on the tap. Then he could just screw the lid back on to keep rainwater out!

So there you have it. This very low tech (but truly ingenious) tree tapping method has been used for centuries. The only thing that has changed is the hardware. The first taps were whittled of wood, and the first buckets were wood as well. We won't be cooking our sap into syrup using an open fire or fireplace, either, but that is a post for another day.....

Hillbilly Ingenuity: Collecting Maple Sap

I'm in my second pair of socks of the day, and it is only just after lunch. With a cup of tea in hand and a nice warm fire in the cast-iron wood stove, I am relaxing after the midday adventure. I took the day off from my paying job today, and the weather outside is mild compared to the crazy winter weather of the past few weeks. So, naturally, I agreed to join Mr. Farmer in his newest experiment - tapping maple trees for sap.

After the usual Surveying of The Realm, I followed Mr. Farmer to the first tree. He tapped it last week, while the weather was still below freezing. The process is pretty low-tech (surprise, surprise): you drill a hole in a tree, jam a tap into it, and hang a bucket from the tap to catch the sap that runs out when the weather first gets above freezing for the spring.  In this case, the tree is just to the side of the house, along the well-trodden path between our house and our neighbor's that the children use to go back and forth. The tap was purchased at the local feed store, and the bucket was a standard 5 gallon from a major hardware/home improvement store that you may have heard of.

Day After Tapping - Sap Frozen in the Tap

We collected a full gallon of clear, watery sap from that first tree. It is quickly proving to be our best producer. Using a clean, bleached gallon milk jug and a plastic funnel, we emptied the bucket into the jug and capped it off. I was extremely pleased, since a gallon in a day is very good, considering you need FIFTY gallons of sap to make a single gallon of syrup!

Then we moved on to the other trees. After stowing the full jug and picking up an empty one, I followed Mr. Farmer down the path several feet before he turned and said, "Uh, oh. You are going to go right down through the snow. I had better do these myself." I already had snow inside my muck shoes, and it was rapidly melting and soaking my socks. I chose to press on behind him. The second tree had a large, plastic coffee can collecting the sap, and it was nearly full. The third- adorned with an approximately gallon sized, bright green cracker tin- had a fair amount in it as well. Those two trees yeilded about a half gallon of sap- and some very chilly toes.

Mr. Farmer would rather eat his pancakes and waffles with butter alone than ever put artificially flavored "pancake syrup" to his lips. I'm a little less particular, but I am still very excited about the prospect of our own homemade maple syrup... even if it does mean I have to get my feet wet.

Cooking: Pickled Eggs and Beets Has Been Updated

See Referenced Post (now edited): HERE 

My father loves pickled eggs with beets. He has enjoyed them my whole life, and I have seen his eyes light up on many occasions when he was presented with a jar. So once I secured permission from my mother (apparently his current diet restrictions are for sugar, not cholesterol), I prepared a jar just for him at Thanksgiving.

Unfortunately, I have also observed my father storing his prized pickled eggs on top of the piano for months and months, not in the refrigerator. I have never encountered any recipe that states that they are shelf stable after opening, so I decided to take measures. To help protect my father's health (and quite frankly my reputation as a cook), I increased the amount of vinegar in the recipe. In fact, I doubled it. That particular batch had a 1/1 ratio of water and vinegar, which should help slow down bacteria growth. I also put the jar in my parents' refrigerator myself, rather than presenting the jar and giving him a choice of where to store it. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner, as always, and returned to our respective homes.

About a week later, I received a nearly unprecedented phone call. My father was not calling to give me some family news, but instead to tell me that he had just enjoyed the best pickled egg he had ever tasted! After what I estimate to probably be about 50 years of pickled egg tasting experience, I can safely consider him a connoisseur. Therefore, I am permanently altering my recipe to the 1/1 water/vinegar ratio that pleased my father so much.

Christmas Pickled Eggs
(Left: Beets & Right: Italian with Green Dye Added)

Hillbilly Ingenuity: Hooch

Moonshine. Corn Liquor. White Lightning. Hooch.

Whatever you want to call it, homemade distilled liquor is an Appalachian tradition nearly as old as Appalachians.

The process for making 'shine is a basic set of steps, with a few variations for strength and flavor. Corn, yeast and water are mixed together and encouraged to ferment, the "wash" (liquid result of the fermenting process) is distilled, and (optionally) flavors are added or the liquor is aged for flavor. Of course the production of liquor is regulated everywhere you go, and downright illegal without licences and so on in other places. Mr. Farmer has some ideas about the process, however, that some might find interesting.

Sugar feeds the fermentation process. It is literally the food that yeast consumes, causing it to grow, reproduce, and die: letting off the carbon dioxide that is the fermentation process. Adding white or brown sugar to the corn will speed up this process. So will malting (partially sprouting) the corn, or adding molasses. Any combination of the changes to the sugar content would change the fermentation times and also the flavor of the end product.

Smoking corn just after malting would add another facet to the flavor of the end product as well. It would be a lot more subtle than aging in a charred barrel, of course, but the green (unaged) product would have just a hint of woody flavor, without actual contact with wood.

With some copper pipe, gauges, and a heat source, building a homemade still would be easy for anyone who is handy with plumbing (I made one myself in freshman chemistry in high school for crying out loud). I guess that's why they had so much trouble keeping those moonshiners under control during Prohibition...

Hillbilly Ingenuity: The Barter System

The barter system is not new. Trade has always been trade: the exchange of something of value for something else of equal value. This thing called "cash" is convenient for those who have it, and certainly simplifies things when you start talking about international trade or even a trip to the grocery store. Between neighbors, craftsmen, and specialty folk in general, however, the barter system still makes a lot of sense- especially when you have more of something than you need- and so does your neighbor.

The Rules

Value is in the eye of the buyer- and the seller. What impacts value? If you are trading food items for food items, you are on fairly level ground: One meal's worth of venison is worth one meal's worth of pork, if both of you have only one or the other. The same is true of vegetables for vegetables (if your neighbors happen to be badly off enough to need something in trade for vegetables, which is sad), and even milk/eggs/other unprocessed goods for cheese/bread/other processed goods. Things start to get interesting when you are trading skills or equipment for food. That's when you have to remember...

Be generous- what goes around comes around. What is the value of a large, walk-in refrigerator? Ask the hunter/butcher who does not have one, and must field dress, haul home, and immediately butcher and pack a large animal in the kitchen immediately after spending many hours in the freezing cold to track said animal. He would surely rather let it hang and age (ask any butcher how important this is to flavor), and come back in a day or two, well rested, and complete the job instead. If this same hunter lives off the land primarily, then the value of his neighbor's meat grinder and pork scraps for sausage so he doesn't have to hear "Chili, AGAIN!?!?!" from the kids is high value as well. So, in these cases, it isn't that he could not feed his family without the barter, but he couldn't feed them as well. Therefore, he not going to compensate the owner of the equipment with an equal amount of venison for the pork he used in his sausage, or a single meal worth of venison for use of the fridge: he is going to give several meals worth of meat, and have the family over for a big dinner near the holidays.

Give it away if you can spare it- this is called "marketing" in the real world. How about an example this time? While visiting his brother the other day, Mr. Farmer chatted with another Stealth-Farming neighbor of his brother's who happened to be a bee-keeper. He had just finished a run of 60 pounds of honey, so naturally when Mr. Farmer mentioned that I LOVE honey, he was given a little half-pint to take home to me, along with the information that $3 will get us a whole pound of it. Naturally, this is the darkest, most amazing smelling honey I have ever seen, and it is cheaper than the grocery store's personality-free honey. This automatically makes it worth buying when honey is usually something I consider as a "treat" not a "staple" like white & brown sugar or molasses. So I'm hooked. There is a customer for life gained for the sake of a 50 cent mason jar and a quarter cup of honey.

More Examples

• The use of our butcher knife set has resulted in us receiving the best cut of a lovely deer.
• The payment for smoking a dozen salmon fillets was 6 fillets.
• A summer of bringing the homemade pickles to BBQ's and parties was repaid in the fall with a full meal of lamb, potatoes and corn (when a very large roast was found in the back of the freezer by our friend up the road).
• Smoking a single turkey (gratis) for a friend of ours whose wife loves smoked turkey has resulted in not one, but TWO job offers this month to smoke chickens and turkeys for specialty meat markets.

The return of this old-timey way of doing things has saved me a lot of cash, and formed a lot of bonds with neighbors and friends. It also reinforced some friendships that were getting a little tense. We have a variety of food, plenty of diversion, and some of the best local goods available thanks to our willingness to trade. Life is good!