Dear Gilles,
We made it to your dad's place. It was a nice easy drive up Highway 11.
It's spring in Northern Ontario. Which means that it's maple syrup time.
Glenna knows the family who produce many barrels of syrup every year and they were kind enough to give us a private tour of the facilities and educate us on the finer details of syrup.
I learned a few new facts:
A) Maple syrup is 40:1 ratio of water to sugar; birch is 100:1
B) There are reverse osmosis filters you can use to remove 80% of the water from the sap before it goes in the evaporator.
C) Once the syrup is ready for packaging, it is put through a filter press to remove mineral sands - which are a waste product. We tasted them - they look like a creamy sugar - and the first taste is yum, but then a horrible after taste with very fine particles of grit.
D) Maple syrup has a large number of good vitamins and minerals - six of which are only found in syrup.
E) We will be bringing maple syrup to our home table in a more prominent way in the future.
Watch the 37 minute video in this link: Seguin Sugarbush
It's the same tour we had, with better visual perspective.
Then it SNOWED. Snow accumulated and heavy winds blew it all around. It was nice to be back and secure at the house.
Card games after dinner. The boys taught the folks Beat the Sweed, and the folks taught the boys Spades, while I read a book.
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