Tragedy
Boy am I dragging this morning.
Started brewing up the first batch last night, and ended up having to boil some extra water out of the maple syrup. Woe. Woe is me.
I misread the scale on my hydrometer, so instead adding enough water to hit the targetted 1.12, I was at 1.02. I had to siphon off 2 gallons of the mix, and add another gallon of syrup (thanks ^T for getting me 2!), and got close to the number (hit 1.11).
So, here I had 2 gallons of brown water. The only pot I have big enough for 2 gallons is a 10 gallon behemoth I make chili in. On our stove, you almost can’t boil water in it, it’s so big. We dumped the water in it, put it on 2 burners, and let it heat.
And heat
And heat
And heat
3 hours later, it was boiled down enough to fit into a normal sized pot, so I transferred it over, and got some actual boiling action. Another hour in that pot, and finally, I had a quart of syrup.
And a house that smelled vaguely like a sugarbush, and felt like a tropical rainforest.
The liquid in the carboy is slowly turning into a black and tan, only it has 3 layers. The layer on the top is about 2” of almost white foam. Below that is a layer of dark tan, and the rest is the rich brown color of the original must. The water trap is trapping. The yeast is growing. All systems are a go. In about 2 weeks, I should have some sort of mapley alcohol.