It's Maple time!

So we tapped our trees and are now in the process of making our own maple syrup.
It's a weird year but the sap is flowing.

Last year we boiled our sap over an open fire, we boiled 120 gallons of sap and ended up with 3 gallons of syrup... it took forever!

So this year we decided to build an evaporator, I went to the dump to look for materials, here's what I came up with.

I found an old metal two drawer file cabinet (the doors were missing) and a piece of old chimney pipe, probably from an a hot water heater or something...

Anyway the build took almost ten minutes, I placed my boiling pan on top and traced the pan, then cut a hole so the pan fits snuggly, then I had my four year old (Zoe) trace the circle for the chimney.

I drilled a couple starter holes, then took my jig saw with a metal cutting blade and cut the shapes out. Then I forced the chimney into the hole and dropped in the pan.

The results were great and a ton more efficient than boiling over an open fire.
The cost of maple syrup for us this year (Because we already had the boiling pans and tapping supplies) Is Zero... just our time!

Let us know what you think!