Bottling is the moment of truth – when clear glass bottles offer the first glimpse of the true quality of the syrup. Saturday was our first bottling day – we had over a gallon of syrup in our stock pot! The final step to ensure clear, pure syrup is to filter it to get out all the last impurities. Before the finishing step, we used a coarse filter to remove any bits of bark or other woodland goodies. But as the water boiled away, minerals and nutrients in the sap concentrated to produce “sugar sand,” which feels just like real sand – which is to say, it turns your morning pancakes into sandpaper that grinds against your teeth if you don’t get it out of your syrup.
Just before we ladled the syrup into the bottles, we poured it through a fine pre-filter (like a coffee filter) to strain out most of the impurities. Finally, we poured the syrup through a cone-shaped Orlon (a felt-like fabric) filter, which looks a little like a big diaper. How well does it filter out the sugar sand? Eh, it Depends.
To make sure the caps sealed properly, we soaked them in hot water to soften the seals while we reheated syrup to 200 degrees. Then we ladled the hot syrup into clean bottles and twisted the plastic caps on. The result? Fifteen 12-oz. bottles of the lightest, clearest syrup we’ve ever bottled – liquid gold!