Rocky Patel – Sun Grown Maduro Toro Review

I have been wanting to try this cigar for quite some time now. It has been in my humidor staring back at me for the past six months, but the time was never right and it had not aged long enough. I like my cigars to sit at least for a little while after my purchase. It's not that I am a snob, but I know my humidity is correct and win a cigar sits for at least six months under my protection I know it is going to be prime condition for smoking. It was time for this cigar to show me what it was made of. A long box pressed style cigar of dark but very smooth covered…

Read More

2018 Maple Sugaring Season is Complete

... at least for me it is!  I've officially run out of bottles and I'm tired of spending all weekend and many nights boiling.  Right now my largest bottle neck is the speed in which I can boil - and at 2 GPH isn't very fast.   In the end I made roughly 6 gallons of Maple Syrup, already giving many pints away, I find myself with 19 Pins and 38 Half Pints and a few jars of Maple Sugar! I posted a bit more detailed information on the yearly production log:   https://carterbrown.com/maple-sugaring/yearly-maple-syrup-production-log/ Here is a photo from last night's final boil and haul As you can see, there are some new custom labels also!   Custom done and purchased…

Read More

Video on Maple Sugar Production in the 1920s

The video is an old archive video found on youtube, while it covers sugar cane and sugar beet production, the Maple Syrup production was of the most interest to me. Starts at the 10 minute mark.  Mute the volume as the music was added by the uploader and is, well, downright awful.

Read More

Last boil of the season – by choice

Boiling the last batch of dark syrup today.  Should produce almost a gallon of finished syrup when done.  The season looks like it could continue to go on for another week or two, but I'm out of bottles and have more syrup than I expected. I'm going to finish with 6 gallons of maple syrup.  That is plenty for myself, fair submissions, making into sugar, gift baskets, etc.  Heck, I should have more than enough for all that.  Maybe I can even put a couple up for sale to then purchase more supplies for next year.  Who knows.  

Read More

Just Keep Boiling…

Gathered an unbelievable 40+ gallons of sap yesterday at 1.5% sugar content.  More than a gallon per bucket.  I literally ran out of room to process my sap.  Both of my 15 gallon concentrate containers were full.  It was late enough that I couldn't start and finish a batch, knew I would probably get more sap the next day.  Something needed to be done. I decided to "sweeten the pan" in maple lingo.  So I somehow fit all 15 gallons of sap concentrate into my pan and sap warmer pan (it was full, I'd say that's the most you can do and still technically boil), and just boiled that down to roughly 5 gallons and stowed it away. I then…

Read More

To Throw or Not Throw Out The Ice

You're always told by the old timers to just throw out the ice the forms in your sap buckets that you usually find during a cold morning's collection. Yet it never fails, someone asks if that's a good idea and you just parrot what you heard... But is it true? I decided to find out once and for all so I can say with a certainty which it is. So this morning as I went around to collect my sap, I had a second bucket that I was going to put the ice into, let melt and take a sugar reading. I let the ice melt and took a reading... 0% sugar So now I can say for certainty, just…

Read More
2018 CarterBrown.com | An Adventure and Hobby Blog
×
Close