In clarifying, I use for 50 lbs. of sugar one pint of skimmed milk, put into the syrup when cold, and place it over a moderate fire until it rises, which should occupy thirty or forty minutes; then skim and boil until it will grain; after which I put it into a tub, and turn on a little cold water, and in a few days the molasses will drain out, and leave the sugar dry, light, and white.
Mr. E.W. Clark, of Oswego, furnishes the following:—
On Fining Maple Sugar.—The sweet obtained from the maple tree is undoubtedly the purest known; but from mismanagement in the manufacture it frequently becomes very impure. Its value is lessened, while the expense of making it increases. I am sensible that the method which I shall recommend is not altogether a new one, and that it is more by attending to some apparently minute and trivial circumstances, than to any new plan, that my sugar is so good. Much has been written upon, and many useful improvements been made in, that part of the process which relates to tapping the trees, and gathering and evaporating the sap, &c.; but still, if the final operation is not understood, there will be a deficiency in the quality of the sugar. I shall confine myself to that part of the operation which relates to reducing the syrup to sugar, as it is of the first importance. My process is this:—When the syrup is reduced to the consistence of West India molasses, I set it away till it is perfectly cold, and then mix with it the clarifying matter, which is milk or eggs. I prefer eggs to milk, because when heated the whole of it curdles; whereas milk produces only a small portion of curd. The eggs should be thoroughly beaten and effectually mixed with the syrup while cold. The syrup should then be heated till just before it would boil, when the curd rises, bringing with it every impurity, even the coloring matter, or a great portion of that which it had received from the smoke, kettles, buckets, or reservoirs. The boiling should be checked, and the scum carefully removed, when the syrup should be slowly turned into a thick woollen strainer, and left to run through at leisure. I would remark, that a great proportion of the sugar that is made in our country is not strained after cleansing. This is an error. If examined in a wine-glass, innumerable minute and almost imperceptible particles of curd will be seen floating in it, which, if not removed, render it liable to burn, and otherwise injure the taste and color of it.
A flannel strainer does this much better than a linen one. It is, indeed, indispensable. As to the quantity of eggs necessary, one pint to a pailful of syrup is amply sufficient, and half as much will do very well. I now put my syrup into another kettle, which has been made perfectly clean and bright, when it is placed over a quick but solid fire, and soon rises, but is kept from overflowing by being ladled with a long dipper. When it is sufficiently reduced, (I ascertain this by dropping it from the point of a knife, while hot, into one inch of cold water—if done, it will not immediately mix with the water, but lies at the bottom in a round flat drop,) it is taken from the fire, and the foaming allowed to subside. A thick white scum, which is useable, is removed, and the sugar turned into a cask, placed on an inclined platform, and left undisturbed for six weeks or longer, when it should be tapped in the bottom and the molasses drawn off. It will drain perfectly dry in a few days.
The sugar made in this manner is very nearly as white as lump sugar, and beautifully grained. We have always sold ours at the highest price of Muscovadoes; and even when these sugars have sold at eighteen cents, ours found a ready market at twenty. Two hands will sugar off 250 lbs. in a day. From the scum taken off in cleansing, I usually make, by diluting and recleansing, one-sixth as much as I had at first, and of an equal quality.
It is not of much consequence as regards the quality of the sugar, whether care be taken to keep the sap clean or not. The points in which the greatest error is committed, are, neglecting to use a flannel strainer, or to strain after cleansing—to have the sugar kettle properly cleaned—and to remove the white scum from the sugar.
An important process of manufacturing maple sugar, which produces a most beautiful article, is also thus described in a communication by the gentleman who gained the first premium at the State Fair at Rochester in 1843, to the Committee on Maple Sugar of the New York State Agricultural Society.
In the first place, I make my buckets, tubs, and kettles all perfectly clean. I boil the sap in a potash kettle, set in an arch in such a manner that the edge of the kettle is defended all around from the fire. I boil through the day, taking care not to have anything in the kettle that will give color to the sap, and to keep it well skimmed. At night I leave fire enough under the kettle to boil the sap nearly or quite to syrup by the next morning. I then take it out of the kettle, and strain it through a flannel cloth into a tub, if it is sweet enough; if not, I put it in a cauldron kettle, which I have hung on a pole in such a manner that I can swing it on or off the fire at pleasure, and boil it till it is sweet enough, and then strain it into the tub, and let it stand till the next morning. I then take it and the syrup in the kettle, and put it altogether into the cauldron, and sugar it off. I use, to clarify say 100 lbs. of sugar, the whites of five or six eggs well beaten, about one quart of new milk, and a spoonful of saleratus, all we'll mixed with the syrup before it is scalding hot. I then make a moderate fire directly under the cauldron, until the scum is all raised; then skim it off clean, taking care not to let it boil so as to rise in the kettle before I have done skimming it. I then sugar it off, leaving it so damp that it will drain a little. I let it remain in the kettle until it is well granulated. I then put it into boxes made smallest at the bottom, that will hold from fifty to seventy lbs., having a thin piece of board fitted in, two or three inches above the bottom, which is bored full of small holes, to let the molasses drain through, which I keep drawn off by a tap through the bottom. I put on the top of the sugar, in the box, a clean damp cloth; and over that, a board, well fitted in, so as to exclude the air from the sugar. After it has done draining, or nearly so, I dissolve it, and sugar it off again; going through with the same process in clarifying and draining as before.
The following remarks from Dr. Jackson, of Boston, may be of interest to the sections of the country where maple sugar is made:—
The northern parts of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York, have dense forests of the sugar maple, and at present only very rude processes are made use of in preparing the sugar for market, so that it is too generally acid and deliquescent, besides being charged with salts of the oxide of iron, insomuch that it ordinarily strikes a black color with tea. To remedy these difficulties was the object of my researches; while, at the same time, I was engaged in ascertaining the true composition of the sap, with a view to the theory of vegetable nutrition.