All About Pocket Knives

Some here know of the Maple Syrup themed knife SFO I had made last year. I thought I would share my family's hobby, to show where the knife theme inspiration came from.

Here is a photo of the knife.

We tapped trees last Saturday and Sunday, gathered sap Monday, and gathered again Tuesday and boiled it all down yesterday. We ended up with almost 500 buckets hung this year, and collected 1000 gallons of sap so far in 2 days. My wife lit the evaporator at noon yesterday, and we finally let the fire go out around midnight. We didn't have much help this year for gathering, dad drove the tractor, and I got the lucky job of dumping all 500 buckets.

If the weather forecast holds true, we'll be doing it all again Saturday and Sunday. I'm hoping some of the local friends and family stop by to help carry buckets.

Here are some photos of us tapping trees. Myself, my dad, my sister, my daughter, (my wife was taking the pictures), and my daughter's friend.

There wasn't a lot of stopping during gathering sap. Here are the only 2 pictures I have. My dad driving the tractor, with my daughter and my nephew in the wagon. And then later on, my sister and nephew in the wagon.

Once back at the Sugar House, the sap was pumped in. My wife cooked it down while we went back out for more sap. Here are some photos of the evaporator and the syrup cooking. And a few shots of the building, and our wood pile.

Once the rush of the gathering/boiling season is past (approximately 2 weeks), we will reheat and filter the syrup, and then it is ready to be jugged up. I'll post more photos later on as the season progresses.

Great pictures, Carl, of your family and the process you all use to produce,
what I consider one of the greatest substances of all time, Maple Syrup.

I'm going to meet a pal tomorrow and have a show and tell at a coffee shop and I'm bringing the maple syrup for the coffee.

FRJ wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 5:48 pm Great pictures, Carl, of your family and the process you all use to produce,
what I consider one of the greatest substances of all time, Maple Syrup.

I'm going to meet a pal tomorrow and have a show and tell at a coffee shop and I'm bringing the maple syrup for the coffee.

Good deal! I've heard that Thomas Jefferson considered American Maple Syrup the next big gold-rush, as there was no real good sweeteners available at that time. He had grand ideas of planting sugar maple groves all over the east coast. But in the end it proved easier and cheaper to use sugar cane, than maple trees.

Rookie wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 5:53 pm But in the end it proved easier and cheaper to use sugar cane, than maple trees.

How unfortunate to miss out on that maple syrup, certainly appears there is a lot of work to it though.

Is that your dad beside you carl? Havent seen him in about 10 years, since he took down a huge(65" BDH)maple in my front yard on Ellis rd. Ya know when I was cutting the but log I ran my saw into an old maple tap which was never removed, it was 85 years into that trunk. ruined a brand new 24" chain.
we used to help out several sugar bushes when we were kids, couple used teams for gathering. Got paid in syrup. loved drizzling fresh syrup over a bowl of snow Yep, hard work till everyone began stringing plastic lines and using gas and removing the water before boiliing. The old way is the best. I think the sugar bush tour is in 2 weeks.
Id come down and help but laid up with some more eye problems, cant lift.

THanks for posting - enjoy seeing what goes into making maple syrup that we all enjoy (real deal is sooooo much better than the store bought). Don't see the syrup fair in the pocono's like we used to ... always enjoyed that when I was a kid.

robpa wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 7:38 pm Is that your dad beside you carl? Havent seen him in about 10 years, since he took down a huge(65" BDH)maple in my front yard on Ellis rd. Ya know when I was cutting the but log I ran my saw into an old maple tap which was never removed, it was 85 years into that trunk. ruined a brand new 24" chain.
we used to help out several sugar bushes when we were kids, couple used teams for gathering. Got paid in syrup. loved drizzling fresh syrup over a bowl of snow Yep, hard work till everyone began stringing plastic lines and using gas and removing the water before boiliing. The old way is the best. I think the sugar bush tour is in 2 weeks.
Id come down and help but laid up with some more eye problems, cant lift.

Yep, that's Dad next to me. We have some pictures of the old timer relatives pulling a sap tank on a rock sled with a team of horses. Our woods is spread across a few different landowners, so we can't do any tubing (plus it is expensive to buy all that). So we still do it the old fashioned way with buckets. We also only use Sugar Maples, not Red Maples, and also don't use RO. It does help speed up the boiling time, but a lot of folks think it changes the taste a bit. We've got a lot of compliments from people who say our flavor is top notch compared to some store bought pure maple syrup.

Lansky1 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 8:02 pm THanks for posting - enjoy seeing what goes into making maple syrup that we all enjoy (real deal is sooooo much better than the store bought). Don't see the syrup fair in the pocono's like we used to ... always enjoyed that when I was a kid.

Thanks Lansky! yeah around our area too, a lot of guys are getting out of the business of making syrup. It's not cheap or easy. The only reason I am able to make it is that I'm the 5th generation in my family to do it, and so we have a lot of hand-me-down equipment from prior generations that help offset the expenses. For a new guy who wants to jump it, it's easy to spend $10,000 to get started, and $50,000 to go big time. We keep things small and family oriented.

Rookie wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 5:26 pm Once the rush of the gathering/boiling season is past (approximately 2 weeks), we will reheat and filter the syrup, and then it is ready to be jugged up. I'll post more photos later on as the season progresses.

Carl, is anything added to the sap/syrup or is it just boiled down sap?

edge213 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 8:41 pm

Rookie wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 5:26 pm Once the rush of the gathering/boiling season is past (approximately 2 weeks), we will reheat and filter the syrup, and then it is ready to be jugged up. I'll post more photos later on as the season progresses.

Carl, is anything added to the sap/syrup or is it just boiled down sap?

Just boiled maple sap, nothing else added. During filtering, we use food grade diatomaceous earth powder to help the impurities clot, and get caught in the membrane filters. But the DE is also caught by the filters, so just pure maple syrup comes out the other side. Technically our syrup could be considered "organic", but we don't quality because some of the trees were planted by my great-grandfather. Apparently for maple syrup to be fully organic, the trees that the sap is harvested from must have been naturally woods grown and planted by natural processes. If a squirrel plants a tree it is organic, but if my grandpa planted a sapling at that same spot, it's non-organic.

hahaha the FDA sure have some funny laws.

Hey, dont I remember something about pork fat or butter being dropped in the boil???

I think every sugar bush makes a little bit different syrup finish. some a bit smoky, darker, lighter, etcetera. Theyb are all pretty darn good.

Carl, ever eat at The riverside? The Howles who own it have a large syrup operation in guys Mills and they incorporate maple syrup in everything they serve at the Riverside. recently had a pizza with a hint of maple and a bowl of the cheddar beer maple soup with bacon and crispped jalapenos!! mmmm good. The maple ketchup is a really good dipping sauce too.

OK, its gonna be pancakes a maple syrup in AM.

robpa wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 9:26 pm Hey, dont I remember something about pork fat or butter being dropped in the boil???

I think every sugar bush makes a little bit different syrup finish. some a bit smoky, darker, lighter, etcetera. Theyb are all pretty darn good.

Carl, ever eat at The riverside? The Howles who own it have a large syrup operation in guys Mills and they incorporate maple syrup in everything they serve at the Riverside. recently had a pizza with a hint of maple and a bowl of the cheddar beer maple soup with bacon and crispped jalapenos!! mmmm good. The maple ketchup is a really good dipping sauce too.

OK, its gonna be pancakes a maple syrup in AM.

Yeah Rob the old timers used to hang a piece of pork fat from the ceiling on a piece of rope at just the right height, and when the foaming sap pan would foam high enough, it would touch the fat and instantly de-foam to keep it from boiling over the top! Pretty ingenious, but it did add a slightly different taste to the syrup.

My grandpa used to dump a dozen eggs into the sap to get maple flavored hard-boiled eggs. We had to put an end to that when the eggs would crack and you would have to clean a bunch of eggwhites out of the pan.

Yeah, been to the Riverside a few times. Very good food.

Very cool thread!! I enjoyed reading and learning about this!! Too cool!! Thank you!!

Rookie wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 5:23 pm I thought I would share my family's hobby

Imo, this is one of the best posts and set of pictures that I have seen since I have been a member of AAPK. You are a very fortunate man to have those family bonds around what you call your hobby. Thank you for posting.

Rookie wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 5:23 pm Some here know of the Maple Syrup themed knife SFO I had made last year.

Indeed I do, and reading this thread has given me an even deeper level of appreciation for the one I was fortunate enough to get: ol' #17.

Love this knife; love learning about your multi-generational family business and seeing all the photos. Very enjoyable! Thank you, Carl.

PS--I was hoping the Syrup Maker Special SFO would be an annual tradition like the AAPK club knife, with different patterns being released every year

woodwalker wrote: ↑Thu Feb 29, 2024 12:25 am Very cool thread!! I enjoyed reading and learning about this!! Too cool!! Thank you!!

Thanks! I consider my maple syrup hobby almost as strong as my pocketknife collecting hobby

Waukonda wrote: ↑Thu Feb 29, 2024 12:27 am Imo, this is one of the best posts and set of pictures that I have seen since I have been a member of AAPK. You are a very fortunate man to have those family bonds around what you call your hobby. Thank you for posting.

I'm glad you enjoyed it so far. I'll post more photos along the way as we get more made. I'm the 5th generation in my family to make maple syrup (that we know of). It's likely that all the old time farmers way back when made some syrup for their families, as it was the only way for poor country farmers to have sweetener. Winter and early spring is a slow time for farmers so everyone around this part of the country would tap the maple trees on their farms, gather the sap, and cook it down all the way until it hardened completely. They didn't care about maple syrup, they wanted maple sugar. They would take the hard cakes of maple sugar, and smash them up into a fine granulated sugar consistency, and keep it to use all year long. In the mid 1800's my relatives would make 20 gallons of syrup per year for just themselves, keeping about 3 gallons of it in syrup form, and the rest was all turned into sugar.

QTCut5 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 29, 2024 12:55 am Indeed I do, and reading this thread has given me an even deeper level of appreciation for the one I was fortunate enough to get: ol' #17.

Love this knife; love learning about your multi-generational family business and seeing all the photos. Very enjoyable! Thank you, Carl.

PS--I was hoping the Syrup Maker Special SFO would be an annual tradition like the AAPK club knife, with different patterns being released every year

I'm glad you are enjoying the knife QT! I have some plans brewing for another maple themed knife. Probably not for 2024, but maybe 2025. I want to keep them special and unique, and be sure they have some meaning to me and my family. I want to find another old historic pattern from 19th century US or England, and recreate it for my next one. Something that really catches the eye, and has that old-world feel and look to it.

A little update for our maple syrup season. Yesterday was rainy and cold, but we went out and gathered sap from all the buckets. I was fortunate to have some family and friends available to help out, and many hands make light work. We did the entire woods in about 4 hours.

One of our giant maple trees blew over during the night, and fell across the trail. We had to cut it into chunks, and drag it away with the tractor.

Here are some photos of us dumping sap into the sap wagon. It's nice having another generation coming along who enjoy getting out into the woods and getting dirty.

When it rains all night, it doesn't matter where you go, it's muddy!

Back at the Sugar House on Sunday, my wife, my dad, and myself lit the fire and boiled the sap until it was gone. I grab wood from the big pile outside and throw it in close to the evaporator. My wife loads the evaporator, approximately every 5 minutes non-stop until the sap is gone.

You can see how thick the steam is looking across the flue pan.

And here is a shot of my wife checking the syrup hydrometer to see if the syrup is getting close.

About once per hour, we need to rake all the coals out because they build up and block the draft. We pull them out, and then shovel them out to our ash pile outside.

A few pictures from today while boiling sap.

I had to take a new photo of my Maple Syrup SFO knife I had made, always in my pocket during syrup season.