As the coals smoldered and the sweet maple vapor boiled away, my urge to get creative with what the land of early spring had to offer was mulling about my mind... before I could create a new offering I decided it was a good time to sample through what remained in the cellar fermentory.
Cumberland Blend 2023
(bright acid, funky straw, apple skin and tannic bite)
Cumberland Blend 2024
(softy evolving fruit with restrained acidity and a lingering earthy funk)
I tasted these with thoughts of a possible co-ferment with Maple Sap but was happy to see where both these ciders were sitting. After a thorough batonnage of each, a process where the settled lees are restirred back into the cider I rested them back in their homes for further contemplation.
A fresh start on a maple wine was decided and with a blood moon eclipse happening this week and about 15-20 gallons of sap to play with I decided to start foraging for options. After another mast year of acorns freshly plumped up by the melting snowpack, I decided to utilize them in their abundance. Acorns are a well known source of nutrition by New England foragers and a great way to add tannins to a fermented elixir. Typically someone consuming acorns will soak them for days to leach the heavily tannic compounds from them in order to grind them into flour to use in breads, porridges among various other traditional foods that go back historically to the Native Americans.
I took inspiration from these methods but chose to only soak them for 12-15hrs changing the cold water bath every hour and giving the acorn tea a taste as I observed the tannin levels slowly decrease, but wanted to keep some to utilize it in this batch of Maple Wine.
In order to leach the tannins first you must break the hard shell of the acorns, a simple mallet and towel worked just fine for the small amount I was using. From there I just soaked them in some cold water. Ever hour or so I would take a little taste of the water, strain rinse and resoak over and over till the levels were in a place I thought comfortable for the wine I was trying to construct.
From there I gave them a quick toast over the fire and then filled up a mesh bag with a quart of leached acorns, a handful of overwintered lavender and lemon thyme from the garden along with a handful of tangerine peels and some hemlock tips.
With my drybag packed with flavors and tannins from the landscape I proceeded to boil the bumper sap from the coming moon phase down from 15-20 gallons to a 5 gallon base of sugary sap. In addition to the maple sap, I also took a frame of honey from our beehive and scrapped it into a stock pot where I strained out a majority of the beeswax and added about 2-3lbs of honey from our bees.
As night fell and the bright moon phased through its eclipse, I let the moon juice inoculate overnight in the open air with the bag of adjunct soaking like a tea bag for 12hours.
(photo taken from depositphoto royalty free images)
As daylight broke the sugary maple moon juice was ready to go and ferment in the cellar!
Reflecting on its place in time, in the midst of the trees it was harvested from, gaining character from its rocky granite soil, deep rooted history of its place on earth and with the characteristics of this seasons natural cycles. We will patiently observe as it evolves and expresses the terroir of our humble homestead.
Into a 6 gallon glass carboy it goes as I strained it through a wire mesh colander.
Capped the carboy with a airlock and brought down to the cellar. Then topped off later that evening with a gallon blend of fresh syrup and maple sap and more salvaged homestead honey to fill the headspace.
From there it was off, bubbling away, fermenting those sugars within 24 hours, as the wild airborn yeast from our homestead starts the evolution of our next wine.
With the buds barely breaking and plenty of syrup in our reserves, I used the leftover sap to soak our shiitake mushroom logs to assure that none of our precious maple sap goes to waste!
With the buckets cleaned, the spigots sanitized and seedlings ready to sprout it was time to call Maple Sap Season 2025 a wrap!
Final haul for this season was around 7875ml or 2.08 Gallons.
Not including the Maple Wine or the refilling of the half bottle in our fridge currently.
All corked and ready for the cellar, gifting and trading.
With weekly snow squalls, balanced by the occasional 60 degree sunny afternoons, the crocuses and daffodils are showing themselves as well as the tulips and iris'.
Speaking of showing themselves, the Localrootz family made it into Portland to kick off April with a stellar performance by Bella White @ One Longfellow Square!
Another great performance and extra special to be able to attend with not only my lovely wife but our music loving 8yr Hazel, who pushed us to get there early to be front and center for an inspiring show!
Our happy lil patch of Katherine Hodgkin Irises have bloomed too!
So long March, hello April... though April showers have continued to be filled with more snow squalls and windshield scraping then we had hoped for... but the seeds are sown in our cellar and perennial pruning and garden tool organizing has been in full effect.
Spring optimism blows through the winter doldrums...and I for one am here to embrace it!
