Science vs. Emotion – samfirke.com

Hot Take: Aluminum Pots Are Fine For Making Maple Syrup

I have a 6 gallon aluminum pot that I wired an electrical heating element into. It appears in my first post on this blog, Homebrewing on a Potbelly Stove in 2015. I’ve used it with success to boil maple sap into syrup.

This year I went to lend it to a friend for syrup making and they expressed concern that the aluminum pot might contribute off-flavors to the final product. A quick search confirmed that indeed, this belief is widespread in maple syrup-making posts online – they say an aluminum pot is inadvisable due to the syrup’s acidity.

As a longtime beer brewer, this claim seemed questionable. Citation needed! Off I plunged into a rabbit hole. In short, here’s why I don’t think this risk can be real:

Ride Your Bike In Traffic and Live Longer

Summary: Your life expectancy is higher if you get in traffic on a bike instead of in a car. Biking alongside cars might seem dangerous – and this misconception may deter potential cyclists or lead them to risky behavior like riding on the sidewalk – but the health benefits greatly exceed the dangers of crashes and other risks.

Updated May 2024 to address link rot. This post now links to archived copies of an article by The Ann Magazine (whose website is gone, RIP) and a PDF about biking on the sidewalk.

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Last week, The Ann (an Ann Arbor magazine) showcased a story by a local NPR station about bikes and cars co-existing on the road. The Ann added their own more-provocative title: “Who owns the road: drivers or cyclists?”

Their framing succeeded in drumming up conflict-oriented comments from readers. Reading the comments, I was struck by two things: