I did it! I made Maple Syrup!

[redhen]

Jenna, thanks for the info,,now, what kind of Maple tree do you use..or are they all the same?

 

[maplesky7]

My book says if it gets moldy on top...scoop it off with a spoon and reboil and it's still good.

It says, they use 1 lb and 2 lb coffee cans with plastic lids, freezer tape lids shut, the syrup is so hot it's sterile already, they slosh it around-sterilizing lids, & they know seal is good when plastic lid drawn down tight in a concave shape as the small amount of air in can cools and contracts.

also says you can use mason jars as long as rubber seals are good.

and store in cool dry place...like you would canned veggies.

they never had spoilage...but they say they keep it in thier freezer.


sap is spoiled when it has a unclear, slightly milky look...boiled down it will make a dark syrup.

keep sap in a cool shaded area...while holding to reduce spoilage.

"The opportunity in frozen sap is the opportunity to reduce your boiling time, and if you come out some morning and find a good layer of sap ice in your holding tank, you should take advantage of it. the ice actually is very spongy and is made up of frozen crystals of wather that have separated out fromthe sugar, trapping the more sugary sap within the ice, something like a honeycomb. one of the ways the indians andearly settlers used to make syrup was by suxxessive freezing of the sap, each time throwing away the ice, until the remaining liquid was usable as syrup. the problem with this methiod is that some suragary sap isa always thrown out with the ice, so that this method is less iffeiceint that boiling. in any event, if you do find a couple of inces of ice in your holding tank, prop it up over your holding tank in some way so it drains well back into the tank, then pitch it out. you'll have saved yourself some boiling time."

that's all my book says.

me,
g

 

[maplesky7]

Quote:
i use all my maples...sugar maples produce the most...but i use all of mine....

sugar maple
red maple
silver maple
ashed leaf maple

are the ones my book talks about

 

[MichiganWoods]

Thanks for posting this. I've got a ton of sugar maples on my property.

 

[PineBurrowPeeps]

Well get tapping Cass, Tis the season!

 

[GardenGirl]

That is so cool! Just today my DH came in and asked me how hard I thought it would be to tap the 1 sugar maple we have out back. I told him it might be a waste of time considereing how much sap you need to make syrup. Our friend has 5 trees on his property tapped and boils down what he gets each day to make syrup for his pancakes. I'm thinking trout season can't come fast enough for those of us who are bored.

 

[heyeddah]

Where do I get the taps?
I was thinking about this for the kids the other day.

 

[Wifezilla]

I used to make maple syrup when I lived in Wisconsin. Unfortunately, the weather here in Colorado is not conducive to tapping maples. One year, my brother and I used a metal pen barrel as a tap

 

[Henrietta23]

I want to try!!! We have to search out enough maples first though. We have a huge one in our front yard but I don't think it will produce much. I think it's just a swamp maple. But can't hurt to try!

 

[PineBurrowPeeps]

Kristin,
My best producing maple right now is a tree so large that even my husband and I can barely get our arms around it, hugging it between us, our hands barely touch! I got 10 gallons of sap out of that tree alone already, not counting whats in the buckets now! We have 4 buckets on that tree.
Don't knock a large tree!

The taps and buckets we have on our trees came from a Maple Syrup company here in RI. Apparently they tap peoples tree and take the sap and the previous owner of our house allowed them to. Well they never told us and the company didn't come out last year (our first year here) because they were letting our trees rest so we just found out about it last week when suddenly we had men in our yard drilling holes into our trees.
We rushed outside to see what the commotion was about and they explained to us that the prior owner let them tap the trees and that they were very sorry, they didn't know the house had sold. We told them that we had planned to tap the trees ourselves and when we told them that they gave us a bunch of extra buckets and told us to take as much of the sap as we wanted and feel free to make our own.
So I get to use their equipment for free and they take the surplus sap.
All they are using are food grade 5 gal buckets, they are from various things from other food places, chocolate syrup, chili sauce, etc. They washed the buckets out and in some of them drilled a hole just big enough to place the tap through it.
The taps this place uses are black plastic.
I have seen nice metal ones online.
The buckets don't come off the trees. What they did was put the tap through the hole in the bucket and then bang the whole thing into the drilled hole. In order to empty the buckets you take the extra buckets they gave you, and turn the bucket attached to the tree around so you're pouring the sap into your empty bucket. Then you replace the lid on the bucket still on the tree.

I personally would buy metal taps and I'm looking at a bagging system instead of buckets.
There are tons of places online to buy the supplies.