Maple Tappers

[Peaches Lee]

I have a question. Today at my work a man came and collected some "water" from the Maple trees. Was that "water" the actual stuff the trees actually produce (and is boiled for syrup)? I wasn't sure if he was cleaning a bucket or something and couldn't go ask....

 

[jerryse]

I have a question. Today at my work a man came and collected some "water" from the Maple trees. Was that "water" the actual stuff the trees actually produce (and is boiled for syrup)? I wasn't sure if he was cleaning a bucket or something and couldn't go ask....

You are correct.They say it takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup.

 

[Peaches Lee]

Wow, very interesting, I was surprised how much sap there was...Thank you.

 

[Peggy-Sue]

Here's a picture of our syrup being filtered!

 

[Bill C68]

I'm new here, I'll add my two cents... I'm from Prince Edward Island, Canada. This is my second year tapping trees, I have about 60 taps out, all red maples and some are in swampy areas.
You always want to tap the south side of a tree when possible, also remove any evergreens that might be shading the base of the tree.
I filled 3 6.5 gallon buckets today and yesterday (6 gallons in each, leaving room for ice to form) I plan to have 70-90 gallons by the weekend.
I built an evaporator this winter from a 100 gallon oil tank, in retrospect, a full sized tank would be more efficient as it would use barely any more wood and have less wasted heat going up the chimney.

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I also plan to make some "kettle" syrup this year, just a big pot over an open hardwood fire, you must use hardwood for this method as you will get some smoke in your syrup.

 

[Bill C68]

 

[Bill C68]

I've made some improvements since that pic was taken, namely creating a "flue" having the firebox shortened to 18 inches and directing the flame under the back pan with a 4inch space between the firebox and the chimney. This has proven to be much more efficient. Also a grate with a draft under the fire has proven to create a lot more heat and use less wood.

Advice on filtering... Spend a few dollars and buy a proper Orlon filter and some cloth Pre-filters. The per filters can never-used a few times and the Orlon filter can be used for years with proper care (just don't put it away wet and let mildew grow, ruined 3 quarts of finished syrup that way)

In the old days, syrup was mixed with cream or eggs or another fat source, the impurities will bind with the fats and you can skim it off the top, with some settling at the bottom.

 

[Peggy-Sue]

that's awesome i wish i had that many maples... We have 4 trees on our property which are maples and then another one that is my neighbor but they think the tree is ours! i wish i had a bigger yard lol... So far from our 5 trees we've almost got a gallon of syrup!!! we will probably boil down one more.time

 

[jimmyk]

We are looking forward to the maple season here in the Midwest. Last year was our first year of tapping and the going was a little rough at the beginning. We didn't really know what we were doing, but still ended up with about 2 gallons of syrup. Mostly from sugar and silver maples. A good online resource we recently found is mapletapper.com. My neighbor gave me one of their tapping kits for Christmas and it is great. It's tubing kit for tapping ten trees and it came with a good book with step by step info. They also have how-to tapping info on their website. I also found some good info from the Michigan State University website. Even when things were not done perfectly last season, we still had fun and the syrup is soooo good.

 

[wyoDreamer]

Our maple syrup source is having shoulder surgery and is only going to tap enough trees for his own use.
I offered him my help if he needed it.