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Once, many years ago when our kids were small, we tapped our 3 big maples and boiled the sap in the house. The syrup was good and we got enough to last us for about 10 years but the steam peeled all the wall paper off of about 4 rooms.
Actually we started boiling it on an outdoor grill then finished it inside but still produced a lot of steam. If I remember correctly the ratio of sap to syrup is someplace close to 50:1 depending on the trees. That's a lot of steam.
It is a big industry in this area--or used to be until the farms started to go under. Generally they start tapping here in early February and go through March but it depends on the weather as above, once the buds swell the syrup gets bitter. If you're interested in doing it you have to tap the trees on those days the temps get above freezing (32*F/0*C) but drop below at night. To do the best job you need to get maple taps, drill holes into the maple (most maple trees will be ok but the ideal is the sugar maple) at about 3 feet above the ground. 1 or 2 taps in a 6 to 8 in girthed tree, 3 or 4 into one that is a foot or so around. These taps have a place to hang the bucket so it'll catch the sap. If all possible cover the bucket to keep precipitation and bugs out. Collect every day and start boiling when you've got 10 gallons or more. The best way to boil is in a shallow pan, adding more sap as the water boils off so it doesn't burn to the bottom. If I remember correctly my DW borrowed a thermometer from one of her students so she could tell when the stuff in the pan was syrup. If. you want you can really boil it down to sugar--when my mom was a kid (1910's) they used to toss the boiled sugar out on the snow and eat it like candy--it was called
dobache (do-BASH). Once you're done you can can it or freeze it.
BTW, the "syrup" you get at IHop is some kind of processed sugar cane stuff. What is called
real maple syrup can be less than 100% maple unless it says that it is 100%, otherwise it is a mix of cane syrup and various amounts of maple. The best way to be sure to get the real stuff is to buy it from the producer. Vermont is the largest produce followed by NYS and Maine in the US but the world's biggest producer is Quebec, Canada. Most often too, it is sold as Vermont Maple Syrup regardless of where it is made.
Oh yeah, it takes a lot of fuel to produce a little syrup, that is one of the reasons the price keeps going up. That and the diminishing number of producers.
