Tree sap gathering and syrup making

[Tre3hugger]

I ended up with a pretty good haul. Almost 2 gallons from about 70 gals of sap. My goal was 2 gallons. I managed it on a homemade evap too so I was happy.

^^some of my amber gold

 

[duluthralphie]

The Silver maples have started to bud. The busted open today.

I pulled all my taps today. I have about 45 gallons of raw sap and 10 gallons of concentrate to boil down tomorrow.

I have decided against going north to tap again, I have too much work to do here. I took inventory and have about 20 birch trees here large enough to tap. I have not decided if I will.

I finally got the RO working perfectly. I had one cell that was plugged. It is now removing one gallon of water every 15 minutes.

On the video you can see it comes out pretty fast.

I have been running the 45 gallons through it for about 2 hours now. I will use the RO for about 8 hours total before boiling.

With the other 10 I will have about 25 gallons of sap concentrate. I hope to get 2 gallons of syrup from it. Time will tell.

 

[duluthralphie]

Hiya! I only have one maple tree on my property (that I know about, at least) and I am trying it out this year. I've been "trying" the last two years and it's all been basically a flop. I got a small jar of the syrup from last year. This year I'm hoping to 'succeed'!

Do you have a photo of the tree? What variety of maple is it?

Where do you live? I tap more 5 leaf maples than any other specie....5 leaf maple is commonly known as boxelder. I keep the first sap of the boxelder a separate from the other maples as it makes a Carmel tasting syrup for the first week or so. No other maple does that.

Nothing compares to it for taste.

One tree will not give you a lot of syrup I get about a cup to a 1 1/2 cups of syrup for a very 5 gallons of sap.

 

[duluthralphie]

Snap's running in upper Michigan, too!
View attachment 2042469

We helped our native friend tap the first 150 or so trees out of 700 this year. He and his family make sugar (zinzibaakwad), syrup (zhiiwaagamizigan), and maple vinegar from the sap.

My husband also helps with a sugar bush through the university he works for.

wow 700 trees. I have a neighbor that does 400 I thought that was a lot.

 

[Duck_life]

My sisters friends Uncle made my parents Root Beer flavored syrup from his own trees. It was actually really good.

 

[duluthralphie]

Oh, in case anyone cares, I try to tap the south side of the tree as it seems to run best there.

 

[duluthralphie]

Here is the photo of the three batches.

The light one taste a tad stronger than the dark ones, that was unexpected.

The middle one was the over done one. It taste best but the niter is not settling very fast.

 

[duluthralphie]

I will start tapping trees next week. I don’t expect any sap for quite a while but I don’t want to be caught flat footed by an unexpected warm
Front,

 

[duluthralphie]

I tapped about 50 trees last year and ended up with 8 gallons of syrup.

The year before I did 25 trees and got 5 gallons of syrup.

So it all depends on the year.

 

[duluthralphie]

How old does a tree need to be before you tap it? I planted a sugar maple a few months ago. Figuring it will be 10 years before I can even think about syrup....

It has to to with diameter and not age. I have read 8-10 inches in diameter for one tap.

Here is what Minnesota suggests.

https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/destinations/state_parks/maplesyrup_how.pdf

That looks old though. I go over 8”. But I use a 5/16th tap instead of the large ones they suggest.