I looked up the work that has to go into it all and I thinks if I start now, I'll be ready for the 2016 run.
Any help would be swell!
Were you at the Meyersdale PA Maple Sugar festival? I’ve been there and it’s wonderful. My family wanted to go there this year but it didn’t work out. Maybe next year.
In any case...it takes a lot of sap to make syrup though. Some people have done it and when I looked into it there were several places online with tips.
I’ll see if I can find any of the links.
My wife and I tapped our maples this year.
I had helped out on a farm doing maple syrup every year back in the 70s and 80s but this was the first time we did it ourselves.
Buy some spiles and hose. There’s a kit of 10 on Amazon for $25.
Buy a 5/16 drill bit.
Tap on the south western side of the tree. Tap above a big root or below a big limb. I bought some BPA free bread boxes at walmart for about $6 each, drilled a hole in the top that was the size of the outer diameter of the hose.
They hold at least a gallon, probably a bit more than that. Any container will do but 2 liter bottles, while they will work, can over flow fast.
We tapped 5 trees and collected about 60-70 gallons of sap. I bought 4 food grade 5 gallon buckets from Lowes. We collect daily into the 5 gallon buckets and boil when we have 15 gallons or so. You can’t let it sit for too long in warm temps or it spoils.
The run is almost done, and we’ve got maybe 4 gallons to boil left.
We have a 15 gallon Stainless steel pot that we put on a 60k btu camp burner. It takes 6-7 hours and a full grill bottle to boil it down to a small enough volume to bring it into the house. Yes, I know there are vastly more efficient and cheaper ways. Next year I’m building a stone grill that we can use wood with. Now, it’s what I’ve got.
One we get it down to under 2 gallons, I bring it into the house and boil it on the stove. I watch the temps, when they start to rise above boiling(check your boiling temp, based on elevation), lower the heat to reduce it a bit more. Let it run like that a bit until you can’t keep the heat from rising, then turn the heat up, and when It gets to 7.5 degrees over boiling, run it through a filter and put it in canning jars.
Let it sit 24 hours. Niter will form. It’s sugar sand and can leave the syrup with a bitter taste if you don’t get rid of it.
Decant the syrup off into a pot, heat to 185, and can again this time for real. Fill the jars with hot syrup, put the lids on and flip upside down.
toss the niter.
So far we’ve made just about 2 gallons of syrup. We turned 40oz of syrup into maple sugar candy. Heat to 235, cool to 180-190, whip and pour into molds. Nummy.
Most people say you get about a quart of syrup per 10 gallons of sap, we’re doing more than that and our syrup is nice and clear and reasonably thick.
Ok...that’s probably TL:DR for most folks, heh.
bfl
We tapped our own trees back in the late 60s thru mid seventies. Boiled it down in an open pan over a fire pit.
Then Mom brought it inside and finished it off over the stove.
Good stuff, but labor/time intensive when you are manning a fire and hauling sap.
My uncle set up a Sugar Bush in Northern Lower Michigan, somewhere around 50-75 trees. Ran tubing from trees to a holding tank. From there he has a boiler inside a shed that he feeds the sap in thru channels and out comes the Syrup. Never been there when he has it running.