Eos Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 We have 44 taps in and already made a first run of syrup. I love March and sap time. I love spending entire days feeding the fire and watching sap boil. Time slows down. I love hauling sap out of the woods, I love making coffee with it. Anyone else spending mud season in the woods? 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melissa Louise Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 Wow. Do you ever film it? 100% would watch the process. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El... Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 Oh my, I'd love to see that! I've never lived far enough north. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GracieJane Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 39 minutes ago, Eos said: We have 44 taps in and already made a first run of syrup. I love March and sap time. I love spending entire days feeding the fire and watching sap boil. Time slows down. I love hauling sap out of the woods, I love making coffee with it. Anyone else spending mud season in the woods? That’s very cool! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wendyroo Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 My kids are tapping trees tomorrow in nature class. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wathe Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 Not yet. Probably within the next week. We only do a few trees on our front lawn - just enough to make maple sugar for our family and friends. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wathe Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 1 hour ago, Melissa Louise said: Wow. Do you ever film it? 100% would watch the process. I will describe our very amateur process: Drill a hole in the tree with a regular power drill and drill bit. Tap spile into hole with a mallet. Hang bucket. Dump sap once every day or two. Boil down to sugar on front porch in cheap rice-cooker. Eat! Photos from last year: 8 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KSera Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 9 minutes ago, wathe said: I will describe our very amateur process: Drill a hole in the tree with a regular power drill and drill bit. Tap spile into hole with a mallet. Hang bucket. Dump sap once every day or two. Boil down to sugar on front porch in cheap rice-cooker. Eat! Photos from last year: Where do you get that kind of bucket? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wathe Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 1 minute ago, KSera said: Where do you get that kind of bucket? Around here, at the hardware store. I'm lucky enough to live within a few km of a regional maple products supply store like this one, who sell everything one could need for commercial production - we are in a serious maple products region. They are super nice and set me up with my first single refurbished bucket, a single spile, and a printed set of instructions 15 years ago. Lots people do backyard maple syrup here. Some people use any old juice jug or bucket etc to collect sap. This can be very cost effective; spiles are just over a dollar a piece. I like the dedicated buckets because of the nice lid that keeps out rain and critters. Ours are really old refurbished ones. The modern ones are plastic - we have a few of those too. 7 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melissa Louise Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 Thanks @wathe! I wish I could do that! It looks fun, and I love maple sugar. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eos Posted March 3, 2022 Author Share Posted March 3, 2022 We too use older metal buckets with little lids, but also have a few plastic spiles and use tubing to fill some empty plastic gallon jugs. I have friends with "real" evaporators and dedicated shacks but I've always built a pretty simple hearth with firebrick and cinder blocks and then dismantle it at the end of the season. We use 2 deep stainless steel pans from a restaurant supply store to cook in, and have a third one on a small hearth to preheat the sap. If we use dry hardwood it takes about 10 hours to boil 45 gallons of sap from which we get a little over a gallon of syrup. I usually can it but this year I'm going to try freezing it for something new. @watheI have never seen the rice cooker sugar process - brilliant! How long does it take and will it burn at the end if you don't catch it? I'll try to get some pix to upload. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carrie12345 Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 Sigh. I have not. We did tap one tree a couple of years ago just for funsies and made enough to taste. I’m not sure I could even find my equipment in my shed right now, but you have me wanting to! We currently have several mature enough trees, and I’m not confident our “new trees” will be mature enough for our first season at the new house. So I really should. But I haven’t mentally braced myself for putting in the effort, so… I don’t know! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2ndGenHomeschooler Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 We did this a couple of years at our previous house. We didn’t have any “real” equipment though. We had only 3 or 4 trees to tap and everything we could find was large sets of spiles for more than we wanted to spend. So DH went to the hardware store and picked up some small pvc joints, rubber tubing, and 5 gallon buckets and rigged it all up. He drilled holes in the bucket lids just big enough for the tubing and the buckets sat on the ground. We boiled the sap off into syrup inside on the stove which I do NOT recommend. But we got about a gallon of syrup out of those 3 or 4 trees and had a good time doing it. We have more maples here at our new house and a nice patio right out the back door where we could set up a spot to boil, but we haven’t tapped here. Maybe next year. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tree Frog Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 This was one of our favorite things when we lived in the North Country. We didn't have trees in our yard, but the area had a "tour the tapping trees and see how syrup is made" weekend. We loved going from place to place to visit and see the set ups. Some of them were quite large, with tubing between trees leading to a big vat. Some were smaller, built just for family and friends. We learned about the differences between Grade A and Grade B syrup. We all liked Grade B best, but it's more difficult to get. Though we've moved out of the area, we still purchase our maple syrup from a family there. 2 gallons last us about 3-4 years. One of the tips was to keep it in the freezer so it will last longer. Thanks for the memories! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Idalou Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 None of my extended family uses buckets anymore, they use sap bags. I love seeing all the sugar shacks this time of year. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mothersweets Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 Am I right in guessing that it smells fabulous as it cooks down? (I'm in Arizona so no maples here, sadly!) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MEmama Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 2 hours ago, Tree Frog said: This was one of our favorite things when we lived in the North Country. We didn't have trees in our yard, but the area had a "tour the tapping trees and see how syrup is made" weekend. We loved going from place to place to visit and see the set ups. Some of them were quite large, with tubing between trees leading to a big vat. Some were smaller, built just for family and friends. We learned about the differences between Grade A and Grade B syrup. We all liked Grade B best, but it's more difficult to get. Though we've moved out of the area, we still purchase our maple syrup from a family there. 2 gallons last us about 3-4 years. One of the tips was to keep it in the freezer so it will last longer. Thanks for the memories! Maine has Maine Maple Sunday where people can tour various sugar shacks around the state. I used to love going when DS was younger— it’s a fascinating process and of course the end products are so yummy. In New Brunswick our favorite sugar shack made maple candies by pouring fresh syrup over the snow. 🙂 I've always wanted to tap our front yard trees but haven’t yet tried. This isn’t the year since I’m laid up for the month, but maybe next year I’ll get inspired. I’m intrigued by the rice cooker method. A lot of people in my neighborhood tap. It’s one of the first promises of spring. 🙂 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MEmama Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 (edited) 5 minutes ago, Mothersweets said: Am I right in guessing that it smells fabulous as it cooks down? (I'm in Arizona so no maples here, sadly!) Yes!! 🍁 Wood smoke + maple + ideally a hint of sea air…❤️ Edited March 3, 2022 by MEmama 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mothersweets Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 9 minutes ago, MEmama said: Yes!! 🍁 Wood smoke + maple + ideally a hint of sea air…❤️ I can only dream.... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharpie Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 Oh, this post makes me homesick. I grew up tapping trees. We tapped several hundred and hauled the sap to my uncles sugar shanty where they boiled it down. My aunt used to always give me a mini Dixie cup with hot syrup at the bottom to drink as a treat. The steam of the sugar shanty, the condensation that dripped down, the smell of the boiling sap, and hot syrup being strained, priceless! The stacks and stacks of fire wood that fed the boiler. Makes me homesick. I lived for school to be done. I could hardly wait to get off the bus and head out to gather sap. Saturday's were a dream because I could spend the day gathering sap and ride up on the sap wagon to my uncles. Priceless memories. Nothing like fresh maple syrup! I was spoiled because I can't stand the taste of fake syrup. Growing up maple syrup was used in place of sugar. Thank you for posting pictures....took me right back home. ❤️ 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wathe Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 4 hours ago, Eos said: @watheI have never seen the rice cooker sugar process - brilliant! How long does it take and will it burn at the end if you don't catch it? It takes forever.... It takes most of the day to get a batch of sugar like the one in the photo. The beauty is that it will not burn, no matter how much I neglect it. It is wathe-proof - I am no cook. The rice cooker turns itself off once the temp gets above a certain magic value (which works out to a really. really thick syrup stage). So you can set and forget it. Or set it, forget about it, and go to bed (which I did once by mistake). It take about 15-30 min more to finish the sugar once the cooker has reached the turn-itself-off stage. 4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucy the Valiant Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 We do! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wintermom Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 We tapped our sugar maple one year. The boiling down process inside the house was crazy, so we haven't done it again. First try I missed "the point" that the sap became syrup, and it became a sort of candy - crystalized. The next time I stopped too soon and it was watery syrup. Now I just buy from other more equipped and experienced people. 😄 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wathe Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 23 minutes ago, wintermom said: We tapped our sugar maple one year. The boiling down process inside the house was crazy, so we haven't done it again. First try I missed "the point" that the sap became syrup, and it became a sort of candy - crystalized. The next time I stopped too soon and it was watery syrup. Now I just buy from other more equipped and experienced people. 😄 Yes, we don't bother with syrup. I'm too bad a cook to get it to just the right density. Sugar, on the other hand is easy. The endpoint is very obvious. And it's delicious. And freezes well 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbutton Posted March 5, 2022 Share Posted March 5, 2022 My mom is a sap widow this time of year, and my parents don't own a maple syrup business, lol! My dad helps a friend with around 5000 taps, and his friend sells the sap to someone in his family who has an enormous reverse osmosis system. It's quite the production. They have other friends that do the whole tourist pancake breakfast thing in addition to their sap business. They make all kinds of maple products as well--sugar, maple cream, candy, maple coated stuff, cotton candy, ice cream... On 3/3/2022 at 10:39 AM, Sharpie said: My aunt used to always give me a mini Dixie cup with hot syrup at the bottom to drink as a treat. The steam of the sugar shanty, the condensation that dripped down, the smell of the boiling sap, and hot syrup being strained, priceless! The stacks and stacks of fire wood that fed the boiler. Makes me homesick. It's so good right out of the boiler! It's a really unforgettable experience to see an old-fashioned setup or a fancy high-tech one. It's so time-constrained--you can't plan exactly when the sap will flow on a calendar and then time just stands still until the sap is all in and all boiled. Even if you don't have a sugar shack, if you know someone who does, you know when it's that time. I need to re-read Miracles on Maple Hill now. I remember very little of it at this point. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eos Posted March 6, 2022 Author Share Posted March 6, 2022 (edited) I've been visiting Ds this weekend so haven't collected for a few days. Here's our woods and our wicked low-tech hearth. Edited February 6, 2023 by Eos 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbutton Posted March 6, 2022 Share Posted March 6, 2022 10 minutes ago, Eos said: our wicked low-tech hearth That's awesome!!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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