|
Post by brute on Mar 13, 2014 12:49:54 GMT -5
Anyone ever make maple syrup? Please give your experiences, opinions, or just thoughts on this subject .
Thanks, Brute
|
|
ray
Button Buck
Posts: 16
|
Post by ray on Feb 9, 2015 7:01:55 GMT -5
Brute: I have done it off and on since I was a kid. I have done it on an open fire, box stove and propane. The box stove is best for me as I have plenty of wood. Up here in maine we usually make snow shoe trails to the trees. I have a metal pan 30" square with 5" sides. Fill your pan and start boiling, when it boils down halfway add more. Careful when you get down to the end you can scorch it or turn it into maple sugar. You can buy a hydrometer or I use a spoon. I dip it in and when it sticks to the spoon in good shape, I pour it off. It doesn't have to be real thick to be good on pancakes.
Ray
|
|
|
Post by wilmsmeyer on Feb 9, 2015 22:23:26 GMT -5
It's easy. All you have to do is boil enough water out of the sap to get it to about 67% sugar content. LOL.
Maple syrup is an awesome treat around here and plentiful. It's hard work. We have 3-4 feet of snow in the woods and it's about time to start tapping if you are a major producer. I good friend of mine makes his living this way. Trees are on the sides of gullies, snow is super deep, snowshoes are needed to do anything.
Wind has brought trees and limbs down. repairs on tubing is everyday stuff. leaks from deer chewing lines is a constant challenge. Maintaining vacuum is paramount. No leaks tolerated. What a science really to do this well on a big level.
Then there is the evaporator. Steam away technology. Filtering. Maintaining vacuum pumps for several woods. Fueling them and keeping up with collecting the sap.
In the heat of battle, in a good run, you may not sleep for 2-3 days as you keep up on the sap, the leaks in the lines, and on and on.
A great tradition around here. In between careers, I had the priviledge to help tap 5000+ trees 2 years in a row. A cordless drill, 6-8 spare batteries in a backpack, lunch and drinks in my backpack......dawn to dusk for 5 days in treacherous terrain. A workout. Even after the tapping is done, all the woods must be walked daily to find new air leaks that lower the vacuum.
1/4 gallon of syrup per tap is considered a "full" crop. This operation nets closer to 1/2 gallon per tap due to rigorous maintenance.
One day 15 years ago, my friend walked me up in his woods. The last tap was probably 1/4 - 1/2 mile from the vacuum pump. We had grabbed a few beers for our walk as we were to be out there a while looking for leaks. When we reached the farthest....last tap on the woods, he took an empty beer can and poked a hole with his knife in the bottom. He pulled the tap from the tree, covered the drinking hole in the can with his thumb, and applied the hissing tap pulled from the tree to the small hole in the can. In a split second, the can imploded into a little ball of metal. Amazing. His vacuum gauge measued the vacuum as 25 lbs......almost as much as it was 50 ft from the pump.
It's a god dang science to the best of the best. I am lucky to know about this stuff. I only come by this knowledge due to my friends operation and years helping him
My backyard is a hill with probably 2 acres of mature trees and probably 100 tapable maples. I could gravity feed, without vacuum, enough sap to make more syrup than I cold ever consume. However, I don't have the boiler set up to render it!.
Nice to see a post on something very dear to us out here in Western NYS.
|
|
|
Post by 10ga on Feb 25, 2015 14:38:58 GMT -5
Couple of old Mich UPers lived close by and taped trees and made syrup. They are long gone now. The syrup was really good, much better than any you could buy commercially. I helped them boil sap and haul wood from the mill, they burned slabs back in the day. They tapped about 200 trees and ran the line and collected sap in golf carts. Mostly they drank beer and liquor and talked about old times. They were really like from outer space here in tidewater VA. Now I'm retired and wishing I could lay hands on their old spiles and evap pan. VA has a sugar festival in Monterey in Highland County the 1st and 2nd weekend of March. Never been there but this would be a good year to go. Anybody know where to get spiles now? This be a good thing for me to do in late Jan and Feb since I can't get out to muskrat trap in the marshes any more. Thanks, 10 ga
|
|
|
Post by airborneike on Feb 27, 2015 11:37:11 GMT -5
My wife and I make it on a small scale almost every year. We tap 40 or so trees and use "sapsacks" instead of tubing. Our season here in the northwestern NC mountains usually begins in early Feb but this years weather has changed that. Absolutely a lot of work but fun. Takes 40 gallons of sap to get one gallon of syrup depending on sugar content of sap. We strain our finished product but don't filter it and it leaves a residue that settles to the bottom of the jars. No commercial sales, just gifts to friends and family. Boiling the sap can take a long time if you don't have a good evaporator but is also a fun part because the family and the grand kids all come around to watch. Good family time. When the first batch comes off, it's time for sourdough pancakes! There is a company called "Sugar Bush" that sells all the equipment from industrial to hobby users sugarbush This link should take you there, if not sugarbushsupplies.com
|
|
ray
Button Buck
Posts: 16
|
Post by ray on Mar 9, 2015 13:27:01 GMT -5
Put my first taps out today, old cast spiles and hanging buckets. We still have 2 feet or better of snow. My snowshoe trails are made and I have a large stihl gas drill I bought at a yard sale last summer for 35.00. That's way better than my 18v Dewalt. I dug down and around my sap stove Sunday.In just a few days I hope to be boiling! Ray
|
|
|
Post by airborneike on Mar 9, 2015 22:52:33 GMT -5
Ray,
I'm jealous! The weather here has been less than good sugaring weather and we won't make any syrup this year. I'm an old "buckskiner" too and still have a soft spot for my flintlocks...my old used up body won't let me "rendezvous" any more though...Argh!!!
Mike
AMM 546
|
|
ray
Button Buck
Posts: 16
|
Post by ray on Mar 10, 2015 5:49:24 GMT -5
We take an air bed to sleep on these days, makes a big difference! Ray
|
|