Anyone do any small-time maple sugaring? we have loads of maple trees on the property, and would like to give it a try this winter. I envision maybe just doing enough for persnal consumption first year to see how much work it is and get the hang of it.
Anyone know what would be the minimum amount of stuff you would need to get started? Any other thoughts?
I haven't dealt with maple sugar since I was a kid, but you don't need much: a drill, some of those little spigot things, and some buckets. All the boiling can be done on pretty much any stove of fire. I seem to recall some maple tree species are better than others. And make real, real sure its a maple tree your tapping: some sap is pretty toxic.
EJB,
I posted a similar thread on TBN last Feb. It is in "Related topics". Got a lot of good info.
We tapped 5 maples this Feb for the first time. Got the taps and a whole lot of good advice from a vendor at a farm show.
We drilled holes w/ a battery powered drill and hammered the taps in. We used 1 gallon milk jugs to collect the sap. But they
kept blowing off so my wife brought the galvanized buckets. We collected the sap each night and poured it into 5 gallon white
buckets. we got those at the local pizza plaze. they held some smelly cheese so we washed 'em real well. we kept the white buckets in a snow bank.
We boiled down on saturday. used 4 cinder blocks and 2 roasting pans to boil down. Then when it was almost done I finished it off in a stock pot on the stove.
Ran it through a paper towel in a funnel and we had syrup. Made about 3/4 of a gallon. It was great.
Thanks for the help...looks like it will be a good family project this year...sounds like a lot of work for 3/4 gallon of maple syrup...no wonder it is so expensive.
Do you happen to remember how much sap you started with to end up with 3/4 gallon of syrup?
EJB,
It is around a 40:1 ratio. So 40 gallons of sap boils down to 1 gallon of syrup. We never considered it work though! More like family time. At the end of the day we walked through the woods from tree to tree. We tried to guess which tree would be the most productive. we talked about the days events. We just spent time together. We boiled down on 4 seperate saturdays. that meant sitting around a fire all day just talking. we cooked hotdogs on a stick and baked beans in the can in the fire. All in all it was a lot of fun. It is labor intensive but certainly not hard or work like at all. Heck even our 14 year old enjoyed it.
Someone on TBN(named Sugarmaker) recommended a book called Backyard Sugarin' by Rinck Mann. We bought a copy off the internet. It is a great book. I recommend it as well.
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