Hi, looking into buying a small evaporator to boil sap. I'm only going to do about 30 buckets. There are two places in Vermont that have the little evaporators and I have looked at them both. They both seem to be good rigs and make about a pint of syrup and hour. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] What I really need is some input to help me along. This will be my second year boiling sap and as with anything you do I'm learning on the fly. Last year my syrup was really dark but tasty [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] . Hope to do better this year. Also I don't own a welder, recep saw, or anyother large tools yet . [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
Take care
I tapped a Maple tree yesterday here in Ohio & got 1 gallon of sap overnight. I'm doing it this year with my daughter just for kicks. If we boil down enough for one breakfast, that would be enough for this year.
Now my concern... I'm pretty darn sure that this is a "Sugar" Maple, but I tasted a drop of sap on the end of my finger & it is not sweet at all. Is this normally the case? I suppose that it may be another maple type. We made maple syrup when kids, but I don't remember much of it...
Cambridge, NY, in the beautiful foothills of the Green Mountains.
Posts
42
Re: Maple Syrup
I'm doing syrup this year plus I have friends that do it professionally. If you are making syrup for yourself you don't need to worry about color and grades. If you boil your sap with wood outside, you will not get light syrup, only dark. Plus as far as sweetness goes, unless you use a hydrometer to get below a certain water concentration, you won't know the concentration of you sugar. I boil down until, the syrup starts "sheeting" on a spatula. If it drips off, then it's too thin and has too much water. I also will taste it and boil it until I like it. You also have to filter out any any particles floating in the syrup before hot packing. These particles, called niter, can add a slight bitter flavor. I use about 5-6 layers of tightly woven cheesecloth., or buy syrup felt filters. I do it the cheap way. I also boil in roasting pans on cement blocks with an old downspout in the hole of 1 block set on end for a chimmey. You can tap any maple (even birch trees), but for the highest sugar level you want the sugar maple . The sap is 3% sugar. Get a good book on trees for next year and mark off the trees. Also, I use gallon water containers (you can also use gallon milk bottles) instead of the expensive sap buckets. Keep the tops of the bottles, cut a small hole on the side on the "shoulder" of the bottle just below the neck and hang on the tap. There are good books out there on backyard sugaring. Unless you want to sell the syrup, just have fun.
Cambridge, NY, in the beautiful foothills of the Green Mountains.
Posts
42
Re: Maple Syrup
the trunk MUST be at least 10 inches in diameter. That's like a 20 to 30 year old tree! As the tree gets larger, you can add more taps but i wouldn't use more than 3 or 4 on a tree; and I'm talking about one of these 100yr old trees. You don't want to bleed the tree to death. Also this is getting late in the season now. You usually start when you have cold nights and warm days. That makes the trunk expand and contract. Here in the NE that's usually the end of Feb., and you can tap until the leaf buds just start to open. After that the syrup will be bitter. Anyway, unless you have ltrees at least 10 inches in diameter, you won't be able to tap for many years. So look around in your yard for larger maples, or ask friends and family if you can tap their trees. Hope this helps.
Yes that helps, thank you. I guess I'll be planting trees for the next family to enjoy, which is better than nothing. Leaving it better than I found it..
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