Tapping trees for syrup

[skychaser]

Looks pretty good to me Amber. I can almost taste it from here! I put one tap in two of my trees yesterday and got a gallon from each in 12 hours. I got about 1/2 that much more over night. Did you notice that the flow slowed during the night time? I'm going to put a couple more taps in them today and do tree number 3. And I'm going to start reducing it down when I get to 5 gallons. I can't wait to collect more. I am too anxious to taste it to wait longer. lol

 

[Amberbeth84]

The sap flow definitely slows a lot overnight. I also noticed that nights that didn't fall below freezing we got basically nothing the next day.

 

[skychaser]

Thanks for the Info Amber. For most of February our temps ran 10 degrees below normal. Last weekend the hghs were in the upper 30's. A warm front moved in this week and the temps shot up yesterday to 15 degrees above normal and came within 1 degree of the record. Cloud cover kept the low for the night at 34. In the last 18 hours I have gotten 3/4 gallon from two trees combined. Huge difference from those first 12 hours! By tomorrow we will be back to average with highs in the mid 40's and lows in the mid 20's. Back in the right temp zone, and I'll see how much the flow picks back up. It makes sence that they would slow down some at night but I never would have guessed that a tree could react so quickly to temperature differences in such a short period of time. Interesting stuff.

 

[Amberbeth84]

My weather forecast for the next ten days doesn't drop below 38. The buds on my trees are starting to open which means the flavor is going to take a dive from what I've read. That means today is the end of my syruping season for this year. I might end up with another quart by the end of the day, but I went ahead and pulled my taps. You can bet I'll be doing this again next year with many more trees.

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

I'm getting about a litre a day which isn't much by the sounds of it. Maybe it's because I hacked the crap out of that tree last year. Our weather is single digit below zero at night and single digit above zero during the day for as far as the eye can see. I'm just drinking the sap. I find it reminiscent of coconut water.

 

[Danny M]

Do you get much wood smoke in the syrup? I don't have much good quality wood but I could probably burn free pallets.

Your wood is pretty much irrelevant because it’s not cooking long enough to absorb much if any smoke flavor. You could char some maple sticks and add that into the jars and possibly into the vat and it might work. As for the pallets though, while we burn them, it’s not usually for firewood and definitely not for something I plan to consume. If they were new pallets that might be an option but old ones have oil residue, you’re burning nails many of which are rusted so they’re only a good scraping away from thermite then you have the residual dirt and dust that has impregnated the wood, so i wouldn’t even use them to roast wieners.

 

[skychaser]

My syrup making is coming along nicely. I started cooking it down a little at a time because I was running out of clean things to store sap in. So far I have about 1 quart. And it is delicious! I have 4 trees tapped now and am getting right at 4 gallons a day when the temps stay in the right zone. Last weekend was too warm and the flow slowed way down. This week has been in the high 40's during the day and low 20's at night. The flow slows way down at night and almost stops. What little is in my jugs in the morning is half frozen. Around 10:30 am it starts dripping again and by noon it picks way up. By late afternoon it is coming out in very steady drips and spurts. It is supposed to warm up to the 50's this weekend, but then drop back down to the 40's again next week. So it looks like I will get another week of sap collecting. This whole thing has been fun, cheap, easy to do, and quite educational. My only regret is that I didn't know I could do this 20 years ago!

 

[Knucklehead]

Interesting read from University of New Hampshire. I have five sugar maples but they are too small and young.

Maple Sugaring Tips for Beginners and Backyard Maple Sugar Producers

All native maples can be tapped for sap. Sap runs with cold nights in the 20’s, daytime 40’s. Expect 8-10 runs during the season. During each run, one tap will produce about 1 gallon of sap – or 8 to 10 gallons throughout the season.

extension.unh.edu

Maple Setup and Guidelines

How does vacuum and atmospheric pressure affect the sap run? Examples of Tree Pressures and sap flow.

extension.unh.edu

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

I read a blog by an Edmontonian who tapped his trees in April so I think I have a long way to go. It has been cold and stopped. It got down to -18°C last night and it's +2° now so I'm curious what I'm going to discover. I drilled my hole a little deeper and discovered the tree is hollow. I hope that didn't mess things up. Don't think so became there's a good slope to the hole.

 

[skychaser]

Spring has finally started to show itself here. I tapped my trees today and was happy to find a very good flow of sap. This is year 3 for me. I have enough syrup left from last year to share a little this year. Maybe. Although I did give away some as Christmas gifts. It was a big hit. Liquid gold!

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

I tapped my one tree two nights ago and there is no flow yet. I thought last year was tapped too late, so I risked going too early. I wonder if the tree is slumbering until the roots get above a certain temperature.

 

[burge]

The perfect sap temperature is when it goes just below freezing and about 8c in the daytime. Mom used a big pot on the stove. To tap was a metal pail and the steel or the plastic spouts that you hang the bucket on.

 

[deluxestogie]

https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/destinations/state_parks/maplesyrup_how.pdf

 

[skychaser]

The perfect sap temperature is when it goes just below freezing and about 8c in the daytime. Mom used a big pot on the stove. To tap was a metal pail and the steel or the plastic spouts that you hang the bucket on.

The rule of thumb I read is you want temps of 45f in the day and 25f at night. But I have found the daytime temp can go a lot higher and it keeps flowing well. Even up to 60f. But it needs to go below freezing at night or it stops. Last year I had a couple nights where the cloud cover kept it at 35 to 40f, and the sap almost completely stopped flowing. But as soon as it went back into the 20's again at night, it started flowing again.

 

[burge]

Roughly those temperatures make the best syrup. That is from an expert in the Sugar Bush. I have been to them all in Ontario Quebec New Brunswick Nova Scotia and even Vermont. That is when the trees start flowing and provide the best sap. The reason is that is where all the extra nutrients come from. It's time to stop tapping when the trees start to bud.

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

The rule of thumb I read is you want temps of 45f in the day and 25f at night. But I have found the daytime temp can go a lot higher and it keeps flowing well. Even up to 60f. But it needs to go below freezing at night or it stops. Last year I had a couple nights where the cloud cover kept it at 35 to 40f, and the sap almost completely stopped flowing. But as soon as it went back into the 20's again at night, it started flowing again.

Great information. I'm not going to worry then. We're about 10°F to 40°F right now.

 

[Plinsc]

Love real maple syrup! Once you taste it it’s hard to eat the store stuff

 

[skychaser]

You can get the real stuff at the store. But have you ever looked at the price of a tiny bottle? You gotta pay!!
A customer of mine gave us a quart of real maple syrup once. When it ran out there was no going back and I had to learn how to make my own, which is super easy and cheap to do. If you can boil water, you can make syrup. You just need a maple tree or two. A half dozen taps cost me all of $12 on e-bay.

The imitation stuff is made from high fruitose corn sugar, which has now been strongly linked to diabetes, high cholesterol and even alzheimer's. I try to avoid it, but it's in nearly everything. Like soy bean oil is. But dentists like it. It's good for business.

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

I don't know if I've ever had the fake stuff.
If you cross the border, stop in at Costco for the best deal.

 

[Redleaf]

I tapped our Manitoba maple or box elder or technically Acer negundo trees in the spring of 21. It was a particularly good year with overnight frost and warm daytime temps with plenty of sunshine. I used simple plastic hose (air brake line) because that’s what I had. I drilled slightly upward angled holes just the right size about 1 1/2” into the tree just the right size to firmly jam the plastic line in and ran it down to plastic milk jugs or any suitable bottles I could find. I used a propane fired turkey deep fryer with a fairly large pot to reduce it to something close to syrup and finished the job in a pot on the stove. It takes a lot of tree sap to make any amount of syrup. I didn’t keep track of how much sap I collected but I ended up with about maybe a gallon of syrup. I think it’s very good. It certainly is sweet and sticky but not as mapely flavoured as I thought it would be. I have used some to flavour some pipe tobacco and also in homemade chewing tobacco. It works great for that.