Making maple syrup

I just tapped a few trees yesterday then got hit with another 10 inches of snow last night with another foot or more on its way. I guess I can cool my jets for a while before tapping more trees. Maybe next week.
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WAS WONDERING JUST THE OTHER NIGHT HOW MUCH SAP YOU GET FROM A TREE.
GOTTA BE HONEST AS A SOUTHERN GUY WAS PROBABLY THINKING HOW MUCH SYRUP YOU GOT FROM A TREE LIKE MAPLE SYRUP JUST POURED OUT!
So I take it you never made cane syrup in the south then?
 
So I take it you never made cane syrup in the south then?
NO. YOU ARE A BIT MORE COUNTRY (A GOOD THING) THAN ME.
 
As a little back story, my family owned and operated a large sugar bush in Michigan's Upper Peninsula for many years. A good years production was generally between 8-12,000 US gallons. Most years saw between 25,000 and 33,000 taps all hooked to a vacuum system to bring the sap flow to the house.
An average tree on an average season will produce between 15-18 gallons of sap with no vacuum and 20-35 gallons under vacuum.
Amount of sap need to produce a gallon of syrup varies by sugar content of the sap. Generally a 2% sugar content is the figure most use. At 2%, it takes 40 gallon of sap to produce 1 gallon of syrup. % varies by time of year, type of trees and weather conditions. We have seen sugar content exceed 3.5%. Once it falls below about 1% (as the season nears it's end and the trees tire) it becomes unprofitable to continue production.
 
Very cool. I used to help neighbors as a kid (there are just too many Big producers-farm/commercial operations nearby that I don't waste any time on it as there's always work and then maintenance and land work to be done.) They also produce many other variants, including Hickory and Black Walnut, which are a 50:1 deal, and local Amish make molasses out of a sorghum-sugarcane cross. Deer love it too in the early season, but that variety lays right down in the first heavy rain/wind or snow of Fall. *Just getting walnuts is a fairly involved (smelly/black) task! lol The area is loaded with sugar maple, blk walnut and hickory. With the small-scale tapping/collection (plastic/poly/buckets) they have today, collection is the easy part. Processing takes time and energy and we share the firewood between 2 houses (1 w/ a woodstove and the other w/ a wood furnace and water heater!) e-bills are 6x less than at home. *Sry, 7.5 since the Gulf of Trump crisis. (NOT opposed, and I too like Lobster.)
 

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NO. YOU ARE A BIT MORE COUNTRY (A GOOD THING) THAN ME.
Oh about being country
My grandpa was born in the 1880s I think 87
My dad was his youngest being born in 1940
And I am his youngest 14 years between me and the middle kid
So yea I was raised bacilly at least a generation behind
I know very few of my class mates were living on a working farm.
 
Very cool. I used to help neighbors as a kid (there are just too many Big producers-farm/commercial operations nearby that I don't waste any time on it as there's always work and then maintenance and land work to be done.) They also produce many other variants, including Hickory and Black Walnut, which are a 50:1 deal, and local Amish make molasses out of a sorghum-sugarcane cross. Deer love it too in the early season, but that variety lays right down in the first heavy rain/wind or snow of Fall. *Just getting walnuts is a fairly involved (smelly/black) task! lol The area is loaded with sugar maple, blk walnut and hickory. With the small-scale tapping/collection (plastic/poly/buckets) they have today, collection is the easy part. Processing takes time and energy and we share the firewood between 2 houses (1 w/ a woodstove and the other w/ a wood furnace and water heater!) e-bills are 6x less than at home. *Sry, 7.5 since the Gulf of Trump crisis. (NOT opposed, and I too like Lobster.)
The black walnut is interesting
Have a small stand of them behind the house
Do you think terpinte taps would work?
 
probably, but they're probably bigger as the viscosity is even higher/lower flow rate (typ. conifer sap). The plastic ones for syrup are cheap. there are youtube videos on everything discussed above! i've cleaned up turpentine factories...it's not the turp (or the boiled veg oil into polyurethane) that's the issue, it's the petroleum solvents they add to it (and spill in the process) to keep it liquid that's the problem. My Dad RIP used metric shit-tonnes of ALL wood preservatives, and it was part of his downfall (Cuprinol, Phthalates, Creosote-no bueno getting on your skin or breathing it in regularly! And, par for the period, he washed it all off his skin with leaded gasoline and kerosene.) He'd drink all the stuff we're mentioning for breakfast...lol All the fam houses had cedar shake siding, and then barns with "oil" paint, sometimes leaded. The oldest taps I saw were simply metal tubes with a diag. cut at the end, so if you get to the right depth, it'll work (not too small.) Tannic acid and Methyl Alcohol production were a BIG deal in the forests around here once upon a time. There are still areas called Methol or Acidalia...GL
The black walnut is interesting
Have a small stand of them behind the house
Do you think terpinte taps would work?
 
I myself really love Marula Syrup! ;)
 
One of the more interesting threads I follow. Hats off to yall making your own syrup.
That being said if anyone is selling some homemade jars/jug through outside channels please let me know as Id be interested in getting some for Easter.
 
I should elaborate, we tapped all our trees on the south side of the trees with one bucket each. During the warm spell earlier this week we were getting 2-4 gallons per tree per day. It was looking like it was going to be a very short season but it has cooled off again. Only Mother Nature knows for sure.so far we are still making light amber syrup. This is the first time any of these trees have ever been tapped. My new sugar bush is on a south sloping hill also.
 
My hunting buddy taps 50ish trees, been on hold as the day temperatures aren’t above freezing. He modified his evaporator and added a couple air tubes in the fire box that he pushes air under the flame like a forge with a hairdryer. The boil doesn’t drop off when you add wood. He also set up a preheater for the sap around the stovepipe, doing this has cut his boil time in half. His syrup runs start with a really nice light coloured table syrup and the syrup usually gets darker as the season goes along.
 
probably, but they're probably bigger as the viscosity is even higher/lower flow rate (typ. conifer sap). The plastic ones for syrup are cheap. there are youtube videos on everything discussed above! i've cleaned up turpentine factories...it's not the turp (or the boiled veg oil into polyurethane) that's the issue, it's the petroleum solvents they add to it (and spill in the process) to keep it liquid that's the problem. My Dad RIP used metric shit-tonnes of ALL wood preservatives, and it was part of his downfall (Cuprinol, Phthalates, Creosote-no bueno getting on your skin or breathing it in regularly! And, par for the period, he washed it all off his skin with leaded gasoline and kerosene.) He'd drink all the stuff we're mentioning for breakfast...lol All the fam houses had cedar shake siding, and then barns with "oil" paint, sometimes leaded. The oldest taps I saw were simply metal tubes with a diag. cut at the end, so if you get to the right depth, it'll work (not too small.) Tannic acid and Methyl Alcohol production were a BIG deal in the forests around here once upon a time. There are still areas called Methol or Acidalia...GL
The ones in the barn are probably very old
There bacilly a metal tube with a small hook for the pot
And the pots I have found were old clay pots the ones used before they started cutting slash’s in the tree and put the tin pan at the bottom of the cuts.
Might just order the plastic ones.
I am sure I all ready have way to many chemicals from the farm in me all ready lol
 
You learn so much on here. I didn’t know syrup was made from any other tree, other than birch and maple.
Speaking of birch, has anyone made birch syrup as well?
 

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