Posted: 2/5/2012 11:35:14 AM EDT
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Who's done it? I have 4 maples in my hard, sugar and red. From my understanding, that would maybe next a gallon of syrup, which is the perfect amount for me to start with, I think.
I wouldn't have the time or equipment to boil it over wood, so I'm thinking my big stainless steel pan and a turkey cooker. Any good websites? What did you use for taps? How do you know its the best time for tapping? |
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Using the “Rule of 86,” you can figure that the number of gallons of sap you need to produce one gallon of syrup is equal to 86 gallons divided by the percent of sugar. So if you start with sap that is 2% sugar, you would need to evaporate 43 gallons to water (86 gallons / 2% = 43 gallons) to make one gallon of syrup. Your trees need to be pretty big in order to tap. As to when, well now around here with this weather. Surface area of your pan affects boil off rate. Bigger surface area, the faster it will go. You don't want something like a tall, skinny stock pot. Hope you've got free gas or a ton of free fire wood. 
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| Years ago we tapped probably a dozen large maple trees in our yard and made probably 1gal of syrup. It takes forever and a day and a lot of fuel input so my opinion is it simply isn't worth the effort when you can buy good maple syrup. The economies of scale will make it more cost effective the larger the batch size I think, and at some point RO pre-filtering to reduce the boil time and energy becomes worthwhile. |
Decided to give it a try and tapped the trees today..not making any claims i did it correctly, but its a pretty simple setup. Didn't get any pics after it was all set up, but the only additions were some sturdy rocks to hold the buckets down. The equipment so far is as pictured. Got the taps off ebay, tubing and pails can be picked up wherever works best for you. Was just looking at a friends set up and he's using connectors to attach tubing to flow only into a few buckets..wish I'd done that but this is workable. I first drilled holes in the lids. At the trees, I connected the tap to the tubing, used a 5/16 drill to make the holes, and then tapped the taps into the openings and let gravity do the rest. Sap on two trees started flowing right away..another just oozed a bit and another couple did nothing. Checked later, and the slow tree was moving more quickly and one of the others had started flowing. Hammered the taps on the other in a bit further..will check it tomorrow. Will post pics of the cooking when I do it. Seems like if the temps are in the 40s, it will keep a bit..more than that, and it will go bad. Worst case, I'll refrigerate it till the weekend. |
| I have 15 taps in. We will be boiling tomorrow. Last year I did it over a turkey fryer and spent more in propane than I would just buying from the local guy. THis year I am using an old woodstove set up outside. If it wasnt for the kids I am not sure I would do it as it takes a lot of time. But they enjoy it and it beats them watching Sponge Bob. |
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Quoted:
I have 15 taps in. We will be boiling tomorrow. Last year I did it over a turkey fryer and spent more in propane than I would just buying from the local guy. THis year I am using an old woodstove set up outside. If it wasnt for the kids I am not sure I would do it as it takes a lot of time. But they enjoy it and it beats them watching Sponge Bob. With your wood stove setup, anything you can do to insulate and ensure as much of the heat as possible is transferred to the evaporator tray instead of up the chimney would help. Another option would be using an indoor wood stove and making an enclose evaporator that can be vented outside so you're heating the house with the "waste" heat and only the heat contained in the actual evaporated water is being vented outside. If I were to try making maple syrup again, I would build up a reverse osmosis concentrator based on parts from the inexpensive home water RO systems, and a wood fired very well insulated evaporator stove with a stainless labyrynth flue under the evaporator tray and fan forced draft to maximize the evaporation accomplished per BTU of wood consumed. |
Me, too! That stuff boils slow..its going right now..I figure by Saturday I should have some. 
Anyway, I've gotten about 30 gallons of sap, so figure I'll get maybe 1/2-3/4 of a gallon. I spent $12.00 on the propane tank plus used up about 1/4 of another, so I'm probably going to break even but its still fun, if slow. But then again, if you have a source of cheap wood, why not? It's one more high calorie food you can get from your own property, and its a treat besides. I had some idea that it was this crazy intricate process and its one of the more simple projects I've ever done. Drill hole, connect tap to a piece of tubing, tap into the tree, run into bucket. Boil. Everything is at least conceivably reusable and I think I had $13.00 into supplies, prior to getting the propane. |
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I think it's really cool. Looking forward to how it turns out.  It's really cool and always tasty, it's just the amount of energy input required for that 40:1 reduction is shocking. The fact that it is cost effective for the big producers to install expensive reverse osmosis concentrators to reduce the boil time required says something. |
Should all be done Saturday. i've had to keep the sap chilled since its been wrm out but its been running quite a bit more. I got the most sap from the tiniest tree..not what I expected. 
I'll take some pics of the sap and how I'm boiling it down this weekend. Not sure how much I'll get but over a gallon, I think. Might try to make a little bit of sugar, too. |
| We have had a bad year for sap. So far I have only made 5 pints of syrup. Got a good amount of sap yesterday and will probably have about 30 gals to boil on Mon. Looking at the weather I think I will probably be done this weekend. Looks like it is going to get and stay warm next week. I built a evaporator out of a 6" deep steam table tray over some cinder blocks. Works pretty slick. I finish on a Coleman stove. |
Came out great. I got 4 pints and 10 half pints of dark syrup..it tastes incredible. Plus I got probably 1/2 pint of sugar that I boiled off separately. I spent about $33.00 on propane and equipment, and while it took a long time, it wasn't labor intensive, so while I don't know that it would be profitable, it was fun and I'll do it again next year for sure.
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...but we do get cane syrup...|
That looks great. My sister-in-law gave us some of her homemade MS years ago, and it had a very unpleasant smoke flavor. How do you keep the smoke flavor from getting in the syrup?
We buy our syrup from people in upstate NY along Lake Ontario when we go up there in the fall. It is incredible stuff. I still find it hard to comprehend how much the tap needs to boil down to get so little. |
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Quoted:
That looks great. My sister-in-law gave us some of her homemade MS years ago, and it had a very unpleasant smoke flavor. How do you keep the smoke flavor from getting in the syrup? We buy our syrup from people in upstate NY along Lake Ontario when we go up there in the fall. It is incredible stuff. I still find it hard to comprehend how much the tap needs to boil down to get so little. I used propane, so it wasn't an issue..for high volume stuff, I could see that being expensive. I also realized what a ripoff the propane exchange places are..never used enough to care but they only fill 20 lb. tanks to 15 or 18 lbs and charge $17.00 for them. Local hardware does refills for $16.00, full, plus has a $4.00 coupon online all the time and let me use it fill more than one tank. |
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Some pics of the process that I took.
Partial pail of sap. I'd emptied most of them and this had a bit from the previous day. 
In retrospect, I should have used connectors and ran them into one pail, but whatever..lesson for next year. 
Got warm a couple days and kept the syrup in a cooler with some ice while I was at work. 
Cooking setup. Not sure why the pot was off center at that point. But that's the setup I used. You skim the foamies off. I just used a mesh strainer to do it. 
When I got the sap boiled down to a few gallons, I ran it through some cheesecloth to strain and finished boiling it in the house. It needs to be 7.1F over the boiling point of water. I put it in hot jars, inverted and ready to go. Skipped paleo today..had pancakes and sausage tonight for supper..and fried the sausage in maple syrup. Yummy! |
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Loved the thread and video. I couldn't help imagine going into the old guy's house and his wife had a pan of flapjacks and there was a big jug of Aunt Jemema's Pancake Corn Syrup on their table!
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