Pictures of my maple syrup operation

[motownbrowne]

Since all of us TBN members don't live in syrup country, I thought I'd share some pictures of my syrup operation. My dad's been cooking syrup on our property since the mid-seventies. I grew up doing it and in 2012 updated our equipment and increased our tap count by about 50%. Prior to this, we cooked on 3 flat bottom stainless pans with a total area of 30" x 10'. This setup boiled off about 25 gallons of sap per hour and used a full cord of wood to make 10 gallons of syrup.

Maple syrup production is basically a two step process, collecting sap, and removing most of the the water from it. From the tree, the sap is between 2-4% sugar. In the bottle, syrup is 67% sugar. Removing the water is a very energy intensive process. In the late 1800s pans were developed with flues in the bottom to increase surface area. For example, our new evaporator has a 2'x8' flue pan, but rather than 16 square feet exposed to the flame it has close to 100 square feet due to the incorporation of flues. Our new (used) evaporator is 2'x10', boils off approximately 70 gallons of sap per hour, and makes about 25 gallons of syrup per cord of soft wood. As you can see, the increase in efficiency is substantial.

Here's the new setup:

The syrup enters the flue pan from a "head tank" which is elevated to provide positive sap flow. The level in the pan is regulated by a float box. You can see the head tank in the first picture. Since we are in Wisconsin, there is a good supply of old bulk tanks available. We pay about $1-1.25 per gallon for stainless bulk tanks. The head tank is 400 gallons, and the other tank in the picture is 250 gallons.


Here you can see the flues in the bottom of the pan.


As the syrup in the front pan, which has a flat bottom, evaporates, it is replaced with sap, called "sweet" now, from the flue pan. This is regulated by another float box on this evaporator.

As the water boils off, the sweetest liquid gathers near the draw-off valve. There is a thermometer here to help gauge when the syrup is ready. Maple syrup boils at 7 degrees above the boiling point of water.

Once it's getting close to ready, a hydrometer is used to more accurately gauge the sugar content.

After the syrup is ready, we draw it off into the steel pail and filter it as it pours into a stainless milk can to cool. From there we store it in buckets until we have enough to bottle, usually around 30 gallons at a time.

We put out about 420 taps every year. We hope to make about 120 gallons of syrup every year, but this year that seems unlikely due to unseasonably warm weather during the syrup season. For now, though the head tank has some sap in it, the 250 gallon tank is full, and I've got some cooking to do! I can burn about 1-1.5 cords of wood in a day using this rig, and make up to 35 gallons of syrup per (really long) day.

Better get to work!

 

[mecan]

Thanks for sharing

 

[KretZ]

Impressive! About how many acres are all your trees spread out?

 

[motownbrowne]

Impressive! About how many acres are all your trees spread out?

300 of our taps are on about 8 acres that we own. The other 120 are on about 4 acres that belong to our neighbor.

Our operation is about as small as a "commercial" operation can get. Around here a big operation might run 10,000 taps or more.

Here's a couple pictures once we got up to a boil.

It's a little tough to see since the camera lens pretty much immediately fogs up, but here's the flue pan in full boil.


And the front pan:


And one of the steam we're making:

 

[RobS]

Fascinating! I've been to local festivals but never seen the equipment in this much detail. I've always had the impression it's a continuous flow process but with your float valves, maybe not? Do you work in batches, moving the syrup to the next step before recharging with fresh sap?

Thanks for sharing!

 

[TheSpoon]

From your first pictures it looks like you're using 5 gallon buckets on the tree taps? No tubing runs?

My middle school had a sugar shack that raised money every year for the school in the early 90s (maybe still does). The 6th graders collected the sap, the 7th graders tapped the trees and the 8th graders ran the sales and pancake breakfast. One of the few things I remember about my middle school years.

 

[KretZ]

300 of our taps are on about 8 acres that we own. The other 120 are on about 4 acres that belong to our neighbor.

Our operation is about as small as a "commercial" operation can get. Around here a big operation might run 10,000 taps or more.

That is cool! I would like to do that one day. On a much smaller scale, just for ourselves and presents for family and friends. I am not sure we have enough maples for even that though. I recently made a batch of this maple dark ale. It's pretty good. It actually called for a 12 oz bottle of maple syrup in the wort boil.

 

[s219]

Wow, very cool! Do you sell the syrup?

 

[motownbrowne]

Fascinating! I've been to local festivals but never seen the equipment in this much detail. I've always had the impression it's a continuous flow process but with your float valves, maybe not? Do you work in batches, moving the syrup to the next step before recharging with fresh sap?

Thanks for sharing!

Yes, it's a continuous flow type system. Sap enters from the head tank, flows into the flue pan, then into the syrup pan. As fresh sap replaces what's being evaporated, the sweetest syrup ends up near the draw off. A large evaporator may actually be constantly drawing off syrup, but in our system, we take off about a gallon and a half every 45 minutes. So that part does consist of batches, but the rest is continuous.

Yes, mostly buckets, but the taps at the neighbors are on tubing. No vacuum system, which is common in the industry, it just runs down hill.

We sell the syrup only at our farm stand. Mostly in quarts.

 

[motownbrowne]

That is cool! I would like to do that one day. On a much smaller scale, just for ourselves and presents for family and friends. I am not sure we have enough maples for even that though. I recently made a batch of this maple dark ale. It's pretty good. It actually called for a 12 oz bottle of maple syrup in the wort boil.

It's really a fun thing to do! One of the best parts is that it's a time of year, late winter, early spring that everyone else complains about, but we're out in the woods burning firewood, making syrup and having a blast (when things are going well, anyway).