Started Taping sugar trees this weekend

[SPIKER]

Hi All:

just wanted to let everyone know that I started sugaring this weekend, I tapped ~8 trees and already in one day got close to 25 gallons of sap, & boiled it yesterday down to about 2.5 gallons of concentrate sap. Will finish it in a day or two. I know next 3 or so days the sap will not run but wanted an early start. I still got a few pints of left overs from last year but I knew they won't last

Now i know how much I need for a ear of my own supply, and will give some more to guys at the shop and my family too. so far last year was better looking on the first runs & was almost clear at this point so maybe I'm already a bit late but the spring is worse than it was last year as we never had a hard long freeze... maybe something to that global warming huh?

Sorry no pics (maybe this week I'll snap a few pics...)


Mark M

 

[mjarrels]

Suppose to dip to 8 degrees tonight and the winds are howling... ain't nothing going to be running except the blower on the Harman coal stove!

mark

 

[pappy19]

Worst winter in 30 years here in the western states. We'll take some of that global warming, what's Al Gore's phone number?

 

[mjarrels]

Lived in Coupeville Wa. for years... Temp dipped to 0 for a week in 1991... pipes forze everywhere... I was luckey... I was in the Gulf war and the wife was in the Philippines... All water cut off and pipes drained!

mark

 

[ragkar]

I'm thinking of running up to vermont later this year and buy a mess of maple syrup. When's the best time as far as availability and prices?

 

[Wayne County Hose]

Vermont to buy maple syrup? Dude, you can drive less than 2 hours and get just as good here in northern Pa. If you want to go up there anyway, that's another thing.

 

[SPIKER]

If you are looking to drive some place it will be a few weeks at least before every thing is flowing good again in our area, up there it is hard to say. BUT most places are on-line and will ship using CC and or money orders/ paypal ect. buying & shipping is much cheaper than a tank full of gas unless you plan on getting a hundred gallons...

I know there are a few locally that sell on-line. where i buy my taps ect doe. it is "Fitch Pharm Farms" but I don't ahve the web site info, maybe try a google search for them in ashland ohio.

mark

 

[atgreene]

We're still 3 weeks from making any sugar, at best. With 4' of snow on the ground tapping is gonna be a real PITA this year. All the lines are buried and the mainlines are below the snowlevel, say nothing of trying to set tanks or gather buckets.

Here's a couple pics of our operation.

And some vids. YouTube - Boiling Syrup at Greene Maple Farm

YouTube - Greene Maple Farm

 

[SPIKER]

I WISH you hadn't posted that link to U-Tube on boiling up there I just spent a bunch of time watching people doing the stuff i SHOULD be doing right now lol

mark

 

[SPIKER]

Hi All:

I did a little more boiling this past few days, not much only got 25 or so gallons over the last week or so and only needed one good stoking of fire wood on the home made boiler & pan. I took a few pics so people can see my method or madness. I took the pics yesterday, after all the action calmed down...

Click on the pics to full size them

pan shown I made this at my old shop, the 2 dividers are not 100% welded but help to keep the bottom from heat bending like it did last year. Pan is about 42" long by 36" wide.

I know it needs cleaning, (I do that each time B4 I use it using green plastic sponge scrubbier pad, vinegar and or bleach & water. followed by a good rinse/& scrub with regular water.) After boiling I drain the Sap/Syrup (not quite syrup yet needs more cooking at this stage for my setup) pan through the valve and through a pre-filter back into a 5 gallon bucket.

Usually I then toss in some rinse water to let it heat on the fire as the fire goes out I clean the pan up to et off all loose stuff making cleaning b4 next use easier.

you can see that in pic the bottom right is actually where sap goes IN at (the black spot) when boiling is setting highest on the fire block/pit. the sap/syrup level got low this weekend and made the black burned on spot. I'll have to get out some elbow grease to clean that good next time I boil... You can also see that my fire pit is a bit small for the PAN the PIT should have built with the corners opposite as they are now, so that the pit was slightly narrower and longer. the PIT was there prior to me making the pan and was used by previous owners to burn trash. I simply removed all the trash residue and added one more block set higher as well as solid 1/2 block toppers to make it more supportive. yes the heat is not good for block but works well enough. I make sure to check out any bad spots to make sure nothing will give away when firing it ...



this is the simple dry stacked cinder block pit I use. this is all open air boiling I finish the syrup inside on the stove in large S.S. stock pot. filtering it 2 or 3 times b4 canning in good ole mason jars.

below are a few pics of how I been getting the sap from the trees, I use good ole 5 gallon buckets with lids I drilled a hole in the lids just large enough to squeeze the tubing through and connect the tree taps using the hose available at many places. the Taps and T's I got this year are 5/16" tree savers that I got locally from "Fitch Pharms" in Ashland Ohio. No I don't owe them anything just they are good people working very hard to make a living they also sell more than just taps they got just about every thing needed to make sap into syrup and if ya don't got trees then you can buy the syrup from them too (as well as candy & honey now too)








Mark M

 

[atgreene]

Nice set-up. Did you scorch your pan at one point?

 

[WayneB]

We are going to have to tap using snowshoes this year. Snow tonight and more coming on Friday................

 

[SPIKER]

atgreene:

Nice set-up. Did you scorch your pan at one point?

YES it got some scorching both this year and last year. I added 2 dividers in the center to stop the bottom of the pan from bending UP in the middle as it did last year, the dividers worked but keeping the sap UP in the high corner requires keeping a close eye on it as boiling sap can turn FAST!

if you look at the pan the BLACK spot in the pic on page1 that is in the lower right of that corner (pan is setting on it's side for pics & to load wood readying it for next burn) The BLACK is from sap scorching as the pan sets at a slight angle out of level this lets the sap run towards the "drain valve" that I open to drain it back into bucket/pan for final boiling down. The wood fire is great for PRE-BOILING to bring the sap down to with in say 90% of being SYRUP and I FINISH boiling on Propane in one of 2 ways, (Outside camp stove) with a smaller S.S. pan (holds ~5 gallons) and has 2 LARGE burners or INSIDE house on the Stove in a 20 qt S.S. stock pot. for my setup it works pretty good as I usually only make 1~2 gallons finished syrup/year.

reason for Finishing inside is volume and control of heat. I have smaller volumes of syrup and need to be able to control the heat/boil so I don't ruin the batch. this year I'm going about it a bit differently since I'm only getting small amounts of sap at a time I;m boiling the smaller amounts down to 80% or so syrup and then taking it off and storing that in the fridge until I get more and then will can all of it as ONE BATCH instead of making 3 or 4 smaller batches which means I have to loose more to the filters and cleaning processes. HOPEFULLY I can get some boiling down this sunday and should have ~1 gallon of syrup at that time.

mark m

 

[atgreene]

YouTube - Snow at Greene Maple Farm Sugarhouse

Here's a vid of our sugarhouse in the snow and a pic. It looks like a few more weeks for us to start.

How is the quality for you this year? Have you checked the sugar content of the sap? Just curious as we have yet to get a chance to do any testing.

 

[SPIKER]

YouTube - Snow at Greene Maple Farm Sugarhouse
How is the quality for you this year?

So far it is GOOD (yummy good) only make about 2 gallons last year for our own use but this year I might have more time IF the new job works out. oh what a feeling...

Have you checked the sugar content of the sap? Just curious as we have yet to get a chance to do any testing.

I don't have a sugar meter/tester but it must be pretty average as I get ~30:1 ratio of sap to syrup... I bought a nice new hydrometer and promptly broke it on the first use so I've been using the +7 degree method and a digital temp gauge. I did it the same way last year and it worked out well so I decided it was good enough for the small batches I'm doing.



Looks like there was a bit of snow up there when those pics were taken!

Mark M

 

[JB4310]

I'm just learning about making maple syrup on a tiny scale, only have one maple tree in my yard (ton of oaks) I live in a suburban area, but a guy on the other side of town has probably 50 taps in his neighborhood, it was a subdivision 50 years ago and the builder planted a bunch of maples so all the neighbors let him tap their trees. seeing all the pails hanging got me interested and since I do love maple syrup I wanted to try it.
The guy gave me 1 tap, I ran home and put it in, within 24 hours I had almost 5 gallons of sap, that got me really psyched, we figured if I could get 10 gallons of sap I could make a quart of syrup at 40 to 1, put 2 more taps in this tree, now I have over 20 gallons of sap in a week. I'm gonna try again tomorrow to boil it down on a stone fire pit in some shallow pans. Last week end I tried evaporating in a lobster pot with about 1.5 gallons, it took forever to get my 3/4 cup of syrup!
So I'm experimenting and learning a little, I did bring a sample of my sap to a medium sized sugar house operation to be tested for sugar content and the guy said mine was very good at 2.9% and it should only take 27 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup, but I thought 2.5% is 40 to 1? maybe he meant mine would take 37 to 1. The guy at the sugar house said this year has been the best in the 36 years he's been doing it.
John,

 

[atgreene]

To figure your ration, take your sap sugar content (2.9) divide into 86, subtract 1= gallons of sap to gallons of syrup.

Ie..... 86 / 2.9 = 2.655 -1 = 25.5 gallons of sap to one gallon of syrup.

We are curreently running a steady 3 % with some trees at 5%.

At 2 % you would be 42 to 1, which is average.

 

[SPIKER]

I have been working way to much so I decided to pull my taps last weekend, on sunday, probably could have gotten 5 more gallons of sap that day If I had left them IN while I was boiling but I pulled them out about 11 am and drug every thing back up, I had 10 + 5 gallon pails over flowing to deal with as it was, so I had all days boiling to go through, here is my home made pan in action.


boiling good more along the added in dividers

starting to heat up

heating more

rolling boil, had to wit for timing to get pics as steam was blocking view. had a nice enough breeze to keep steam moving off the top. made boiling last sunday pretty nice, (not easter but a week & day ago.)


It actually boiled so good that it was boiling over at one point. I opened the valve and drained off 5 gallons to keep it in the pan. If you look close you can see the rolling boil that was going on... I ended up with around 3 gallons total for the year, more than last year but I already got rid of nearly a gallon. I gave a quart to my brother, a pint to the niece and have 2 pints to give to my former boss & his son, I still work on side for them and that is place where I made my syrup pan using left over scrap metal S.S. so probably 100 bucks in material at todays cost I didn't weld up the dividers solid only stitched them along the bottom of the pan. this is OK and helps transfer a lot more heat into the sap as the metal dividers pull the high temp heat up into the sap. one good reason for dividers is also to keep bottom of pan flat (last year it popped UP in center and got a slight scorch into the syrup. not in flavor, but in color caused a very dark color which actually added to the flavor if ya ask me...

I looked at the trees today and they are still running like crazy wet all aver from every tap hole. I plugged them using a hunk of twig/branch from one of the living branches, cleaned off the bark and stripped it down to size to fit the holes snug then drove them into the old tap holes. not sure if it will make much difference but did it anyhow. and the plugs seem to be still letting a lot of flow out of the trees. ..



Have fun

Mark M

 

[JB4310]

To figure your ration, take your sap sugar content (2.9) divide into 86, subtract 1= gallons of sap to gallons of syrup.

Ie..... 86 / 2.9 = 2.655 -1 = 25.5 gallons of sap to one gallon of syrup.

We are curreently running a steady 3 % with some trees at 5%.

At 2 % you would be 42 to 1, which is average.

Atgreene,
Thanks for the info, that could explain why mine came out way to thick, like honey. since I don't have the right measuring equipment, I'm just relying on the ratio formula to determine when it should be done.
The first batch I estimated I should get just under a qt for 8 gallons, but using your formula of 25.5 to 1 for my 2.9% sugar should have made well over one qt. the next batch I made thinner then mixed in the thick stuff to get a decent syrup consistency, don't know if it's really syrup or not.
Did about 20 gallons on Friday in a couple of shallow baking pans, worked much better than the lobster pot, modified my out door stone cooking fireplace to "arch" the flame up to the pans.


Mark,
Thanks for the pics, so that's what the baffles are for to get more heat up in to the sap? my 1 tree is running like crazy! getting 6 gallons a day now, I'm gonna boil another 20 gallons in a couple of days, does any one have advice on how I can determine when the syrup is done??? I don't have a hydrometer or even an accurate thermometer.
Thanks, John

here's my pictures

 

[atgreene]

A couple more tips:

Generally you do not plug the tap holes. Whatever you place in the tap hole is a foreign item to the tree. It's bacteria may not meet well with the tree's bacteria. Maples tend to heal better all on their own with no plugs.

As for when the syrup is done, either use a candy thermometer and boil it until it reaches 7 1/2 degrees above the boiling point of water. That will give you 66.6 brix (sugar content). Legal syrup is technically 7 degrees above boiling point (66 brix), but we tend to run to the higher Vermont standard which gives you a slightly heavier syrup and a stronger (slightly) taste.

A hydrometer is handy to have if you can afford to pick one up, but the candy thermometer will do the job.

If all else fails, when you think you have reached syrup, dip a large spoon in the syrup and see if it sheets or drips. If it begins to run off the spoon in sheets you have syrup.