Started Taping sugar trees this weekend

[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.