# Sugaring Season



## ProfessorGuy (Apr 3, 2016)

We use about 2 gallons of maple syrup per year, so last year's harvest of only 5 quarts meant fewer waffles for yours truly.

But 2016 was a good year.  We produced about 3 and a half gallons, more than 3 gallons stored (the rest eaten or given away already):




If you could taste my wife's waffles, you'd lug sap through the woods too.  We tap 10 trees every year, and carry a 5-gallon pail to each tree emptying the sap buckets into it as we go.  Those precious jars above required about _a thousand pounds_ of sap, over $50 worth of fuel, and over 80 hours of boiling.





Had the neighbors over for breakfast yesterday--waffles and bacon, my favorite.  They left with a pint.  Had lunch with my sons in the city today.  They each got a pint.  Rare beyond price, but our homemade maple syrup is free for friends and family!

Check out the 2016 season log.


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## jpfabricator (Apr 3, 2016)

Thats how honey is around here. Only diffrence is the bees do all the work!
Looks good, makes me hungry! 
Sorry for the shortage, does the weather play a role in the sapping quantity?

Sent from somewhere in East Texas Jake Parker


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## ProfessorGuy (Apr 3, 2016)

jpfabricator said:


> does the weather play a role in the sapping quantity?


We live at the lowest northern slope of a mountain, and we've found the following conditions must be met for usable sap to flow:

First, warm weather must arrive and long enough to thaw some of the frost out of the ground.  :Surprisingly, this does NOT require that the snow cover be gone. In fact, around here, every season starts with snow on the ground and finishes with bare ground.

After that, on each day above freezing _preceded by a night below freezing_, the sap will run.  Generally, the warmer the day, the larger the flow (but the night before must have been cold).  Warm days after warm nights yield almost no sap.  Cold days yield no sap.

Once the days are long enough, or the weather warm enough, the buds on the trees begin to 'pop' open and the sap becomes more and more yellowish and cloudy.  The connoisseurs around here can tell so-called 'bud syrup' by the slightly off taste, so we prefer to end the season when we see the first yellow buckets.

The number of days that fit the criteria determines how much sap is harvested.  This year, during the 35-day season, we gathered between 3 and 20 gallons at a time on about 20 different days.  We got lucky weather-wise and about _150 gallons of sap_ (carried on foot) became our priceless 3.5 gallons of syrup.


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## Andre (Apr 3, 2016)

What spiles do you use? I've had good luck boring a 1/4" hole in the tree and using 1/4" OD vinyl tubing from the tree to the catch can. They always leak a little, but I still got over 5 gallons of sap from two trees in a week. Of course this only makes 2-3 cups of syrup lol.

I built a rocket stove evaporator but didn't have very much luck with it. Cookie sheet sharing two burners on the stove was my evaporator of choice. Finish in a sauce pan.


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## ProfessorGuy (Apr 3, 2016)

Andre said:


> What spiles do you use?


We are old-school:  We use a bit brace and a 5/16" auger bit to drill about 2" into the tree.  Then we insert a stainless steel cone-type spile which has a wire hook to hang a simple galvanized steel 10-quart bucket.  Then we spring a simple arched lid (also galvi) onto the rim of the bucket to keep rain out.




We don't use lines because I'm not convinced the plastic, exposed to weather and light, will last as long as a good steel bucket and spile. We do update our equipment occasionally over the years, but some of the buckets go back several decades.  Two of our old buckets are somewhat rusty, but a little extra iron in the sap is good for you!  Also, our woods are alive with moose, deer, bear, bobcats, fishercats, raccoons, owls, sapsuckers, and dogs.  They all tend to not respect the delicate tubing.  If you have to restring the lines every few days, you may as well be gathering the sap as you walk about.  Finally, a bucket can be emptied completely, the lines cannot, so a bigger proportion of sap is wasted with the lines.  This is a big deal when the batches are tiny like ours.


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## Andre (Apr 3, 2016)

The vinyl I used did harden over the week. Still is working fine but I agree it won't last long.


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## dlane (Apr 3, 2016)

Pic sideways, must be an apple


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## ProfessorGuy (Apr 4, 2016)

This photo is from a Canon Eos XLSi.  It puts 'orientation' info into the jpg header but some software uses it and some does not.  I just rotated the picture and stripped the orientation info from the header.  It should now be upright for all browsers and viewers.


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## atlas ten (Apr 4, 2016)

I haven't had maple syrup in forever. I think I might have to try tapping my maples. Only about 5 so not going expecting lots.
Jack

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk


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