who's ready to make some maple syrup?

[Stephen1]

A question for the pros. I drilled holes and placed my 6 taps in sugar maples today. 5 of them were placed on the south side of the trees and started dripping immediately, 1 was placed on the north side of a tree and not a drop has come out of it. Does it matter which side of the tree you place the tap on?

.
Don't worry, that tap on the north side is still frozen. The sap on the north comes later. Trees should be tapped in an upward spiral to the right or downward to the the left, depends on the amount of snow . 3" over and 3" up. Always careful not to be above or below a previous tap hole. Sap only comes from white sap wood. The tree will stain up to 3' above and below a previous hole resulting in dead sapwood.
Each tap will produce about 1 qt of syrup per season.
When your sap starts to turn milky it is the sugar turning, and will result in darker syrup.
Cheers
Stephen

[BBTom]

 We`ve just received an updated calculation of the true cost of making Maple Syrup, with wood as a fuel source. While the actual cost of items will vary from region to region ,we believe that the overall figures should be accurate .


        Item

1.    Evaporator 2x4 ( Hobby Model ) ............$2,100.00
2.    Pipe, Installation........................................212.00
3.    Chain saw.................................................249.00
4.    Gas, maintenance for saw .........................144.00
5.    Four wheel drive pickup.........................12,379.00
6.    Maintenance for pickup..............................656.00
7.    Insurance for pickup..................................879.00
8.    Replace rear window of pickup (twice).........600.00
9.    Fine for cutting in Conservation area.........1000.00
10.  Fourteen Case Coors Light........................560.00
11.  Littering fine.............................................500.00
12.  Tow charge from wreck.............................175.00
13.  Overbilling from Doctor re:splinter in eye.....250.00
14.  Safety glasses...........................................29.50
15.  Overbilling from Doctor re:crushed toes......200.00
16.  Safety Boots...........................................175.00
17.  New Livingroom carpet............................1200.00
18.  Chimney brush an Rods............................125.00
19.  Log splitting Maul........................................80.00
20.  Chiropractor fees re:back...........................750.00
21.  Log splitter.............................................1750.00
22.  Fifteen Acre woodlot.............................20,000.00
23.  Taxes on woodlot.....................................900.00
24.  Buckets an Spiles ....................................   50.00
25   Containers with labels .............................1500.00
26.  Divorce Settlement ............................ 250,000.00

       Total first year`s Costs......................296,463.50
       Value of Maple Syrup sale`s First year......8,754.00
        First Year Profit or (Loss) .................(287,709.50)

[OH Boy]

BBTom, You did make a lot of syrup on 50 bucks worth of buckets and spiles.

This is hilarious. don't be surprised if it starts showing up on other forums.

[Chuck White]

Should be pretty nice here this afternoon, it's 34° now!

Tapping and hanging about 125 buckets today!

The pipeline should start dripping later today!

[21incher]

Ice tea jugs stink to use for collecting sap. It freezes in them and won't come out until the sun melts it.


 
The tap on the north side never started flowing so I pulled it out plugged the hole and switched it to the south and all is well. Got about 5 1/2 gallons of sap between yesterday afternoon and this morning from the 6 taps. Cooking it down in my garage in a 5 gallon outdoor wok which seems to work ok. In the beginning some foam formed which I scooped it off and now am able to evaporate over a gallon a hour in the 24" wok. 


 
  I would not recommend cooking it down inside as the mist is quite sticky and would make a mess. I have my doors open with a breeze blowing through and the vapor still sticks to everything. This is fun, off to tractor supply to get another 6 spies and a candy thermometer.

[JohnM]

This is fun, off to tractor supply to get another 6 spies and a candy thermometer.

:D  It's like the scene from Airplane, "I picked the wrong day to quit making syrup!" ;) :D  Looks great 21!  Get some kind of 'shield' around your burner and wok and I'll bet you'll see a faster burn.   Oh and I found shaking the snot out of the jugs will bust up the ice enough so you can at least pour out the sap into whatever storage you're using.  Depending on the amount of ice of course.

Finally got the taps in this afternoon.  The first pic was the first two taps, the second pic is the same jug 1 1/2 hours later!   Should have a mess of the stuff come this time tomorrow.  Gotta get hoppin on sap storage and my evaporator!

  

  

 

[Chuck White]

Well, we went over a little, we tapped and added 155 buckets, so now we have 879 taps on pipeline and the 155 buckets for a total of 1,034 taps!

A few of them were dripping today, so hopefully they'll be running tomorrow!

[JohnM]

for a total of 1,034 taps!

  Holy mackrel Chuck!  I'm thinking about doubling my taps to 24, only 1,010 til I catch up! ;) ;D  You might have said before but what kind of arch are you using?  Wood, gas or oil fired?

[Chuck White]

Not mine!

Belongs to my brother Jack!

The evaporator (arch) is 3' X 8', wood fired, made by Maple Pro and distributed by CDL of Vermont.

This outfit can evaporate around 70 gallons per hour!

I really enjoy helping out at the sugar shack!

There are a lot of rigs out there that are H U G E compared to this one! 

[thecfarm]

Well Chunk, here's a small one and low budget at that. Just want to make sure the wife can handle it all.
JohnM helped me out ALOT.
This is a front view of the cider block boiler


 

This is with the SS steel top on and the SS frying pan.



 

With no pan



 

boiling



  

[JohnM]

Well Chunk, here's a small one and low budget at that. Just want to make sure the wife can handle it all.
JohnM helped me out ALOT.
This is a front view of the cider block boiler


 

This is with the SS steel top on and the SS frying pan.



 

With no pan



 

boiling



 

  btw this hobby leads to weight gain...just sayin  :-\

[21incher]

thecfarm that is a good idea. I think I will make a plate like that for my wok tomorrow and get some cement blocks. The cost to keep doing it with propane will kill me. I cooked down 8 gallons of sap today and will be enjoying my first maple syrup on some homemade waffles tomorrow morning.

[thecfarm]

21incher,JohnM is the brain of it all. See his #10 reply. I just copied it.
Side view



 

If the wife can do most of the work and take the time to do it,I might build one from steel. Kinda the same idea. Make it just a thick as the blocks,double wall,fill with sand and weld it all together. She might even get a small sugar shack too.

[Peter Drouin]

Nice set up Cfarm 

[JohnM]

Ray, there were two things that I couldn't answer well when we were talking yesterday.  You asked when do you stop tapping/boiling and I was saying I had to stop last year just because it was taking up too much time.  But the 'real' answer is the sap just stops running.

That other term I couldn't remember was 'sugar sand' or niter.  It collects on the bottom of the jars and looks just like what it says, a fine sand.  Doesn't really effect anything though.  Found this blog when I was trying to remember what it was.  I may try what they suggest on how to deal with the niter. http://puttingupwiththeturnbulls.com/2011/04/13/sugar-sand-chalk-it-up-to-learning-experience/

Anyone else have tips/tricks for niter? ???

[Woodboogah]

The niter wont hurt you at all.  We filter it out with filter paper out of the evaporater before it goes into the finisher.  Its more of an aesthetics thing if you are using glass containers.  You could filter it with cheese cloth.  I have not tried it but some people use it.  I have tried wool filters but felt I was losing a lot of product in the filter itself.  Now we just buy rolls of filter paper and cut it to size.  Bascoms in alstead NH is where we purchase all out sugaring supplies.  They are online and ship out pretty quick

[loggah]

On the bigger evaporators you can switch your drawoff sides this helps keep your sugar sand  down,  we use the paper filters inside the felt  filters and can draw off a few times by changing the paper ones only.as far as the felt filters after you have filtered your syrup thru them ,just close them up and dip the bottoms in the boiling sap a few times this will get any syrup in them out, and the crap will still stay in the filter which can be washed out and dried and reused. Don

[Chuck White]

Looks like a nice setup you've got there Ray!  ;) 

[thecfarm]

As I said,it all came from JohnM.  ;D
We're using paper filters too,coffee filters.  :D  Remember this is small scale.When we pour it out we have to use use 4-5-6 filters. But this is only about a quart and a half too. The filters plug up with junk and we just change it and put a new one on. It's gets filled up so bad the sap won't hardly even go through the filter. By the way we have no idea what we are doing, But DanG ain't we having fun.  ;D

[m wood]

I like that attitude Ray.  I've been thinkin the last few years of doing the same scale (and knowlege base :D ) as you are doing.  Looks like a blast
mark

[thecfarm]

I should take another picture of about 6 hours of boil time. It's leaning a little and that SS top does not look like SS now. But it is working good,so far.

[JohnM]

As I said,it all came from JohnM.  ;D

Don't give me too much credit, Ray, I stole the idea from someone on youtube. ;D

[21incher]

The trees have gone wild today. Temps rose to about 40 deg. and my 12 taps are now putting out about 2 1/2 gallons of sap a hour. I can only evaporate about 1 1/2 GPH so I am loosing the battle. JohnM I have just copied your top design and will be picking up some blocks shortly to be able to start using wood as the price of propane in small quantities has skyrocketed around here. Thanks.

[21incher]

Well after a 16 hour day yesterday I got my first good batch of syrup


 
Put a shield around my burner and that helped speed things up until I switch over to wood


 
Did the final cooking down inside with a candy thermometer


 
My first homemade maple syrup. Just had waffles with the rest of it. Boy do I have a sugar buzz.

[JohnM]

My first homemade maple syrup. Just had waffles with the rest of it. Boy do I have a sugar buzz.

8) smiley_clapping  Congrats, 21!