Maple syrup question

[woody1]

I'm thinking about taping a few sugar maples this year. My question is..How long can you store the sap before starting to boil it down ? I have a spring I could keep it cold.
I was wondering if it is possible to collect it and store it for 10 days to 2 weeks and then start to cook it ?
Thanks,
Woody

[SPIKER]

Woody: the short answer is no,

While possible to store SAP the sap has natural bacteria that will eat the sugar rather quick.  rendering the sap pretty much dirty water filled with bacteria.   It will turn cloudy as the bacteria grow and once it gets above freezing it grows faster.   it goes sorta dormant when frozen I think?   What you can do it BOIL the sap ASAP to kill the natural bacteria that is in the sap, this will let you store the SAP longer, but it will need cooled and stored in a manner that is going to keep it as cold as you can.

I have made syrup 4 times now, so I'm no expert.  Look for BBTom or a few others to post there are a few who are commercial producers, Tom is one, so listen to his advice over mine for sure....

Mark

[wolfram]

Generally, the pros say to treat sap as you would milk.  If it's early in the season and it's quite cold and you are careful to keep the sap temperature very low, you might get as much as a week.  Some guys only boil on weekends.  Do what works for you.  The syrup quality will be impacted by less than ideal storage conditions, but have fun!  Check out mapletrader.com to hear from the professionals.

[bill m]

The longer you store the sap the lower quality of syrup you will make. You can store the sap at about 40 deg. for a couple of days and still make good syrup. Also your buckets should be washed every 3-4 days in the later part of the season.

[woody1]

I was hoping to collect all week and then cook on the weekend. I quess that's not an option. Lokks like some of my retired friends are going to be cookin' some sap during the week. :-[
Woody

[isawlogs]

It all depends on the temperature at the time you store it , if it is cold out , it will keep , but it is best to boil it as it is collected.

[Night Raider]

It is possible to collect during the week and boil weekends, it depends a lot on how you collect the sap.  If you have a bucket hanging off the tap it won't keep and it also won't have enough capacity to hold a few days worth of sap.  The way I do it is mostly boil on weekends unless there is a big run or warm weather then I try to make it up during the week.  I collect in barrels and garbage cans and at the beginning of the season dig them into the snow and mound snow up around them which lasts most of the season, and depending on the trees and terrain a few trees are usually draining into one barrel.  I have the capacity for about 2 1/2 days of good running.  It's a crude version of what some of the big operations do but it seems to work.






I realized I uploaded these pictures without rotating them, I don't really tap the bottom of horizontal branches.

[woody1]

Thanks..I like the "garbage can in the snow" deal.
Woody

[Night Raider]

One thing I forgot to add, if you have too much excess hose in the bottom of the barrel or garbage can it takes a long time to clear of ice in the mornings and not let as much sap flow out of the tree.  I'm thinking of trying to attatch brass nipples to the lid of the garbage cans and just connect the hoses there and let the sap fall in, so when ice forms inside it won't form in and block the hoses.

[woody1]

How many trees do you tap and how to you cook ?
Thanks,
Woody

[Night Raider]

I put in up to 75 taps.  I have a brick fire box with a 2'X6' evaporating pan with baffles and a 2'X1' finishing pan, all on top of the brick fire box, these were both simple pans my dad got made up in the late 70's and are still working great, they have flat bottoms so they aren't ideal for heat transfer.  When a batch is finished we pull the whole finishing pan off and drain it through a felt filter into a bucket then bottle in liquor bottles.  I like to keep the batches small, about a gallon or less which keeps the quality higher.

[SPIKER]

I like the idea of a trash can, I think I'm going to look for a medium sized one for transport, I use 5 gallon buckets with lids, I run several trees into one bucket, on high flowing days the 5 gallon will/can overflow in one day.   I keep 2 sets of buckets in rotation, 5 buckets for each rotation, total of 10.   I usually collect the 4~5 buckets, (swapping full for empty buckets,) all up and start the fire once I get the sap out of the woods.   I get a bucket of Hot Water to get the pan cleaned up/ready from the day before the fire is starting to cook pretty good. I slide the pan on and rinse hot water though it for the first season, then drain and fill with sap and boil, I may boil 4 or 5 batches to get one batch for finishing.   I boil small sap amounts from low flow days and run the Boiling Sap back into the same sap buckets to KILL anything that might have grown/stuck to the bucket while out in the woods.    Then store the boiled sap for a day or two depending on outside temps using the same SNOW for cooling around the buckets with lids on them.   I have also used big ice cooler to store boiled sap overnight when it was flowing faster than I could boil it down.   


I have a propane fired finish pan, (or intermediate pan that is) that I also use to boil, to near complete and usually move the syrup inside onto the stove to final finishing & filtering into the canning jars.   I dont use the fancy & expensive syrup containers, good ole pint & quart jars with canning lids & rings.  I boil to the temp rather than using the hydrometer, (my first use the hydrometer I had was broken.)   Temp method has worked very well for me.   I test boil on the days I'm finishing to determine actual boiling point and adjust my digital thermometer.   the digital temp I use is 219 degrees to hit dead on, the thermometer was half the price of the hydrometer and seems to be just as good It reads in .1 degrees.   Be aware that once you get close the syrup can turn into sugar crystals very fast.


You also need to can & store the syrup correctly to get proper life out of the syrup.  I have some that is 2 years old still sealed & tastes OK, I usually Microwave it good (boiling again often) when ready to pour over some waffles or pancakes.   Once opened it has to be stored in refrigerator, it will spoil otherwise.   I usually transfer from the pints/quarts into smaller glass jars for use as it is easier to pour from the small necks of small commercial type glass bottles.

Mark

[woody1]

Thanks Mark.. I went out in the snow today just looking around for sugar maples. This year I am just going to tap 10 large trees at my camp. I am pretty excited to get everything ready to go. I think I am going to build a brick firepit for cooking. I'll post pictures as i go.
Thanks alot for the input. Any advice you have, let me know.
Woody

[bill m]

You need to get your syrup to the correct density for it to keep. To thin and it will ferment to thick and you will get crystals. A thermometer will work but is a little harder to use compared to a hydrometer. Maple syrup boils at 7 deg. above the boiling point of water. You need to calibrate your thermometer before you start every day and check it from periodically thru the day as the boiling point of water will change as the atmospheric pressure changes.

[olyman]

Thanks Mark.. I went out in the snow today just looking around for sugar maples. This year I am just going to tap 10 large trees at my camp. I am pretty excited to get everything ready to go. I think I am going to build a brick firepit for cooking. I'll post pictures as i go.
Thanks alot for the input. Any advice you have, let me know.
Woody

ive got two huge norway maples in front of my house. friend i buy my maple syrup from,told me i should tap em,and boil. he said those two would produce more than a few gallons. but the tap and collect is easy--its the boiling is the not fun part--

[bill m]

Olyman - Yes you can tap Norway maple but the sugar content is very low compared to Sugar Maples. Same with Red ( Soft ) Maple. If you mix the sap from Norway or Red Maple with sap from Sugar Maple it will take more boiling time and your syrup will be darker. Also Red and Norway Maple start flowering sooner than Sugar Maple so the syrup produced from these trees will take on a buddy flavor sooner.

[SPIKER]

Thanks Mark.. I went out in the snow today just looking around for sugar maples. This year I am just going to tap 10 large trees at my camp. I am pretty excited to get everything ready to go. I think I am going to build a brick firepit for cooking. I'll post pictures as i go.
Thanks alot for the input. Any advice you have, let me know.
Woody

Woody:

you didnt say what you were using to BOIL in, bare in mind that it takes 30+ gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup.

I have first stage (mesh type) and fine cut/clarifying (felt type) filters.  which is common,  you can put up to 3 taps in a  LARGE 24"+ tree but no more normally.   I been using the 5/16" tree saver taps.   Have not had a problem with holes healing up well enough to be hard to tell where I drilled.   remember to not drill in same place next year. you need to offset the hole in height and DIA around.   My boiling pan is S.S. that I made at work 42X46"x8" with 2 dividers.   I boild 2 years without the dividers, and last batches were with them, helps keep the pan stable as much as seperating the sap from syrup.

I boiled the large pan to 212~215, and dump the valve open through mesh filter into buckets and move to store and or to finishing if I have enough time and sap/syrup.   I set the thermometer for each time I use it if the temp changes a lot or I end up boiling a lot in the house then  I re-check just prior to running through the final filter and into the jars.   You have boiling water for the lids right there anyway;)

you might want to find out if there is anyone locally that has been making it to see if you can get some instructions by way of helping them out.   

you already know how to drill trees & put in taps ect?

Mark

[mad murdock]

I know this is an old thread, but I have a pertinent question to ask the "experts" who frequent the sugar shack:
Can syrup be made from Big Leaf Maple, the type that grows in the Pacific NW, and B.C.?
Inquiring minds want to know.  I am sure it would not be of the sweetness and consistency of good old "Hard" or "Sugar" maple, but they are the only maples growing anywhere near where I am.

[isawlogs]

This from wikipedia


Maple syrup has been made from the sap of Bigleaf Maple trees.[8] While the sugar concentration is about the same as in Acer saccharum (sugar maple), the flavor is somewhat different. Interest in commercially producing syrup from Bigleaf Maple sap has been limited.[9] Although not traditionally used for syrup production, it takes about 132 L (35 gal.) of sap to produce 3.8 L (1 gal.) of maple syrup.

[mad murdock]

Thanks, isawlogs.  If time permits this next spring, it may be a great homeschool project for the kids to undertake.  We have plenty of big leaf maple to tap.

[nas]

You can also tap birch if you have them.

Nick

[isawlogs]

Hope it works out , it is a great thing to get the kids involved with, the end product aint to bad either ..  :D

[Coon]

the birch takes alot more sap than the maples do.  I have had it where it took nearly seventy gallons sap to make one gallon of syrup.  The earliest sap has higher sugar content than towards the end of the run.  The grades of the syrup are the same and finished product gets darker the later the season.  I have only tapped the birch.  Any maples we have here are Manitoba Maples which I believe are a soft maple? 

Brad.

[mad murdock]

You can also tap birch if you have them.

We used to tap birch when I was a kid, to drink the sap straight from the tree.  My mother was way into natural foods and wholistic living long before it became the sensation it has lately.  It tasted better than most bottled waters you buy in stores today.  If we had birch here I would try it, closest thing is red alder.

[nas]

Coon
You can tap Manitoba maples too.  The sugar content is low, but you get a lot of sap.  Lots of people tap soft maples(red and silver) around here.  They tend to have lower sugar, but if you don't have sugar maples they are an option.  I think all maples can be tapped.

Nick