I need to remeasure because the new one in the greenhouse seems very efficient. I boiled down 60 litres using two largish armfuls of spruce from the branches and 2 pieces of maple when I went to bed.
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Mine is only inefficient due to size and quantities done in a batch. It takes time to get everything heated up and going and then I am out of sap. I think the worst part is the labor for the wood prep rather than the amount of wood. I use wood the size of a 2x2 so keeping the wood prepared and the fire stoked is a full time job. I only have a dozen maple trees to tap. I have a trout stream deviding my property and the DNR has taken possession separating me from my woodlot. They wonât play nice.
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Trying something new this year. This birch is coming down this year which is why the 3 taps⌠we will see.
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Last year I used Tamarack. This year may be a mixture of Tamarack and Poplar. I really want to save the Birch I have for firewood.
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100 taps and in a week I collected 7 gallons of sap. It looks like the weather wonât cooperate until next weekend. The two years prior, I was making syrup by the 12th of March. Iâm going to wait to put the rest of the taps in.
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I hear you Bill. I got about 4 gallons in a week. Itâs just not warning up in the woods with the snow pac. Snowing here now. 1" predicted for today with 6-10 predicted for the overnight and tomorrow. Spring is a season we only read about hear. Summer comes just as soon as the snow melts
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20 taps 100 litres today/yesterday a nice rolling boil in the greenhouse
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Hey syrup guys! Iâve always wondered what you do with all that syrup. Iâve heard of pancakes with maple syrup, but 100 litres, thatâs a lot of pancakes. Here pancakes are eaten with cloudberry jam and wipped cream as a dessert. I donât recall ever tasting maple syrup.
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100 litres of sap equals about 2.5 litres of syrup⌠on oatmeal,in tea, in baking, etc. anywhere you would use honey and or sugar. If I have enough I make some maple sugar as wellâŚ
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Thanks David. That makes sense.
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We used to make about 50 gallons of maple syrup per year. But some people in our area make hundreds and even a few thousand gallons! That is the amount of syrup, not the sap. So some of us even sell it.
There are several grades of maple syrup. The higher grades are, of course, for putting on pancakes, etc⌠But thereâs a grade âBâ at the low end of the scale that doesnât have a very good flavor, but still has the sweetness. Our equipment supplier buys it at a moderate price and resells it in bulk for use in making barbeque sauce.
Pete Stanaitis
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Greenhouse peak with the sap boiler going in the background
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Here is an old topic that it seems yearly timely, to resurrect.
I learned here and on @BillSchiller Bill Schillerâs âDiscovering My Freedom in Minnesotaâ topic much about the wood energy needed to boil off the excess water. Reducing the thin watery saps down to a rich thick syrup.
Not precisely making steam for engines.
But the same bulk wood burning for energy principals Iâve seen on old timey logging steam donkey engines working displays. Here PNW these used non-seasoned as-cut live-woods to make the steams. One young strong man doing the drag-saw cutting and splitting needing to hustle butt sweat to keep up. A second oldest, experienced man as the fireman/steam maker. The middle aged proven machinery guy as the donkey winch operator/oiler/fix-it-man.
I forget? I am confused by the some saying âthe flame must never touch the vesselâ ??
Versus others saying that the open combustion flame and hot flue gases must direct contact past the boiling reduction vessel. ??
Which is it, oh experienced syrup makers?
Regards
Steve Unruh
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Steve, thanks for bringing up this old thread. I have only been making syrup for about 5 years, so Iâm no expert, but I will tell you what I have learned so far. I started with a barrel evaporator the first year with two hotel pans. As mentioned earlier, I let the flames come up the sides of the pans and this caused burning around the edges because as it was boiling, it would splash up and quickly burn on the hotter than 212 degree walls of the pan that were above the sap level. The next year I got a 2 foot by 4 foot pan and built an insulated fire box for the pan to sit on. With this setup, only the bottom of the pan (minus the one inch frame around the perimeter) is exposed to the flames, so the sidewalls donât get hot enough to burn the sap. I do try to keep the fire stoked as hot as possible with wood no bigger than my wrist and the flames hitting the bottom of the pan. With this setup I can boil off 8-10 gallons per hour. It seems kinda funny how I tend to forget about making syrup until this time of year and now I have a one track mind. All other projects are on hold. I put in 3 test taps on Monday and 2 were dry with the third just barely dripping. The weather looks good for the trees to really start flowing this week so I am very busy cleaning out all my tanks and pumps and reverse osmosis system. Canât wait to be sitting out there watching the huge steam cloud and smelling the pleasant aroma.
GC
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You are right, it is the burning on the side of the pan, and the bottom of the pan can get caked with tar which acts as an insulation.
I tapped this week but I was a little early.
You might be too late. Once the tree starts budding, the sap gets a bitter taste to it.
You tap when a ring forms around the tree and the soil around it starts getting squishly. Plus the temps alter between above and below freezing.
I tapped one tree but it was a little early here. They reported it was 50 out, but I donât think it got that high.
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No way I am too late, if anything I am too early. Last Saturday was the first day we have gotten above freezing since 2nd week in January when it got to 35 for a couple days. We have had many nights at 10-15 below since then. Trees are just now thawing out and are nowhere near budding. I have my silver maples and my sugar maples on two different vacuum lines because my silvers always bud first. When that happens I usually have 3-7 more days on the sugars.
GC
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Good. I heard flowering and I was thinking cherry and forsythiaâs.
We are probably pretty close. I tapped the one that is out in the open because it was supposed to be really warm, and during that earlier thaw, the ground thawed up, but I donât think that happened. I am not convinced the temperature reported was right. i could see my breath outside which happens up to 45F while they were reporting it was 50F out.
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That is a really nice small set up.
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