The Official 2008 Maple Syrup Thread.

mwhit · #41 01/21/08, 08:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Candace

Holy Cow! I am new to the site and my mind is racing... sooooo, what kind of maple trees can you tap? Any kind or does it have to be a particular species? The thought of collecting sap and making my own syrup... are you kidding me??? Where the heck have I been? (Can anybody tell that this is a very exciting proposition for me?) I think I have some quick homework to do but wanted to know about which maples can be used. Wow! You guys are so amazing. (Yes, I am easily entertained but this is very cool and I hope those of you who know how to do these things are amazing!)

You're going to have so much fun here

You might want to put your location (or at least general area) in your profile, it will help people answer your questions

Michelle

ericjeeper · #42 01/22/08, 05:16 PM

ordered 20 bag brackets and 100 bags..and 20 spiles to use for them

ripcat-ranch · #43 01/22/08, 08:06 PM

Can anyone tell me why my taps are leaking? We tapped about 30 trees and more than half are leaking more sap down the tree than going into the container. We tapped over 100 trees last year in Maine and only had a few that leaked. It doesn't look like I hammered them in to hard and split the tree. If anyone has a suggestion I would appreciate it.

notenoughtime · #44 01/22/08, 08:20 PM

I have never seen this before-really neat pics.

Up North Louie · #45 01/22/08, 08:33 PM

Ripcat, are you sure that your auger is the correct size for your spiles? Ours call for 7/16ths. One year I grabbed the wrong bit-- I think it was 1/2, and I had a problem like you describe. Then I had a bigger problem--I thought Dad would skin me. He was madder than hell.

By the way, are you saying you have taps in trees already this year?

Don

ripcat-ranch · #46 01/23/08, 06:02 AM

Yes, the bit is 7/16ths. It does have me baffled. And yes, we do have taps in. We just moved from Maine to Kentucky and we even were boiling some sap last night until the big blow up!!

We set up our boiler on a concrete slab. I thought it would crack up underneath but blow up? It never crossed my mind. It sounded like a shotgun going off. It blew one of the pans right up in the air! Praise the Lord it went backwards toward the chimney and we didn't have a couple of gallons of boiling sap in our face. So our first attempt at making syrup in Kentucky was not a good one. Hopefully we will have some more sap today to try again!

MELOC · #47 01/23/08, 09:03 AM

that reminds me of watching my brother burn a porcelin toilet in a bonfire. wow...talk about explossive!

kwagner21 · #48 01/23/08, 10:15 AM

I'm hoping to trying making syrup for the first time this year, but i have a stupid ques. someone said norway maples are not good because they produce cloudy syrup. i seem to be having a hard time telling the difference between norway and sugar maples. all the books i check and the internet make it very hard to distinguish. any suggestions? also does the tree have to be 10 inches to tap? i thought i read somewhere it was 6???

MELOC · #49 01/23/08, 12:11 PM

everything i read says to wait until they are 10 inches, but i may tap a few 9's this year just to see. it is probably more of a concern for the tree's ability to recover from the wound. consider that the area all around the hole will lose sap flow. that area is constant and relative to a constant tap hole size, but it represents a greater percentage of a smaller tree. so a smaller tree has a greater percentage of damage to overcome compared to a larger tree.

norways and sugars are very close. the leaves look so much alike. i think the only way to be sure for trees that do not have mature and flakey/scaley/bumpy bark is to wait until next year and ID the trees this year when they produce seed. a norway maple has a pair of seeds that hang in a "V" and a sugar maple has seeds that hang in a "U".

kwagner21 · #50 01/23/08, 01:25 PM

I was looking for the seed pods for that reason this year, but it is in the middle if the woods and for some reason I just didn't notice any. guess I need to look a little harder. I know the norways are not native as the maples are but from what I hear they have spread pretty far from where planted by people- please correct me if i am wrong. it would be much easier to find out most of the norways are by houses and the sugars are more likely in the woods!!

MELOC · #51 01/23/08, 04:08 PM

i just wanted to report that the silver maples here in south cetral pa are running. i was scouting around trying to finalize my tubing order and noticed small woodpecker holes on one of the silvers runing pretty good. i noticed a week ago that the buds are swelling already. i don't plan on tapping the silvers, but if i did, now would be the time.

Up North Louie · #52 01/23/08, 07:37 PM

Wow... this is too soon. At least up here. In my experience, years where it runs way early are not good years.

It might not be that way for every one every where, but "rested" trees, with prolonged cold, seem to produce a whale of a lot better for us.

Don

seedspreader · #53 01/23/08, 07:39 PM

Meloc is usually a month ahead of me (or more) so it's cool. I like watching spring happen through this site and the different flows for different areas.

MELOC · #54 01/23/08, 08:08 PM

yeah, i live in a strange and wonderful part of the world, lol. i didn't have a good run last year when i waited until the end of february. we had a late cold snap where it didn't get above freezing for a few days followed by temps in the sixties a few days later. now you know why we have punxsutawney phil. i have seen temps here in the 78-80 F range in january and that cold snap i mentioned had at least one night at 4 F in march. i think my best strategy is to tap asap in february when i have the temps for a run.

Happy7Farm · #55 01/23/08, 08:40 PM

We made our first syrup tonight. We got a little over a pint. If things wouldn't have blown up last night we would have a quart. At least now we know that we can make maple syrup in Kentucky!!! We have been sweating that one out since we left Maine last April. We did have the concrete blow up again but it didn't ruin the syrup this time around. We are looking for a big run on Sat & Sun.

fka - ripcat-ranch

MELOC · #56 01/23/08, 08:52 PM

cool! glad to know it can happen that far south.

seedspreader · #57 01/23/08, 09:02 PM

Ripcat/Happy7...

Great to hear about the syrup for you guys. I haven't caught the bug just yet, but it's probably the single digits around here doing that to me.

Up North Louie · #58 01/24/08, 10:21 AM

Just a post to keep the thread at the top of the totem pole-- they're moving to a different server and threads without traffic will be left at the curb...

jadedhkr · #59 01/24/08, 01:23 PM

Anyone have any good links to how you make the syrup? I've never done it, but wouldn't mind a new experiment

I have a few maples, but an overwhelming abundance of those darn box elders. Why not?

michiganfarmer · #60 01/24/08, 01:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jadedhkr

Anyone have any good links to how you make the syrup? I've never done it, but wouldn't mind a new experiment

I have a few maples, but an overwhelming abundance of those darn box elders. Why not?

You drill a hole, put a spout in the hole, hang a bucket on the spout to collect the sap, then boil the sap to get rid of the water to concentrate the sugar into syrup.

THat is the basics of it. You have to collect about 40 gallons of sap from the tree to hav enough to boil down to get one gallon of syrup. You boil it untill it is 118 degrees.