Maple Syrup time

[Don'tkillbill]

I tapped a few trees out in the swamp..... I have a swamp with some high spots with stands of maple.. I managed to make 1.5 liters of syrup last year thats 60l of sap collected!

Any one else out there a big sap....

I'll post pictures of my set up. (a big turkey roaster, a fire and some bricks) ......

I carved a few tree taps... My buckets are so not bush craft but hey what a guy to do.... I saw Ray Mears tap a birch so I tried it yesterday but it was too cold for a sap flow today so I'll check it tomorrow......

Going for 2-3 liters but I have to tap 6 more trees and pray for good weather! Cold nights and warm sunny days seem to best.
Trees not shaded work the best this time of the year.....

 

[tomtom]

Its not something that goes on in the uk a lot, or at all, as far as i know.. but i would be really interested to see you pictures and hear about the process of making sap in to syrup!

 

[bushtuckerman]

well i'm a bit of a maple syrup fiend...god knows what i put you people through, i've consumed well over 1.5 litres! perhaps going on for 20 in the last 2 or 3 years.

 

[pierre girard]

I tapped a few trees out in the swamp..... I have a swamp with some high spots with stands of maple.. I managed to make 1.5 liters of syrup last year thats 60l of sap collected!

Any one else out there a big sap....

I'll post pictures of my set up. (a big turkey roaster, a fire and some bricks) ......

I carved a few tree taps... My buckets are so not bush craft but hey what a guy to do.... I saw Ray Mears tap a birch so I tried it yesterday but it was too cold for a sap flow today so I'll check it tomorrow......

Going for 2-3 liters but I have to tap 6 more trees and pray for good weather! Cold nights and warm sunny days seem to best.
Trees not shaded work the best this time of the year.....

I usually put out 50 taps, and get from three to ten gallons of syrup (depending on the year). We also make sugar. We also do it in the old fashioned manner, boiling sap over an open fire - at the sugar bush - in two 25 gallon kettles.

We make wax sugar (by pouring thick syrup on clean snow), granulated sugar (by pushing the thick syrup back and forth in a hollowed out half log) and hard sugar (by getting the thick syrup to a state of "sheeting" and placing it in a mold).

This year, I fear it just isn't going to happen. It is sugar time, and we will be out of state for most of the season.

PG

 

[Don'tkillbill]

50 trees wow......

I just carved a new tap tonight? I should make 12 and then go out and buy 12 then figure out my bucket situation. Any suggestions?

I'd like 3 old fashioned set ups wooden buckets and all but then after that I'm using food grade buckets with make shift lids.

The granulated sugar sounds neat. So you make thick syrup and then in a hollowed out log (bowl) stir it around until it crystalizes?

Unforunately with my 12 trees (maybe 6 more) I won't have any syrup to spare.

Have you ever tried a birch?

 

[pierre girard]

Hollowed out log is about four feet long by about 14 inches thick.

My grandfather preferred birch syrup, but it goes to mollasses - rather than sugar, if boiled down enough.

For a "real" bushcrafty bucket, you might use what the Ojibwe (and other Algonquien tribes) used - a rectangular box made of folded birch bark.

Here is a link to Native tech, a website which shows how to do just about everything. The site is maintained by Tara Prindle, a bushcraft member:

http://www.nativetech.org/brchbark/barkseam.html

Can you show us a photo of your spile (tap)? Staghorn sumac was often favored for spiles as it has a pithy core - which was easily bored, or burnt, out. Most old Ojibwe encampment sites here have a large colony of staghorn sumac, as well as other bushes and herbs the Ojibwe found useful.

PG

 

[Don'tkillbill]

I have so much birch I should really try the containers. Family project!

Anyway I was pretty happy to make sap last year and supply enough for my daughters pancakes for a month and a bit....It doesn't mean that much now but when she's older she'll rememeber me making the syrup... Thats big......

 

[Rod]

Having diabetes can really be a :aargh4:

jealous

 

[Don'tkillbill]

I have almost 15 liters of sap... Its cold so I think if I keep it out of the sun it should be fine???? Pierre?

Anyway if I have 30-40 liters by Sunday I'll get a big fire burning and see if I can a fill a mason jar or 2 of Syrup...... Its been minus 5c to plus 1 or 2 but a bit of sun has helped the sap.

Pierre or anyone is it true you should put the spile on the part of the tree that gets sun?

Rod I heard today that they have made cells that can be transplanted into a human that produce insulin.... University of Calgary I think.... Look it up... Maybe you could fly into Calgary for treatment and find some canadian Maple syrup to take home!

 

[Don'tkillbill]

After 3 days of hardly any sap half of my trees awoke and started flowing sap.. I have about 30 liters of sap and hope to boil it down Saturday. Might have 30 more liters thus make about 1.5 liters (2 mason jars). Hope to have a few pics to post.

 

[rich59]

Sycamore, over in the UK is related to maple. Any good for tapping?

 

[rich59]

YES!!

In answer to my own question I found a number of references to tapping sycamore. Here is one.

http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Acer+pseudoplatanus

Anyone give me advice on how to tap a tree? I understand that you drill a hole and gently hammer in a down-sloping pipe. But the pipe - are there some made I could obtain or use as a model to make one up?

 

[pierre girard]

I have almost 15 liters of sap... Its cold so I think if I keep it out of the sun it should be fine???? Pierre?

Anyway if I have 30-40 liters by Sunday I'll get a big fire burning and see if I can a fill a mason jar or 2 of Syrup...... Its been minus 5c to plus 1 or 2 but a bit of sun has helped the sap.

Pierre or anyone is it true you should put the spile on the part of the tree that gets sun?

Rod I heard today that they have made cells that can be transplanted into a human that produce insulin.... University of Calgary I think.... Look it up... Maybe you could fly into Calgary for treatment and find some canadian Maple syrup to take home!

Putting the tap on the side of the tree with the most sun will give you more sap early in the season (or at least it seams that way to me). I just put the tap between the largest root and the largest branch.

The spile should be tappered from 3/4 inch to 1/4 inch, about four inches in length. The hole you drill should be 3 1/2 inches in depth - straight in (not slanted) and, ideally should be 5/16 in diameter about 2 1/2 feet to three feet off the ground.

PG

 

[bushtuckerman]

Doesn't the fact that this is britain and not north america matter? i don't know why but i got the impression somehow that if you tried to tap maple over here that you wouldn't get squat, or maybe we just don't have the right varieties..?

if it works with sycamore over here then yay!

 

[rich59]

I think from my surfing the issue is that we don't get the yeald that the maples of N. America get. But we still get a reasonable amount.


The next question is dare I raid my local sycamores over the back of my garden, and growing on local council land. (I nailed an owl box to one a couple of years ago and no one complained.)

 

[Don'tkillbill]

Its almost in the jars, the first batch......

 

[pierre girard]

I think from my surfing the issue is that we don't get the yeald that the maples of N. America get. But we still get a reasonable amount.


The next question is dare I raid my local sycamores over the back of my garden, and growing on local council land. (I nailed an owl box to one a couple of years ago and no one complained.)

All different types of maple give sap that can be made into syrup, but "hard" maple, AKA sugar maple or rock maple - gives the most sap and makes the best syrup. It is very poor for lumber however, being given to twisting, etc. and most maple lumber comes from other varieties.

PG

 

[pierre girard]

Went over to see a friend today. I'm feeling pretty bad I didn't get out for maple syrup this year. He tapped the five maples in his yard and has put up three gallons of thick syrup and two more gallons boiling.

PG

 

[Tengu]

<cringes at thought of nasty sweet stuff.>

They will never let me into Canada....

 

[Don'tkillbill]

It was bloody hard work doing the syrup. Managed 1.5 gallons and could easly gotten 3-4 but it took real work to keep a fire going as long as I did.... Ended up dumping some sap and cleaning up the taps after 2.5 weeks of collecting. I think the flu I had during the week had a lot to do with it. As much as I like my axe and fire I was tired of it... My fire was so hot I had heated up some railroad spike cherry red.... Maybe next year I'll do up syrup and make an axe.... Anyway I have lots of syrup for the year and may boil some of it down to make candy for my kids class. Pierre how hot to make candy and how do you make sugar ?