Well, a first for us, that is. This year we finally did it. We tapped our maple trees. We'd been talking about doing it for a few years, but every time we thought of it, we were too late. The sap begins to flow from the roots up to the crown of the tree in mid-February, and we would always think of it after we began to see the buckets on the trees of nearby farms . . .too late to order supplies, since the season only lasts a few weeks.
This year we were on it. We found spiles (taps) at our local Rural King store, and read up on the process. We couldn't spring for the covered metal buckets, but we had plenty of good buckets at home and figured we could improvise. Then on February 13th, the four of us set out with our cordless screw-driver, the spiles and the buckets, and we selected the place for the first hole.
We drilled at the recommended angle and depth (slightly uphill and about 2 1/2" inches deep), and set the four taps on two large trees. We used milk jugs instead of the buckets that we had planned to use (another useful piece of information we got online), because it was easier to control what went into the jug, and we didn't have to fuss with rigging up a cover. If the sap had been flowing when we first set the whole thing up, it would have worked wonderfully.
When the sap finally started running a couple of days later, it came out at the rate of about two drops per minute at the most. An entire day's supply was only about an inch at the bottom of the jug. We kept checking, especially on days when it had dropped quite low the night before, and the daytime temps were in the upper thirties/lower fourties, but never got very much sap.
Then the ice storm hit. I'll write about that later.
So we gave up. The wind was blowing the jugs and later the buckets around and knocking them off the trees, so we took them down. Then the boys were outside playing earlier this week, and put a beach bucket on the tree. By the next morning, it was on the ground. I walked out there to get it, and found that it was full of sap! The handle had snapped, and the bucket had fallen to the ground, still upright, and was still collecting sap. We threw out the ice on top (which was only the water part of the sap) and took the bucket inside to process. (Strain, strain, and strain again to get it clean, then boiling away the extra water.)
We boiled for two days, adding more sap when we collected it, and finally finished it. When the sap reaches the correct concentration, the temperature will rise just 7.1 degrees above boiling. 7.5 is too far and will become candy, so you really have to watch it at the end. We caught it just in time, and tasted. I just can't describe it. It's definitely maple, definitely sweet, but has a different flavor from the 100% maple syrup we bought in the stores.
In the end, we got just about one cup of syrup from 7.5 quarts of sap. So yeah, two days of work for one breakfast. But I'm sure that with the right equiptment, the amount of work and attention would be less. (An evaporator in a "sugar shack" would be a big step in the right direction!) But now we know what our great grandma meant when she wrote about tapping the "sugar trees." That syrup must have been like gold to them!
It is a lot of work any way you cut it. But the flavor is totally different, and the experience is so amazing. It's kind of mind-blowing for me, someone who was raised on Mrs. Butterworth's artificially-flavored corn syrup, to taste that which came from the tree in our backyard--the old tree that pulled that water from deep in the earth, purified it in it's body, and allowed us access to it through her bark--to work for two days over a stove, watching, adding a little more sap, stirring, checking the temperature, and to finally taste the real maple syrup we'd made. We're all a little awestruck at the authenticity of the experience!
This year we were on it. We found spiles (taps) at our local Rural King store, and read up on the process. We couldn't spring for the covered metal buckets, but we had plenty of good buckets at home and figured we could improvise. Then on February 13th, the four of us set out with our cordless screw-driver, the spiles and the buckets, and we selected the place for the first hole.
We drilled at the recommended angle and depth (slightly uphill and about 2 1/2" inches deep), and set the four taps on two large trees. We used milk jugs instead of the buckets that we had planned to use (another useful piece of information we got online), because it was easier to control what went into the jug, and we didn't have to fuss with rigging up a cover. If the sap had been flowing when we first set the whole thing up, it would have worked wonderfully.
When the sap finally started running a couple of days later, it came out at the rate of about two drops per minute at the most. An entire day's supply was only about an inch at the bottom of the jug. We kept checking, especially on days when it had dropped quite low the night before, and the daytime temps were in the upper thirties/lower fourties, but never got very much sap.
Then the ice storm hit. I'll write about that later.
So we gave up. The wind was blowing the jugs and later the buckets around and knocking them off the trees, so we took them down. Then the boys were outside playing earlier this week, and put a beach bucket on the tree. By the next morning, it was on the ground. I walked out there to get it, and found that it was full of sap! The handle had snapped, and the bucket had fallen to the ground, still upright, and was still collecting sap. We threw out the ice on top (which was only the water part of the sap) and took the bucket inside to process. (Strain, strain, and strain again to get it clean, then boiling away the extra water.)
We boiled for two days, adding more sap when we collected it, and finally finished it. When the sap reaches the correct concentration, the temperature will rise just 7.1 degrees above boiling. 7.5 is too far and will become candy, so you really have to watch it at the end. We caught it just in time, and tasted. I just can't describe it. It's definitely maple, definitely sweet, but has a different flavor from the 100% maple syrup we bought in the stores.
In the end, we got just about one cup of syrup from 7.5 quarts of sap. So yeah, two days of work for one breakfast. But I'm sure that with the right equiptment, the amount of work and attention would be less. (An evaporator in a "sugar shack" would be a big step in the right direction!) But now we know what our great grandma meant when she wrote about tapping the "sugar trees." That syrup must have been like gold to them!
It is a lot of work any way you cut it. But the flavor is totally different, and the experience is so amazing. It's kind of mind-blowing for me, someone who was raised on Mrs. Butterworth's artificially-flavored corn syrup, to taste that which came from the tree in our backyard--the old tree that pulled that water from deep in the earth, purified it in it's body, and allowed us access to it through her bark--to work for two days over a stove, watching, adding a little more sap, stirring, checking the temperature, and to finally taste the real maple syrup we'd made. We're all a little awestruck at the authenticity of the experience!
This is amazing. We have wanted to go to the "tap-a-tree" event at our local preserve for a time now, but we always seem to miss it. I think I know why now...I think our next home needs to have a few maple trees in the BY. :) Very "sweet" post!
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