We marked about 25 or 30 maple trees last fall by painting an X on them so we would know which trees were maples when the lack of leaves would make it harder. What we didn’t do was determine which trees were sugar maple compared to silver maple, red maple, black maple, etc. We have read that all maple trees can be tapped and turned into syrup but they have different sugar contents.
After reading more about the differences, we decided to only tap the trees we thought were sugar maples based on their distinctive bark.
Here is a close up of the bark that we were looking for:
We decided on 8 of the biggest trees with the fullest tops on them, that were also pretty close to our road. We have read that the fuller the crown, the more sap will be produced. Two of the very largest we decided to use 2 taps each, so we had a total of 10 taps going.
This weekend was perfect tapping weather. The days were sunny in the 40s and the nights were freezing in the 20s. The flow was on!
I used 3.5 gallon plastic pails to collect the sap in, which worked well. We used 5 gallon buckets to transport the sap down to our "sugar camp". The children went around several times, emptying the sap buckets into the big buckets and loading them on Matthew’s four wheeler.
Here are some of the buckets hanging on the trees. You can tell that the trees are large enough. A tree should not be tapped unless it has at least a 10 inch diameter:
Here is one of the bigger trees that we used two taps on. I used the brighter buckets on the trees that were further up on the hill:
Here is the other big tree with Matthew in front of it. There are actually much larger maple trees further up the ridge, but we decided to only use the closer ones this year:
This is a shot from the distance that you can see two of the trees at the same time if you look closely:
Simon and Christina enjoyed helping Matthew gather the sap:
Here is a neat picture that Matthew took of a drip of sap coming out of the spile:
We made a sugar camp with the propane grill and coleman camp stove. Maybe next year we will cut enough wood to use a wood stove and be more "authentic". Our main goal for this year was to see if it could be done or not.
It worked well, although was a very slow process. Here I am stirring the sap:
While waiting for the sap to boil down we talked and read and the children played. I got pretty sleepy in the warm sun:
So far it has been a successful venture. We still have more sap to boil down, but we have made about 6 half-pint jars of syrup so far! Some have turned out better than others, depending on when I stopped the boiling.
I have more to post later about our first maple syrup making weekend at Pure Water Hollow and the final results. I would also like to record some more on the methods we used this year so we won’t forget the specifics in the future.
Until then, God Bless!
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7 comments
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blessed mom on February 4, 2008 at 11:06 am
Wow – I am impressed! We have a ton of maples in our woods…. I would love to get maple syrup! We love it and it is so $$$$……..I always thought this could only be done up north… you have inspired me!
Blessings,
gloria
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Belle on February 4, 2008 at 11:33 am
I have wanted to do this since I was nine or ten. I told my mom about your post and now we are thinking about doing this! I am so excited!
You all look like you had a lot of fun!
If you have any tips please share them with me!
Belle
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Trixi on February 4, 2008 at 11:43 am
I have to say I am impressed to. Quite an adventure for the kids too.
I was wondering how you went about finding your butcherers for the pigs. Did you call your local extension?
Blessings,
Trixi
From Purewater:
We found out about the butchers around here by word of mouth, asking folks at church and work.
There are 2 very local meat processors here in our county, and I have heard mostly negative comments about them. I visited them and they are just operations out of private homes, and cleanliness was a question.
Another butcher is in the next county, where we were going to church, and it has a better reputation. We took our first hog there and were mostly pleased, although they were not very patient with us green horns not knowing what to ask them to do.
The FFA at the local high school reccommended the meat market 2 counties away. I checked with that one, and they were very professional and helpful for us beginners. We have been happy with the results so far.
For me, professionalism meant a lot. Both the butchers we have taken our pigs to also run a regular meat market and sell their own meat daily. The two that we rejected only processes meat when they have a customer, and they do other things in the meantime to supplement their income, and were very unprofessional in their business.
I guess the local extension office should be a great help. They are a resource that we have never tapped into for some reason. I guess I respect the opinions of my local FFA ag teachers the best, and they have always been willing to help the community.
Edited by Purewater on Monday, February 4, 2008 at 3:00 PM
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sheryl on February 4, 2008 at 12:04 pm
This has been something I have thought about doing it. But I wasn`t sure if we had the right kind of maple trees here. I can`t wait to hear how it all turns out. Maybe this can be a project I can talk Sam into doing next year. Thank you for sharing. sheryl
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Mom on February 4, 2008 at 1:23 pm
You all are amazing!!!
This fall I read a book to my son(the girls listened too) about a family who made a living by collecting sap.The book was The Sugarbush Family by Miriam E. Mason.
Well…..ever since I read that book we have been talking about making our own maple syrup, we love maple syrup.
I was looking to order some spouts this past Saturday. I looked at the Lehmans catalouge, but I have not ordered them yet.
Where did you get your spouts?
How long did you have to boil the sap?
Thank you so much for sharing the great post.
maa's mom
From Purewater:
I am planning to post again about more of the specifics, but I'll give a quick answer to those two questions.
We did order the spouts from Lehmans. It suprised me that they had the least expensive ones of the type we wanted. The cheapest was in bundles of 10 for about $18, which made them about $1.80 a piece. We have usually been satisfied with Lehman's products.
The boiling time was tricky, because we apparently didn't always have consistant hot heat. It would take 3 gallons of sap about an hour on high heat for it to even start boiling. (Does it take water that long to begin to boil?) After it starts to boil It seems to take about 4 hours more for the 3 gallons of sap to boil down to 8 ounces of syrup when the heat is good.
Edited by Purewater on Monday, February 4, 2008 at 3:14 PM
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Amy Jo on February 4, 2008 at 10:41 pm
I am so impressed!!! Thanks for including the pictures too…….I would have loved to help stir for some reason! LOL
God's Blessings,
Amy Jo
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Trixi on February 5, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Thank you for responding. You and your family are a wealth of info. Have you considered raising a beef cow. That is an area we are exploring also. I have not ever thought of the local FFA.
Blessings,
Trixi
Purewater's reply:
We would love to raise some steers for beef. I wish we had some flat land to pasture them in, though. We need to fence in our kudzu hill better and let the goats finish clearing most of it up, but then we think we may be able to graze cattle on the hill with the goats. We would also like to try a milk cow someday!
Edited by Purewater on Wednesday, February 6, 2008 at 9:36 AM
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