Natty - wow! what a great setup, We just completed rendering about 130 gallons of sap into syrup. We use it mostly as presents for family and friends. It is a great excuse to get out to our cabin at the end of winter. I try to combine sap collection and apple tree trimming. It has been a good year for maple sap collection for us. We pulled our equipment March 31st.
Maple syrup
- Thread starter Peeps
- Start date
4wanderingeyes
5 year old buck +
What types of maples do you guys use?
Natty Bumppo
5 year old buck +
Thanks Natureboy. I couldn't agree more. A great way to get outside and get the muscles going and just as winter is fading away. And just like you, I tend the fire...prune a tree...add some sap...prune a tree...and so on. I just got one last good run this past week. Collected about 85 gallons or so yesterday and will finish it all tomorrow and call it a season.
Natty Bumppo
5 year old buck +
I tap only sugar maples (A. saccharum). Reds produce fine maple syrup but the ratio of sap to syrup is like 80:1 and I just want to spend that much time boiling.
Natty Bumppo
5 year old buck +
Nice looking set up Peeps. When I had an outdoor rig like that I found that I would get a lot of ash that ended up in the pan. Also, on a windy day the smoke would often blow down into the pans and all of that would give my syrup a little unfavorable smoky ash taste. I ended up making some kind of a steel "tent" for a pan cover that would let the steam out but prevent sparks and ash and smoke from affecting the boiling sap.
Good luck tomorrow! Looks like maybe 65 gallons of sap? I'd be curious to learn how long that takes on your evaporator.
I tap silver maples that are in my yard. I typically end up with around 4 gallons of syrup per 100 gallons of syrup. This year I finished with 4 1/4 gallons of syrup that came from 120 gallons of sap.
Your setup is a solid step above the pots I use that sit on steel fenceposts above a fire.
Did you put any fire bricks on the inside of the cement blocks? How did you get the finished syrup out of the evaporator pans? Did you preheat the sap at all or just periodically dump it in the pans cold?
Peeps
5 year old buck +
I didn’t use any fire bricks just the cinder blocks. I wanted to do it cheap and easy to see if the family liked doing it. They did so this summer I’m going to lay a concrete pad and then build a similar set up but more permanent with mortar, fire brick, a removable iron slotted base for the burning wood to allow more oxygen, a welded angle iron top frame for the pans to sit on,and fill the blocks with sand. May go 4 pans on that one. The wife wants me to set the one from this year up again and run both. We condensed into 2 pans and then just poured those 2 pans into a bucket with a quick finish boil on the stove top after filtering. Going to do the finish boil on a turkey fryer outside next year.
sandbur
5 year old buck +
My neighbor gave me some syrup and I have to share my favorite recipe.
You need homemade style vanilla ice cream. I use Kemp’s and like an ice cream that actually melts instead of all of the additives in other flavors you buy.
Cover the ice cream with maple syrup and then crushed pecans.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
You need homemade style vanilla ice cream. I use Kemp’s and like an ice cream that actually melts instead of all of the additives in other flavors you buy.
Cover the ice cream with maple syrup and then crushed pecans.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Northbound
5 year old buck +
It's coming soon according to weather man!
Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
Maple sugaring time = spring not far off. It's a very tasty signal too!! Good luck & good sap-run weather to all the maple syrup makers.
chucker66
5 year old buck +
Definitely invest in a good filter. I filter mine off before the final cooking. I use a funnel filter that I got form here https://www.rothsugarbush.com/product-category/supply-store/filterings/filters-accessories/ I use the orlan bag with the nylon filters. Makes a huge difference.
Chuck
Chuck
Apple Junkie
5 year old buck +
We had a good run over this past weekend. I have 8 pints done, need another 4 to 8 pints, and then I am done. Friends and family have come to expect the "Maple Syrup Fairy" to arrive some time in March/April!
