Maple syrup

[b116757]

I remember as a youngster in the early 80’s I was maybe 10 years old grandpa teaching me how check the temp on the syrup and load the stove so I could boil all night while the rest of the family could get caught up on sleep. We ran 500 taps that year and it was a bumper year we couldn’t boil fast enough on very old at that time 3’x12’ Waterloo English tin evaporator. Oh the memories of that will always be with me so you guys dabbling a bit my hats off to your building memories for your children. We still own the land and evaporator my brother will make some syrup every so many years to keep everyone in the family in syrup. I TIG welded some new stainless pans to replace the old English tin pans several years ago.

 

[Peeps]

I know it’s not sap season but let the preparations begin :). I just finished sharpening my saw chain and scoped out the trees I’m going to fell and buck tomorrow for my wife to split in 2 weeks. She calls splitting wood her therapy. It’s time for me to resupply my sap boiling wood piles.

 

[Peeps]

Got a good start. All set for my wife to split it.

 

[Bill Loser]

How do you get your wife to split wood? More importantly how did you get her to start splitting wood to begin with?

 

[Peeps]

How do you get your wife to split wood? More importantly how did you get her to start splitting wood to begin with

Not sure. She loves splitting wood though. She started with a small electric splitter. Now she has a big 1.5 ton splitter and she gets mad if I split the wood. She was a city girl so she never split wood until I came along.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

Looks good Peeps. I am doing the same this weekend. I have more dead and down spruce and fir that I could burn in my evaporator in 20 years, so I use it. It burns hot, but fast.

 

[Bill Loser]

You're a lucky man peeps! I know if I even hinted that my wife split wood it just might be the cause of the divorce! Lol

I have my stove in the garage for upgrades that i havent started yet. Im looking for a new pan first and will reconfigure from that as needed. Just cant decide if i want the flat pan or the divided pan. Once thats done its fire brick install.

 

[Bill Loser]

got my new pan today. 2'×3' divided pan. Made by smoky lake maple products.
I am fired up now! Cant wait for.syrup.season!

 

[Bill Loser]

Its started here in se Wisconsin. Tapped 25 trees today, should run good this week.
Ran out of buckets, not sure what happened to the rest of them, just gone.
Almost done with the new cooker, did a clean out burn today, insulate and figure out a pre warming system yet and its done.
Best time of the year!

 

[b116757]

I built a new set of pans for our evaporator about 10 years ago 3’x12’. For a preheater I used 3/4” stainless tubes on each end then ran I think five 1/2” runs in parallel between the ends. I made ours to only run on one side of the evaporator so it’s about 5.5’ long. It does work pretty well. I also built a float system to connect to the out feed so only as much sap as evaporates is let in. The float ended up basically being a wide flat box to run on a very shallow draft.

 

[b116757]

I welded all my parts out of stainless but you could easily build one out of copper pipes.

 

[b116757]

https://www.smokylakemaple.com/four-ways-harness-power-heat/

something along these lines.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

My wife and I were just wondering the other day if the up & down temps would get the sap flowing in a number of states.

 

[Apple Junkie]

I got taps in, but have to wait a bit for good temperature swings to get the sap flowing. Looks like next week for central NY state.

 

[Angus 1895]

I been using maple syrup in my fruit mead been wondering if a guy could use a less concentrated sap ?

Would any of you syrup slurpers have some seeds 2 share?

I live in zone 5A ph 7.3 semi irrigated

Thanks

 

[Peeps]

Heading up to my land to tap trees tomorrow and set up my evaporator. 1-3 inches of snow coming tomorrow but after that the forecast looks great for flow.

 

[westonwhitetail]

Just got 25 taps out behind the house, can’t wait for this week for the sap to start flowing!

 

[Peeps]

Now they upped our snow to 3-6. Oh well tapping in a snow globe I guess.

 

[bjseiler]

I got about 3 gallons made over the past two weeks in northwest Indiana. Wow is it a lot of work.

 

[b116757]

Most taps we ever ran when I was a kid was 500 that was a lot of work. All hand collected mostly bags still had some old metal pail’s back then. Custom made galvanized collection tank sitting on very old log dump trailer pulled by either an Ford 8N or John Deere 2 cylinder Crawler if it was to muddy/snow for the tractor. “Pucka pucka pucka” the sound of a Johnny popper down in the sugar bush.