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Tapping maples for sap?
TRACY:
My kids want to make their own maple syrup and start from scratch. Does anyone have any helpful suggestions for making this project successful for some greenhands? We've researched a little and have decided to use clean milk jugs for collecting the sap. I thought that I could make a few spouts using leftover rivercane sections tapped into the holes. Thanks Tracy
Dane:
Tracy, I would recommend contacting a New England sugar house and see if they may be able to give advice. We have a bunch around here.
As I understand it, it takes an enormous amount of sap to make a gallon of syrup, and a very long cooking time to reduce it in those huge vat thingies. They use hardwood to fire them around here. Something like 50 gallons sap for 1 gallon of syrup.
Good luck with this, though! It sounds fun.
Dane
John K:
A friend of mine made it last year. She cooked 236 gallons of sap for 6 gallons of syrup :o! But man was it good !!!
Have fun, it should start to flow soon.
El Destructo:
Tracy....it ain't worth it!!! I used to do it back Home...it would take 43 Gallons of Sap to make a Gallon of Syrup....and whole days to slowly cook it down....but if I cant talk you out of it....try this.....
http://www.mi-maplesyrup.com/Activities/activities_homemade.htm
islandpiper:
ElDestructo, i had seven good trees and made syrup every year i could in Iron county. Twenty degree nights/forty degree days.........my trees ran 32:1 and they were very worth it. Nothing like real by-golly maple.
At least make a quart or so.........it is fun, and you can call it science.
Personally, i'd get a half dozen spiles and not mess with cane. Real spiles knock out easily and don't damage the trees if installed RIGHT. Yes, milk jugs work good on commercial spiles and they keep the moths out of the sap.
Have fun.
piper
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