Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Primitive Skills => Topic started by: Fox on February 11, 2021, 03:15:26 pm
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cooking down some sugar maple sap.... mmm love that sweet maple smell of the cooking sap....anyone else tapping?
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50933525632_d8b82f144d_k.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2kAPCF3)Untitled (https://flic.kr/p/2kAPCF3) by Livvydog (https://www.flickr.com/photos/141458655@N02/), on Flickr
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I really wanted to tap some sap one year. I was going to buy the taps and I had a place to do it. Then the day before I was going to go out, the landowner (my dads work friend) decided he didn’t want me to. Wouldn’t give me a reason, but it is his land so I didn’t press him for a reason. Couldn’t find another place to do it lol.
I am going to do it this spring. No way am i not. I can drive now ;D ;D
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Iowabow used to post about his tapping adventures. When his son got into high school he got interested running the route on the 4 wheeler, switching out the buckets, etc. One year he brought a small bottle out to Turkey Camp and everyone loved it!
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A little bit to early here in NW Penna., ya need below 32 at nite and above 32 in the day, haven't been above freezing here for quite awhile and doesn't seem to be warming anytime soon, Our season snow fall is way below normal though only about 50" so far ;D Bob
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Out here in western Nebraska, we are looking at sub zero by a long ways for the next week, might get back to freezing by Next Thursday! Maybe -17 Sunday! Don't think there are any sugar maples around here.
Hawkdancer
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Out here in western Nebraska, we are looking at sub zero by a long ways for the next week, might get back to freezing by Next Thursday! Maybe -17 Sunday! Don't think there are any sugar maples around here.
Hawkdancer
yeah tomorrow wind chills will be in -25Far. (S)
There are some around hawk. at least here in east nebraska. definitely not as common as other species but you can find them. especially in the cities. some people like having a big maple in their front yard ;D
also, what other trees can you tap for syrup?
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I think one of the guys on here made syrup from hickory trees. Don't recollect how or who though. May have even been in the magazine or abackwoodsman issue.
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Way to cold around here yet. I have a couple good friends who have been making maple syrup for as long as I can remember. The land owner and owner of the operation has gifted me several Hop Hornbeam trees over the years. Last spring I finished up a bow I made for him. You might like it. I posted it here last year under title “Sugar Shack” I think.
Bjrogg
PS upstate bowyer use to be on here a lot. He always cooked down sap.
Also I think you can get syrup from other trees but the sugar content is really low and it requires a lot of sap cooked for not much syrup.
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Birch is another sugar tree I think.
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Birch is another sugar tree I think.
I don’t know about the sap. Could be.
I know the bark you can get a pitch glue from.
Bjrogg
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Yes to birch. The sugar content is lower and it just takes more.
Good friend Dino from this forum has a pretty cool small scale maple sugar making system. Maybe he will chime in with some pictures and such. I made a video about his sugar making but I do not have access to the link right now. Very interesting process
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Ya Brian your buddy and mine Glen M. makes it from Hickory, he gave me some last time he was down to Tennessee and it is great, I think he has to add a lot of sugar though. :)
Pappy
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Do you cook it down inside fox? Ive done that before. Still trying to get the sticky junk off the vent hood.
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Pappy,
Sugar Maple is about a 40 to 1 ratio of sap boiled down to syrup
Other Maples range about 50 to 60 to 1
Birch is around 110 to 1 (I think)
I think hickory may not use sap boiled down but may be made by boiling the bark for a hickory flavor and then adding some sort of sugar?
Dino has a measuring device he uses to find out the sugar content. The whole process is very cool but it takes a bunch of time to boil it down. He makes several gallons every year.
brian
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Here is the video I made last year about Dino and his maple syrup making.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEqNmyL-sno (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEqNmyL-sno)
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I really wanted to tap some sap one year. I was going to buy the taps and I had a place to do it. Then the day before I was going to go out, the landowner (my dads work friend) decided he didn’t want me to. Wouldn’t give me a reason, but it is his land so I didn’t press him for a reason. Couldn’t find another place to do it lol.
I am going to do it this spring. No way am i not. I can drive now ;D ;D
You should!
I have taped downtown... usually not too hard to find sugar maple..... also you can make taps out of bamboo or elderberry really easily if you don’t want to buy metal/plastic ones...
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You can tap sycamores, and hickory, and birch, and black walnut as well.... there not 40 to 1 like sugar maple, maybe more like 60 to 1, but they’ll all have different flavors. Apparently sycamore tastes like caramel :)
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the first pint ... yum :)
those granular things in the bottom are called sugar sand... I accidentally burnt it a little which caused it I believe... doesn't hurt it :)
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50968245801_49ec8c68db_k.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2kDTzLD)Untitled (https://flic.kr/p/2kDTzLD) by Livvydog (https://www.flickr.com/photos/141458655@N02/), on Flickr
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can you use the sugar sand like normal sugar? how does it taste! i can imagine it now... maple syrup sugar cake.... -C- ;D
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Yes deerhunter... it’s kinda like when raw honey gets granular..... it tasted real good :)
Yes a maple sugar cake would be amazing ;D
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As a kid my father made all kinds of wines, biers and hooch.
We made lots of old time yankee Black Birch Beer. Not the soda but the kine with a punch. When it went from warm to cold phase the carbonization bubbles were small in it. Not as small as champagne but purty small.
I liked it. Never saw Or knew anyone else who made the stuff. My father made lots of beers and he said he made the Birch beer from memory of what it was like when he was a kid.
Use to always have a twig of black birch hanging from my lip while bow hunting.
HH~
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Nice story's there HH. Never do I pass up a birch tree without stealing a twig ;)