North Carolina-Piedmont Tapping

[NC Maple Guy]

I tapped a small sugarbush (8 trees, 9 taps) at a middle school in High, Point NC, on January 20th, 2011. We already boiled-off 6 gallons of sap on Monday, January 24th, 2011, and produced 20 ounces of syrup.

[maple flats]

What type of maples are you tapping? Congrats, that figures to 2.24% sugar in the sap. You are most likely the farthes south of any producers. What are your lowest temperatures? I'm surprised you can make syrup that far south!

[NC Maple Guy]

Thanks, maple flats.

I tapped all sugar maple. We are outside the natural range of sugar maple; however, I believe that like a lot of maples they were planted for aesthetic purposes. I will boil another 15-20 gallons this Monday. Based on the refractometer that I used, the first batch of sap had a sugar content of close to 3% (I may need to recalibrate it). The syrup was very light, and tasted like caramel/butterscotch.

I can say confidently that we are the southeastern most producer in the Southeast, there are, however, a few commercial producers in the southwestern part of NC at much higher elevation (we are at 850 compared to 2,500 plus ft above sea level)

[Wardner in Tewksbury]

I suppose there must be some producers in the elevated sections SC and GA as well.

Wouldn't you do better to tap Southern Yellow Pine and use turpentine and lard as a condiments on your waffles and grits.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Vanderbilt Mansion (Biltmore). near Asheville. has a sugarbush plantation. A number of agricultural specialties, formal landscaping, and forest management efforts are part of the large complex.

[NC Maple Guy]

It's possible.

Southern Yellow Pine, also known as longleaf pine, is mostly a coastal plain species, therefore, that would probably be difficult and not extremely tasty. Further, I'm a Yankee, and do not like grits.

[NC Maple Guy]

Today is our second boil-off of the season with 12 gallons of sap at close to 3%. We have had great weather for sap flow over the couple weeks and I'm collecting a lot more sap than anticipated. High Point, NC, has on average, 30 days between 1/1 and 3/1 of ideal meteorological conditions that would facilitate sap flow.

[maple flats]

I am in central NY and I have never had 30 days sap flow in a season. My best to date is 23 days. You might do very well.

[NC Maple Guy]

That is based on the weather records over the last 10 years. We will see what happens, so far, so good!

[NC Maple Guy]

Second boil-off produced 1.4 quarts! We have 15 more gallons to boil Thursday. No sap flow over the last two days, temperatures have not gone below 35 degrees F over the last 2 days.

[NC Maple Guy]

Fall and winter pictures of our sugarbush:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59068819@N06/?find=bill.tyminski%40gmail.com

[NC Maple Guy]

Started with 15 gallons of sap and ended up with 1.5 quarts of syrup (sap-sugar concentration @ 2.2%)

[NC Maple Guy]

Had a low sap yield, 5 gallons, made a pint. Temperatures today reach 70 degs. and the 10-day forecast doesn't look promising. Still have 10 gallons to boil from this past week's collection; it may be the last boil for the year.

[NC Maple Guy]

On February 17th we pulled the taps and had our last boiling. We finished the season with 1.1 gallons of syrup. From Jan. 20th-Feb. 17th we had 21/29 days with sap flow.