1st Season Successful

[jbaker]

We're up in beautiful Rhodes, Michigan, north of Mt. Pleasant, West of Pinconning. We started our taps the weekend before Valentines Day because of the warm snap. We set about 18 taps. We used 1/2" PVC water line for spiles and 1 gallon milk and water jugs to collect the sap. We pour the sap into a 55 gallon food grade barrel. We boiled down about 30 oz. the first couple weeks, I would grade it Dark Grade A Amber. This past weekend, we got almost a gallon of syrup, but it is very dark, probably grade B, and we still have over 30 gallons of sap to boil down. We use a turkey fryer burner and propane tank with a 7 1/2 gallon stainless stock pot (same for home brewing beer!!!). We also preheat the sap in a 5 gallon, enamel pot over a wood fire. This is our first year at our home on 8 1/2 acres in Rhodes. We have quite a nice sugar bush in our 3+ acres of woods. We find new trees every day. We spent the weekend cleaning up our woods, trimming back dead trees and exposing our maples to better sunlight.

Our wishlist for next year is a wood fired evaporator, with steam table pans, for faster evaporation. We'd like to go from 18 taps to about 30 taps. This year we will end up with enough syrup for our own use and some to give away. Next year, we'd like to profit from our syrup.

Quality from the first run is good. We already ate a 8 oz bottle! The run we had this weekend was darker syrup, but very tasty and sweet. I love the rich maple flavor.

Anyway, just thought I'd share my first year's experience with you.