First year results

[liljohn]

This is my first year making syrup. 20 taps with drop lines into bakery buckets on the ground. I missed the first run in February but have gotten about 100 gallons in to date. My taps all leak bad so they are inefficient, I'll fix that next year but run the same type system with drop lines. I have made 2 gallon of syrup and have 10 that is boiled ready to be cooked down if I get some more this weekend. The cook situation is on propane in an old corn crib renovated to my sugar shack. I started first using a stainless steel pot and an aluminum turkey fryer. I have added a 3rd burner with a chaffing dish and plan to drop the turkey fryer. My cooks have been finished indoors on the stove. I strained them through orlon cone filters with 5 prefilters. Bottled in glass and plastic.

Hope to finish with 4 gallons so hope in the next week the trees run one last time.

Here's a few pics.
The shack.
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The bottles
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The test, we have syrup! This was done cold days after we bottled.
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Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[Run Forest Run!]

What a great job liljohn. You should be very proud of your first attempt at sugaring. I think you are hooked. :)

[KevinS]

Nice!
Man the crib is good, anyone that has spent any time in one know air MOVES in there. windows open up top and that steam is going to be headed up in a big way.
Well done
pretty spiffy for a first year of low budget sugaring :)

[5050racing]

Nice job!! Your hooked,wait to you see where this addition takes you!!

[bretmw]

Looking Good :D And the addiction begins. Welcome.

[Yellowdog64]

I need help with the math. this is my first year. I just pulled 16 oz of syrup from 3 gallons of sap. If my math is correct that is a 24:1 ratio is that right? And is this possible?

[wnybassman]

I need help with the math. this is my first year. I just pulled 16 oz of syrup from 3 gallons of sap. If my math is correct that is a 24:1 ratio is that right? And is this possible?

That's about 3.5% sap and is very possible. Sounds like a big yard tree?

[Clinkis]

I believe your math is correct. That's means that your sap must have been 3.7%, which seems really high. I would say that either your trees have exceptionally high sugar content (which is not unheard of) or you never finished it down far enough. How did you confirm you we're at the proper density?

[Yellowdog64]

I just simply took it to 220 degrees filtered. Back on the stove to 190 degrees and in the mason jars it went. Thanks for the math help. So how did you folks figure the sugar content?

[Clinkis]

There is simple formula called rule of 87 (87/suger%=amount of sap)which allows you to calculate your sap to syrup ration bases on your suger content. For example if you collect sap that is 2% then 87/2=43.5. Therefore you will need 43.5 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. In your case I just worked backwards (87/24=3.6%). If you just wentbof thermometer you may not have it boiled down far enough. Thermometers are a good guideline but not very reliable. sometimes you need to get it up to 222 or 223 before you hit proper density. You may want to consider a hydrometer.

[silveradomaple]

3% + sugars are not unheard of. I have 2 trees that consistantly run 3.7 to 4.0% sugar. (tested with sap hydrometer) I'd LOVE to have a couple hundred trees just like them.

[COMSTOCK MAPLES]

For your own consumption what ever density you like. But to give away/sell you should hydrometer test to 67 brix at 211 degrees. GOOD LUCK.

[Yellowdog64]

Thanks for the advice. Wife just went to work and I have the weekend off. A boiling we will go!