Big Leaf Maples-Maple Ridge, BC

[Maple Ridge Tapper]

Hi everyone. My first post here on the forum. We live on 5 acres in Maple Ridge BC. We have around 50 very large mature Big Leaf Maples on our property that we would like to tap this season for the first time. As far as we know they were never tapped by the original owner of the property.

Can anyone tell me when approximately I could first expect to see sap start to run from the trees in this area of BC. We are in Southern BC, about 45 minute drive from the border of Washington state.

Some of the Maples on our property have very large bases that take off to 4 to 8 other large trunks. Hopefully we can put multiple taps on some of these large trees with multiple trunks.

Our property also backs on to government crown land with a river running through it. There are probably some where between 100 to 200 Big Leaf Maples in only a mile area surrounding our property.
Would any of you know if it is ok to tap Maple trees on crown land that is not privately owned? If possible we would have an endless supply of sap for one family to process :)

This looks like a great forum with so much excellent info. I'm very glad to have found it!

[MapleMark753]

Hello-- Don't know about the Crown land issue, maybe others are more familiar with that.
In Washington state, (used to live there) there are also LOTS of big leaf maples, and people have on and off tried with some success to tap them for maple syrup. There was a study done in Washington state that used Big Leaf maples to make maple syrup. Its an old study (late 70's I believe) but has some good and instructive information in it. I haven't looked at it lately, but initially found it just by searching the web. They made decent syrup, but had problems with lack of a good freeze thaw cycle, and what they considered poor sap flow and yield. I only suggest looking at that because I think that part of BC has a mostly similar climate to the western part of Washington state.
Good Luck!

[Maple Ridge Tapper]

Hello-- Don't know about the Crown land issue, maybe others are more familiar with that.
In Washington state, (used to live there) there are also LOTS of big leaf maples, and people have on and off tried with some success to tap them for maple syrup. There was a study done in Washington state that used Big Leaf maples to make maple syrup. Its an old study (late 70's I believe) but has some good and instructive information in it. I haven't looked at it lately, but initially found it just by searching the web. They made decent syrup, but had problems with lack of a good freeze thaw cycle, and what they considered poor sap flow and yield. I only suggest looking at that because I think that part of BC has a mostly similar climate to the western part of Washington state.
Good Luck!
Thank you for your reply MapleMark. Yes I think that is the concern in our climate here. Our Winters aren't very consistent year to year but there are definite times where we do get good freeze thaw months so I'll give it a try this year. Over on Vancouver Island which is just a 40 minute boat ride away from here they have been successfully making the Big Leaf Maple syrup. I found some info on this site: http://www.blmaple.net/ They are saying they have a sap season from November to early March. However the Big Leaf Maple Syrup has a lower ratio (2%) than that of the Sugar Maple. The BLM syrup is said to have a bolder more full bodied taste than that of the Sugar Maple. Seems to be a bit of a commercial market for it starting up here on the West Coast of BC. I'll do some more reading and post up my results when the sap starts to run. We literally have an endless supply of BLM trees all around us here so hopefully we can get something going with them.

[MapleMark753]

Look forward to hearing of your experience tapping the Big Leaf maple.
There's gotta be other Canadians who have done it!
If you haven't, in addition to good info here, there's great research and reading available online from universities such as Vermont, and Cornell, Ohio State, and others. Books too, such as the North American Maple Producers manual.
I have heard, as you noted that the big leaf does have its own flavor.

[Maple Ridge Tapper]

Hi guys. Well we never did get our Maple tapping going in 2014 cause we got too tied up with other business obligations. But this year we just started tapping our Big Leaf Maples. We just tapped 6 trees a couple days ago with some hardware store supplied tubing and plastic barbed plumbing connections for spiles just to see if the sap had started to flow and it has! :) So we now ordered 100 spiles and 500' of 5/16 tubing and are going to go ahead and tap the rest of the trees on our property and maybe more on another property we have. In only about 5 hours of flow we got 13 liters of sap from those first 6 trees. The weather was too cold today for sap flow so hopefully it will continue to get better as the days warm up here.

I'm surprised there isn't more sap suckers from British Columbia on this forum cause there is quite a few of us out here especially on Vancouver Island producing great Big Leaf Maple Syrup.


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[Clinkis]

What does the syrup taste like?

[Maple Ridge Tapper]

Hi Clinkis. It' more robust and has flavors of caramel and butterscotch notes. It's very, very good I hear and gets more robust as the season goes on. That's info from the other tappers out here I know though. I personally haven't tried any yet :)

[Clinkis]

There are a bunch of uTube videos of guys who do it. Sounds interesting. Apparently it goes for up to $100/L....WOW!

[Maple Ridge Tapper]

There are a bunch of uTube videos of guys who do it. Sounds interesting. Apparently it goes for up to $100/L....WOW!
Our sap has been running very little off and on over the past few weeks. I put a bunch more taps in the other day and still have around 60 or so more to put in. One of the larger trees I tapped the other day had 6 good size trunks on it and I was able to put 15 taps in the one tree.
We should have some decent sap flow weather coming this week. I've only got about 120 liters of sap so far but hoping for a lot more coming soon. Our Winter weather is supposed to carry on here for awhile longer so combined with some decent sunny days the sap flow might get better yet.
Yes the Big Leaf syrup fetches some good dollars here. Chefs love to cook with it too.
Some pics of some tapping we've been doing lately:

[berkshires]

Maybe it's just me but that looks like an awful lot of taps in one tree. Is it a tree you plan to cut down?

[Maple Ridge Tapper]

Maybe it's just me but that looks like an awful lot of taps in one tree. Is it a tree you plan to cut down?
There is actually 6 trees there Berkshires. Hard to see from the picture angle. With the Big Leafs it is common to put multiple taps in each trunk if the trunks are big enough. The tap holes heal up perfectly with no harm to the trees.
That one group of 6 trunks produced 80 liters of sap in only about 5 hrs of sap running. It's one of my best producers. :)

[Galena]

Hi Clinkis. It' more robust and has flavors of caramel and butterscotch notes. It's very, very good I hear and gets more robust as the season goes on. That's info from the other tappers out here I know though. I personally haven't tried any yet :)

But you can get exactly those same flavour notes from any maples, not just big leafs. I have gotten caramel and butterscotch notes from my bush of sugars. Somewhere there is a flavour wheel showing flavours you can expect to get.

[Maple Ridge Tapper]

But you can get exactly those same flavour notes from any maples, not just big leafs. I have gotten caramel and butterscotch notes from my bush of sugars. Somewhere there is a flavour wheel showing flavours you can expect to get.

Just finished my first batch of Big Leaf syrup ever. It is the most amazing syrup I've ever had. So full of flavor like no other I've ever tried honestly. My daughters said it reminds them of toffee and butterscotch. They had french toast with it this morning. Can't wait to finish my next batch tomorrow. :)

Will have 300 taps in by the end of next week. Next project is making a homemade RO system to cut the water boiling hours down. Only regret is living on our property with all of these trees for the past 5 years and just getting to tapping them now :O

[Maple Ridge Tapper]

We are having an odd tapping season this year out on the West Coast of BC. Our first taps went in December and had some decent flow then some warmer weather came in and had up and down flow on and off over the past few weeks. The last few days have been giving us some decent flow but the weather temps have been very inconsistent so far.
Loving our new hybrid evaporator made by PJ Inc. A huge step up for us from our wood stove we used last year.

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[Quabbin Hill Farms]

Our sap has been running very little off and on over the past few weeks. I put a bunch more taps in the other day and still have around 60 or so more to put in. One of the larger trees I tapped the other day had 6 good size trunks on it and I was able to put 15 taps in the one tree.
We should have some decent sap flow weather coming this week. I've only got about 120 liters of sap so far but hoping for a lot more coming soon. Our Winter weather is supposed to carry on here for awhile longer so combined with some decent sunny days the sap flow might get better yet.
Yes the Big Leaf syrup fetches some good dollars here. Chefs love to cook with it too.
Some pics of some tapping we've been doing lately:



15 taps on a single tree is very bad as sugar making goes. When you make a tap hole an area of about 1 1/2 to 2 inches around and extended up and down from the tap hole becomes plugged with sugar sands and sap will never flow through that area of the tree again until the sapwood grows over it which could be 20 years. I have trees that are 3' feet across and I never place more than 2 taps this makes the tree sustainable for many years. You keep making 15 tap holes in that tree and you will soon run out of places to get a good tap.

[Maple Ridge Tapper]

15 taps on a single tree is very bad as sugar making goes. When you make a tap hole an area of about 1 1/2 to 2 inches around and extended up and down from the tap hole becomes plugged with sugar sands and sap will never flow through that area of the tree again until the sapwood grows over it which could be 20 years. I have trees that are 3' feet across and I never place more than 2 taps this makes the tree sustainable for many years. You keep making 15 tap holes in that tree and you will soon run out of places to get a good tap.

Thank you for your advice. This season I put less taps in that tree. But It is a multi trunked tree. Not a single trunk tree like Sugar Maples are. We have Big Leaf Maples on our property that have up to 12 full size trunks from the same coppice. A very common occurrence with Big Leaf Maples to have multiple full size trunks.

One coppice Big Leaf with multiple full size trunks can produce up to 10 times the sap of a single trunked Sugar Maple per day when the sap is flowing :)

Only large single trunked trees are getting more than one tap on our property now.