North West Missouri -- First Walnut Tap

[LampFarm]

This is our first year tapping trees and we tapped 3 Black Walnut (we do not have any maples) trees last Wednesday evening. It is now Monday morning and we have got 4 gallons of sap so far. Seems we hit the timing just right!

Has anyone ever boiled down in a turkey roaster?

[optionguru]

Good luck with your season. I think everyone here has used a turkey put at one time or another. Try to make some kind of surrounding enclosure to hold the heat in. You will waste a lot of propane otherwise.

[LampFarm]

I mean an electric indoor turkey roaster, like in the link below.

I don't really have time right now to build an evaporator out of cinder blocks and I do not want to burn an entire tank of propane for this, so I was thinking the turkey roaster can be set as high as 450 degrees and will hold at least 2 gallons. Any thought?

Turkey Roaster (http://www.walmart.com/ip/Oster-24-Pound-Turkey-Roaster-Oven-White/39082969)

[Sugarmaker]

Welcome!
Turkey roaster might work. About like putting a pan of sap on the stove.
Good luck.
Regards,
Chris

[RiverSap]

Evaporation is all about surface area. A turkey cooker does not have very much surface area. You will definitely be using a lot of propane. I would fill it up and then add additional sap as it boils down. For walnut trees you need something like 80 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. I would not begin cooking until you have something like 20 gallons of sap. That will give you about a quart of sap. My first year three years ago I used a 55 gallon barrel rocket stove and a large stock pot. It worked well but took a lot of time. I collected about 30 gallons of sap from six tapped sugar maple trees. Good luck.

[LampFarm]

Well the Electric Turkey Roaster didn't work, not sure if the element was not working or if it just will not heat with out the lid on. However for this first test boil down of our sap we just took the roasting pan and put it on the stove top. We boiled down about 7 gallons of sap to just under 2 cups of syrup. It is wonderful, planning on some pancakes in the morning!

The sap pretty much has stopped flowing today, but I am going to build a simple fire pit that this roaster pan will fit on to do the next batch, when we get to much to store in our fridge again.

My wife is ready to identify more Walnuts on our property and buy more taps for next year though after one small sip!

[RiverSap]

Cooking sap on an inside stove will add a lot of humidity into your house. Keep an eye on your windows for water forming. You can make a really simple concrete block stove outside that should work. You just need a pile of wood to burn.

[LampFarm]

Thanks for the warning. I knew we would not be boiling down much and since we heat with a wood stove our humidity level was low enough to easily take the extra humidity. Now that we make a successful batch and it turned out so great I am planning to put together a simple cinder block stove.

[RiverSap]

Have you collected any more sap from the walnut trees? I have a bunch of walnut trees on my property. After your posts I am thinking of tapping a few of them next year and making a separate syrup batch from them to compare to the maple syrup. I am interested in knowing how the walnut syrup tastes.

[LampFarm]

I have boiled down about 14 Gallons of sap to about 3 pints of syrup. we really like the syrup. It is a different flavor than maple but about the same sweetness. We have not had much flow the last week, but this coming week looks good.