Newbie from Indiana. Intro and questions!

[JUG]

I'm 30, Johnson county area. I work in public safety and dabble in competitive jiujitsu/martial arts. I have 30 or so maple trees on my property and 40-50 black walnut. I am only looking to make enough syrup for myself and maybe give a few small bottles as gifts. I plan on tapping 10 sugar maples and I'm wondering how much syrup I can realistically expect from 10 trees. Being a newbie should I attempt to tap more? I have tons of firewood, should I use wood to boil or gas? Sorry if I am beating a dead horse I did some reading and didn't find a answer.

[rayi]

Depends on what type pan your boiling in. Also if you find you could use more sap you could tap more. Depending on a lot of things you could get 5 gallons of sap from each tap.

[dtsmith]

I'm a hobbyist in Tippecanoe county and this will be my third year tapping, so I'm pretty new myself. My first year I tapped 3 trees and produced 3 gallons of syrup. Last year was a little slower - I made the same amount of syrup with 4 trees tapped, although I missed a week of collecting due to a spring break trip. Frankly, I have no clue if that is an average yield or if I'm lucky, but it has been more than enough for my family to use along with giving a bunch away.

I boil with a large stock pot and propane, Personally, I'm not sure I'd want to tend a fire at the same time. I figure that I can boil down 5-6 gallons of sap each night (close to syrup, but not there yet) without staying up half the night. Obviously, I can do a lot more on the weekend. The syrup is finished inside on the stove. Once things start flowing, it can be a struggle to keep up. The way it has been for me, I'd never be able to keep up with 10 taps the way I'm doing it now.

[JUG]

I'm a hobbyist in Tippecanoe county and this will be my third year tapping, so I'm pretty new myself. My first year I tapped 3 trees and produced 3 gallons of syrup. Last year was a little slower - I made the same amount of syrup with 4 trees tapped, although I missed a week of collecting due to a spring break trip. Frankly, I have no clue if that is an average yield or if I'm lucky, but it has been more than enough for my family to use along with giving a bunch away.

I boil with a large stock pot and propane, Personally, I'm not sure I'd want to tend a fire at the same time. I figure that I can boil down 5-6 gallons of sap each night (close to syrup, but not there yet) without staying up half the night. Obviously, I can do a lot more on the weekend. The syrup is finished inside on the stove. Once things start flowing, it can be a struggle to keep up. The way it has been for me, I'd never be able to keep up with 10 taps the way I'm doing it now.

This helps me out a ton! I work a ton of overtime so it sounds like 10 trees will be more than enough. 5 gallons of syrup from 5 trees seems really impressive. How much $$ in propane did you have ?

[flhr10]

JUG

My name is Doug, I'm from Wakeman Oh. Christmas of 2012 my wife surprised me with a 2x6 Leader WSE evaporator. We didn't have a place to set it up nor was the weather fit to put up a sugarhouse in time for the 2013 season. I previously helped my ex father-in-law with his 2400 bucket operation so making syrup was nothing new to me. The first week after new years of 2013 ended up being ideal sap weather so we tapped 2 big silver maples in our yard, 4 taps on one and 3 on the other. In that weeks time we collected 74 gallons of sap and boiled on a turkey fryer in the garage. We ended up making a half pint shy of 2 gallons of syrup from that 74 gallons of sap and it cost $120.00 for propane but we had a good time doing it and the syrup was as good as any I had before.

[dtsmith]

I'm not really sure how much propane I go through in a season. Maybe 5 of the gas grill sized tanks. If you do a little digging here, I think there are some discussions about how to improve the efficiency of a turkey frying rig. For your first time out, you may want to keep it simple - tap a handful of trees, boil the sap down using what is easily accessible to you and see what works and what doesn't. You can then spend the next 10 months planning the improvements you're going to make for next year. If you look around the site, you'll see the potential improvements can be never ending.

Dan

[JUG]

JUG

My name is Doug, I'm from Wakeman Oh. Christmas of 2012 my wife surprised me with a 2x6 Leader WSE evaporator. We didn't have a place to set it up nor was the weather fit to put up a sugarhouse in time for the 2013 season. I previously helped my ex father-in-law with his 2400 bucket operation so making syrup was nothing new to me. The first week after new years of 2013 ended up being ideal sap weather so we tapped 2 big silver maples in our yard, 4 taps on one and 3 on the other. In that weeks time we collected 74 gallons of sap and boiled on a turkey fryer in the garage. We ended up making a half pint shy of 2 gallons of syrup from that 74 gallons of sap and it cost $120.00 for propane but we had a good time doing it and the syrup was as good as any I had before.

Wish I had some big silver maples! Mine are all between 16'-30'. I think I am gong to try my hand at wood and go from there. I have a ton of surplus cinder blocks I could use to make a makeshift stove.

[jpcole]

You can figure 1 quart of syrup per tap. I tap alot of large yard trees, mostly sugars, and average alittle more than that.

[Jonnyp390]

Welcome to what will probably become your new addiction. I started in a very similar fashion 4 years ago, tapping the one big silver maple in my backyard. There is a tremendous wealth of knowledge here on the site, as well as the nicest, most helpful group of people you will ever meet. My 2 cents would be if you are planning for 10 taps, bypass the propane and turkey fryer and get yourself a $20 full size, 6" deep restaurant pan (usually called a steam pan or chafing dish) and some cinder blocks to make a simple block arch. I think it will save you a bunch of money and should be more fun to boil on. A buddy of mine started a couple years ago and spent $40-50 on propane to make a quart or so of syrup. If you are really ambitious, you could probably throw together a barrel evaporator in a few nights time.

Good luck and welcome to the club!

[WI Sugarpop]

JUG

My name is Doug, I'm from Wakeman Oh. Christmas of 2012 my wife surprised me with a 2x6 Leader WSE evaporator. We didn't have a place to set it up nor was the weather fit to put up a sugarhouse in time for the 2013 season. I previously helped my ex father-in-law with his 2400 bucket operation so making syrup was nothing new to me. The first week after new years of 2013 ended up being ideal sap weather so we tapped 2 big silver maples in our yard, 4 taps on one and 3 on the other. In that weeks time we collected 74 gallons of sap and boiled on a turkey fryer in the garage. We ended up making a half pint shy of 2 gallons of syrup from that 74 gallons of sap and it cost $120.00 for propane but we had a good time doing it and the syrup was as good as any I had before.

You can buy 3 gal of syrup for $120. I would say get 3 steam pans with a block arch and burn all that wood that you have. We did that years ago with 30 taps.