Tapping in Douglas

[Maple Douglas]

Good morning everyone,

I plan on tapping a few trees scattered on my property today. First year and first time doing this. Looking forward to the experience this season.

-Asher

[sams64]

You may want to wait until tomorrow. It will be warmer and you will be less likely to split the trees. Good luck and start saving $$$ for all the stuff you decide you "need" for next year.

Sam

[MapleLady]

This time of year, we are all itching to start tapping. It looks like another round of snow coming tomorrow into Monday. Later in the week looks more promising for a warm up. I charged the batteries for my drill yesterday with the intention to start tapping our trees tomorrow but may now wait until later in the week.

Good luck this season! Most important for us micro-maplers -- Have fun with it! Agree with sams64 - start saving $$$ for all the stuff you will want/need for next year. This can become very addicting!:D

[Maple Douglas]

Thanks Sam, I will heed your advice and tap tomorrow.

Thanks Maplelady, looking forward to this. I have 10 maple taps I got off eBay and I'm going to try 2-6 taps this year as I don't want to overwhelm myself on my first season.

[Maple Douglas]

I have a silver maple which split in two at its base and each tree measures 40" plus. I have one tap in each, can I put a second tap in each one or will that be considered too much for the tree?


Measurement is circumference not diameter.

[Maplesedge]

I have a silver maple which split in two at its base and each tree measures 40" plus. I have one tap in each, can I put a second tap in each one or will that be considered too much for the tree?


Measurement is circumference not diameter.

I'd leave it at one each. That's not much more than ten inch diameter. Plus, silver maple may not give much sap anyhow. What else are you tapping?

[Maple Douglas]

I ended up with 6 tapped trees. 4 silvers and 2 reds.

[Maplesedge]

I ended up with 6 tapped trees. 4 silvers and 2 reds.

That should be pretty good for your first tries and with a turkey fryer. I've only tapped one silver and I wasn't impressed, but I've tapped reds before, not as much sugar as a sugar maple so more boiling for less syrup but it's a start. No sugar maples, huh? Too bad. Me neither, the trees I tap are a mile away in a friends yard, but they're amazing trees. If you ask, sometimes folks will let you tap in exchange for syrup later.

[Maple Douglas]

No sugar maples around unfortunately. I have a 90% to 10% ratio of pine trees to maples. If I collected pine sap, I'd be all set.

There is a massive sugar maple at a park near my work, probably 3' wide plus. I wish it was in my yard.

Thanks for your response about my tap question by the way. I'm just keeping one tap in each.

[Maple Douglas]

Setting up to do my first turkey fryer boil today. It's a bit windy though, so I'll be curious as to how this will work out. I have approx 7 or so gallons of sap to boil down a bit.

[Run Forest Run!]

Maple Douglas, once you get a rolling boil on your turkey fryer you'll need one hour of time per square foot of surface area of your pot. That should help you figure out how long it's going to take to boil your 7 gallons. Enjoy the day!

[Maple Douglas]

Thanks Karen, good to know.

Looks like I might have to wait to boil during the week, today's plan of boiling is not happening. My buckets of sap are mostly frozen.

[Maplesedge]

it's been a while since I used a turkey fryer, but I think I was boiling off 2 gal/hr. preheated the sap on the stove so I could dump more in without breaking the boil. Had to be careful with small amounts, 10 gal of sap will only yield about a quart of syrup, so when it gets low, maybe a gallon, take it off an finish it on the stove. are you using the candy thermometer method? roughly 219 degrees? Tractor supply has syrup filters.

[Run Forest Run!]

Thanks Karen, good to know.

Looks like I might have to wait to boil during the week, today's plan of boiling is not happening. My buckets of sap are mostly frozen.


Oooo, that's perfect Maple Douglas! I love to see ice in the buckets! Using the search function on this site, check out the many threads on here about dumping ice. If you are careful about not throwing out the hard ice blocks and only dispose of the slushy ones you can greatly decrease the necessary boiling time by increasing the sugar content of your remaining sap. For us real small-timers, ice is a god-send.

If you decide to continue on with propane burners, look into using a rectangular steam tray instead of a round pot to increase your surface area. You could easily double your evaporation rate using the same amount of propane.

[Maple Douglas]

I purchased a spile brush, filters, thermometer, funnel and a scoop from Tractor Supply.

Do I need a hydrometer? The reviews on the tractor supply one were not that great. Tractor supply had a few of those when I was last there also. All of this stuff adds up quite quickly.

No slush Karen, rock solid sap ice. Where do you find rectangular steam trays to fit inside the propane stand? My plan is to use the circular pot the fryer came with.

[eustis22]

you definitely need a syrup hydrometer. A sap hydrometer would help telling how much sugar you have but the syrup one is a Must Have. It is simply the most reliable to tell when you are at syrup.

[Maplesedge]

A syrup hydrometer is great to have, but in his case won't do him much good yet as he's doing really small batches. Tapping reds and silvers, boiling 10 gallons of sap down in a turkey fryer will yield less syrup than if he tapped sugars, so will end up with less than a quart. That's a pretty small pan to finish on the kitchen stove and you'd have to pour it almost all off into the hydrometer cup to check it. So, thermometer will suffice, especially for home use. You can play with your syrup density that way too, see if you like it thicker or thinner. It won't last long feeding kids pancakes.

[eustis22]

it's his first time. you think by next year he;'s not gonna wanna do bigger and more?

[harrison6jd]

if tractor supply doesn't have what you nee, Leeway true value hardware in north Smithfield has few supplies.


I purchased a spile brush, filters, thermometer, funnel and a scoop from Tractor Supply.

Do I need a hydrometer? The reviews on the tractor supply one were not that great. Tractor supply had a few of those when I was last there also. All of this stuff adds up quite quickly.

No slush Karen, rock solid sap ice. Where do you find rectangular steam trays to fit inside the propane stand? My plan is to use the circular pot the fryer came with.

[Maplesedge]

it's his first time. you think by next year he;'s not gonna wanna do bigger and more?

I imagine he will. Once you get into making your own syrup it's only natural to want to make a little more. Next year, he'll have a bigger pan and a hydrometer. But what he really needs is to find some sugars, maybe in family or friends yards, who'll let him tap. Then he'll be off and running. Starting small is good. Learn the gist of it all.

My very first tap was in a neighbor's Norway, just a milk jug. Boiled the first gallon I got on the stove, all excited, until it was a tiny blob that went from syrup to a kind of taffy in the wink of an eye. We ate it anyway. It was fun.

[Maple Douglas]

Thanks for the replies. I have about 12ish gallons waiting to be boiled. Looking forward to the end result. Looked at my jugs today and there wasn't a lot of sap in there today. Perhaps it was too warm?

[eustis22]

more likely it wasn't warm enough...sunny helps too.

[Maplesedge]

Depends on a lot of things, the individual tree, tap placement, temperature, wind, what side of the hill the tree's on, snow, ground temp, sun, and probably more. Bottom line is, you take what you get and boil it. Twelve gallons will take you a while in a turkey fryer, it's good enough for starters.

[Maple Douglas]

11453

Test picture.

Ok it worked but it's sideways, ended up getting a boil right before you messaged me Jerome. My mother in law ended up stopping by and now I'm seeing how long this whole process takes.

I was reading that it's better to have 2-3" in the fryer and add from there, opposed to a full fryer pots worth.

[Maple Douglas]

11462

Jerome you called it. One quart.

Edit= I'm addicted haha

[Maplesedge]

The first jar is the sweetest.

[eustis22]

"Edit= I'm addicted haha"

Abandon all hope.

[Maplesedge]

Hard to see the sap level with all that steam.

Glad you're into it. Some folks dive in headlong if they have access to enough trees.

If you think the stuff you've bought so far added up quick, check out evaporator and sugar shacks and steam hoods and sap storage and pumps and tubing and Reverse Osmosis and filter presses and on and on.

It can be a lot of investment for such an unpredictable harvest.

[Maple Douglas]

I'm into it but no sugar shack, evaporators, etc. in my future. Not enough trees and not enough money.

I'm happy with some syrup for family and friends.

[Maple Douglas]

11523

Anyone ever collect at night?

I worked late, came home and went out quickly to collect and around each tap hole were moths. I didn't know they were sap suckers. Learn something new everyday. I snapped a pic of one of them.

Edit: Terrible pic, it's reddish brown thing where the tap meets the tree.

[Maplesedge]

Cool. Everybody likes sugar. Soon, many more insects will be out and interested in your sap. Part of the reason I went with bags and tubing.

[sams64]

I almost always collect at night and those moths are on pretty much on every bucket after the serious cold breaks.

Sam

[eustis22]

On? not IN? Huh. I pick 'em out alla time.

[Maple Douglas]

I'm considering alternate collection methods in the future. I kept having issues with my 1 gallon jugs falling off the tree. I think it was party due to the larger holes I was cutting in the plastic. I was given a great tip from Karen to tie the jug to the tree but haven't had to do it because I've been making the hole's smaller.

This has been a great year learning what I should and shouldn't be doing.