Suburban Tappers?

[crazyjackcsa]

Brand new to the board, was wondering if there was anybody else like me? I have a half acre in southwestern Ontario with a half dozen large maples. I have 17 buckets out this year and have been working on building a homemade evaporator out of an old BBQ.

I've been doing it for four years now. I started with a single bucket on the home stove.

Does anybody else sugar on such small a scale?

[Run Forest Run!]

Welcome! There are many small time sugarers on here just like you. Rest assured that we can burn a batch just as easily as one of the big guys. ;)

[markct]

I started with about 30 taps or so, that was 8 years ago, just had a barrel stove made outa a large propane tank and made 7 gal. I was bit by the bug and now have over 1200 taps. My friends 13yr old son who helps me with sugaring lives not far away but in a much more suburban area, small lots etc. For a few years he has tapped there trees and many neighbors roadside trees with buckets and collects them with a wagon and small tank, this year we even set him up with 75 gal vacuum tank and he has about 30 trees on tubing connected to it. Has been working well, we measure the sugar and gal of sap he collects then put it in my main tank and then he gets the amount of syrup it makes. He sells it to friends neighbors etc, he helps me a good bit in the woods and sugarhouse so its a good trade for processing his sap.

[crazyjackcsa]

That's pretty neat. Good for him for making some cash on the side.