Anyone Tapping Walnuts?

[Michigan Maples]

All of our Sugar Maples are within about 80 to 100 yards of each other, and within that area there are 4 VERY large Walnuts. I've read that walnut syrup is very good, and the sap is very sweet, but the trees don't give up as much sap. I intend on finding out this year with around 4 or 5 taps. Wondered if anyone had any experience with walnuts?

[Marcus]

I have tapped a couple of walnuts. Its a pain to do at the same time your doing maple. It seems it is harder to filter. It is very sweet.

[Michigan Maples]

I have tapped a couple of walnuts. Its a pain to do at the same time your doing maple. It seems it is harder to filter. It is very sweet.

Interesting......harder to filter huh? I have different color buckets for the walnuts and a separate cooking vessel. I expect I will not try to take too much walnut sap this year, so I'll probably cook it either in one of my three 8" hotel pans, or just bring it in and do it on the stove. I look forward to tasting it. Thanks for your input.

[Marcus]

It definitely is worth trying.

[Tater]

I have 25 taps on walnut trees this year. They haven't ran as well as maples, producing maybe half as much per tap. Yesterday was too cold to boil (125 gallon block of maple ice in the tote!), so I brought some walnut saks inside the garage ,and as they thawed I added to a 11" pan over a propane burner. Boiled 8 hours and got 1 cup of walnut syrup. It's good stuff, but I'm not gonna say it's superior to maple. I do know that my 2x4 flat pan is vastly superior to that little round 11" pan!

[Michigan Maples]

I have 25 taps on walnut trees this year. They haven't ran as well as maples, producing maybe half as much per tap. Yesterday was too cold to boil (125 gallon block of maple ice in the tote!), so I brought some walnut saks inside the garage ,and as they thawed I added to a 11" pan over a propane burner. Boiled 8 hours and got 1 cup of walnut syrup. It's good stuff, but I'm not gonna say it's superior to maple. I do know that my 2x4 flat pan is vastly superior to that little round 11" pan!

That's cool! I have read that they only give about half as much sap. I've also read that the syrup has a somewhat nutty flavor, kind of like the flavor of walnuts. That would be neat!

[PA TAPPER]

Last year I had 22 walnut taps and made about 2 gallon of Walnut Syrup. Very good syrup with just a hit of nutty flavor. Very hard to filter as walnut sap has pectin in it. Clogs maple filters and prefilters almost instantly.

Today I just tapped 110 walnut trees ( 134 tap total ). 79 taps on three 3/16 natural vacuum tubing lines and 55 on buckets. Will be trying to find a better way to filter between boils.

This year has been an experiment for me as I tapped my maple trees ( reds ) on Jan 1st , Collected and boiled 1180 gallon of maple sap as of Feb 11th , my last maple boil. Have not totaled up my maple syrup yet . Plan to make walnut syrup from now until sugaring season is over.

My farm has about the same number of maple and walnut trees. Maple trees are on North facing slopes. Walnut trees are on South facing slopes and meadow bottoms. Most of my walnut trees are twice the size of my maples. Should be an interesting and tiring year !

[Michigan Maples]

Wow! That's quite an operation, thank You for the info. The property I'm tapping trees on belongs to my elderly parents. While they get pleasure from seeing me use the farm in this way, what I can do at this point is still limited. I plan on tapping about 15 maples and 4 of the largest walnuts closest to the house. I can't wait to get going this week. Best of luck on your season!

[Gissert]

My partner tapped a couple walnuts in her yard last year and boiled it down separately on her stove. It was good, I thought, be we don't have enough trees to really make a go of it. It is challenge enough just to stay ahead of the curve when we get a good run of

[wildlifewarrior]

Hi guys,
After reading I may have a way of helping with the pectin issue. I am a science teacher and we do an experiment with apple sauce to create apple juice. We add to it an enzyme called Pectinase, which is an enzyme that brakes down pectin. Juice producers use it to get every last drop of juice from the fruit they are pressing. You can buy the enzyme online, it is an easy mix. I think you would have to look into adding it before or after boiling, and see which works. I don't know if it would still be considered "pure", but it is really just a filtering agent like DE.

Look into it and see if it is something you guys would like to try.

Mike

[MaxJ]

I don't know if it would still be considered "pure", but it is really just a filtering agent like DE.

Mike

Mike is the reference DE for Food Grade Diatomaceous Earth?

[Super Sapper]

The enzyme probably breaks down the Pectin so it would not get filtered out. This would make the product not Pure anymore and would need to labeled as such.

[PA TAPPER]

Hi guys,
After reading I may have a way of helping with the pectin issue. I am a science teacher and we do an experiment with apple sauce to create apple juice. We add to it an enzyme called Pectinase, which is an enzyme that brakes down pectin. Juice producers use it to get every last drop of juice from the fruit they are pressing. You can buy the enzyme online, it is an easy mix. I think you would have to look into adding it before or after boiling, and see which works. I don't know if it would still be considered "pure", but it is really just a filtering agent like DE.

Look into it and see if it is something you guys would like to try.

Mike

Hi Mike , I already have some Pectic Enzyme powder on order. The type that is sold at wine making supply stores. Do you see and difference between using liquid pectinase vs. Pectic Enzyme powder ?

From what I understand, Pectin is a chain of sugar molecules ( I think of a long spaghetti noodle ) . Pectinase breaks down that chain into single molecules ( cutting that same spaghetti noodle into 200 pieces ) so it can pass easier thru filter media. Does that sound correct ?

[wildlifewarrior]

Hi Max, Food Grade Diatomaceous Earth is what I was referring to as DE

@ Supper Sapper - I was curious about the labeling, because if you look at apple juice and such it isn't necessarily labeled with pectinase, but still says 100% pure juice. I know maple labeling is wicked specific and all but we also don't have to label if we use de-foamer correct?

@PA Tapper - We only order for the school experiment powder and mix it with water to make our solution, I would assume that if you are using it pre-boil, there would be plenty of liquid to dissolve, but I am not sure if the pectin concentration would be high enough and you may have to either let it sit quite a while before boiling and stir it to ensure good dispersal/contact with the pectin.

You are correct pectin is a polymer chain of sugar molecules (Monomers are like glucose and when you add them together it makes a long chain which are polymers). Any time you see a word with "ase" at the end it is typically an enzyme (ex: Lactase for lactose for those who are lactose intolerant). Pectin is the "glue" that holds cells together, the pectinase is like the solvent that breaks the links of the chain, allowing the cells the break down. In this case you are going after the pectinase that is free in the sap obviously not the ones holding cells together.

It must have to do with how concentrated it gets, and how it heats up during the boiling like making jelly. So therefore, (excuse me as I think through this) I would add the pectinase prior to boiling so that the pectin cannot have a chance to really start forming any longer chains that comes when the pectin is boiled. Although you would have to keep in mind that enzymes like pectinase may breakdown with boiling….

A lot to think about haha.

Good luck using it and let everyone know if it helps at all.

If I can help any more explaining I can give it a shot of you guys.

Mike

[Michigan Maples]

Thank You all very very much! MaxJ, Super Sapper, PA TAPPER, and wildlifewarrior, that was a VERY interesting discussion, and valuable to guys like me beyond belief. I hope to one day go commercial with my sugaring, and you just can't buy this kind of information. Thank you to all who have responded to my question!
I've used several different filtering techniques these first couple years of sugaring. I will try these first on the walnut sap and syrup and report on my success or failure. And if it turns out to be the later, I will try the Pectinase.

[Super Sapper]

You may be good with it as Walnut syrup is pretty rare and there is probably no regs. made for it specifically.

[Tater]

Well, the walnut thing didn't work out so well for us. Trying to run walnut and maole syrup through the same pan while keeping them separate proved to take more time than we had, and our walnut sap and nearup kept spoiling before we got it finished as we were concentrating on the maple side of things.

The walnut taps yielded significantly less sap per tap (probably a quarter or a third of what the maples ran). With only 25 taps, it was difficult to get enough sap to make a batch worthwhile. Our 36 maple taps ran much better, so we tended to just do maple syrup to avoid ruining our gradient.

In the right situation, I'm sure wlanut syrup could be done practically, but it really didn't work out for us, so I think we'll be focusing solely on that in the future. I am glad that I tried though, because now I know, rather than wondering what might have been.

[fuz]

Last year I had 22 walnut taps and made about 2 gallon of Walnut Syrup. Very good syrup with just a hit of nutty flavor. Very hard to filter as walnut sap has pectin in it. Clogs maple filters and prefilters almost instantly.

Today I just tapped 110 walnut trees ( 134 tap total ). 79 taps on three 3/16 natural vacuum tubing lines and 55 on buckets. Will be trying to find a better way to filter between boils.

This year has been an experiment for me as I tapped my maple trees ( reds ) on Jan 1st , Collected and boiled 1180 gallon of maple sap as of Feb 11th , my last maple boil. Have not totaled up my maple syrup yet . Plan to make walnut syrup from now until sugaring season is over.

My farm has about the same number of maple and walnut trees. Maple trees are on North facing slopes. Walnut trees are on South facing slopes and meadow bottoms. Most of my walnut trees are twice the size of my maples. Should be an interesting and tiring year !


How did I the 3/16 compare to the buckets, any extra from the lines. Thank you

[TooManyIrons...]

I tapped black walnut trees last year, have a bunch of them on site and had great hopes for a new, interesting product. I enjoyed the experimenting but I learned that to me it is not worth it. Got much less sap per tap than maple trees. Being a very small producer with a small amount of equipment I would have been better served using those taps on maple trees. Syrup over-finished at the maple syrup finish temperature, so the syrup ended up very thick and the jars ended up full of sugar crystals. Syrup had little to no flavor, absolutely no walnut flavor. I was so excited to try this out, in the end I was not impressed and see no reason to ever do it again. I would tap my box elder trees before I would tap walnut trees again.

I used up all the remaining walnut syrup I had by mixing it with maple syrup and making sugar. The stuff worked fine for that project, had no problems.

[PA TAPPER]

How did I the 3/16 compare to the buckets, any extra from the lines. Thank you

The 3/16" tubing did well with an average of 3/4 gallon per tap, per day on my 79 taps. My buckets averaged 1/4 gallon per day when it flowed. I can tell you the walnut on tubing continued to run 1 day longer than the buckets due to a lack of freezing temps.

[fuz]

The 3/16" tubing did well with an average of 3/4 gallon per tap, per day on my 79 taps. My buckets averaged 1/4 gallon per day when it flowed. I can tell you the walnut on tubing continued to run 1 day longer than the buckets due to a lack of freezing temps.

Wow the tubing was a great improvement did you have good drop? How much walnut syrup did you make this year? Cheers Brad

[PA TAPPER]

Wow the tubing was a great improvement did you have good drop? How much walnut syrup did you make this year? Cheers Brad

Of the 79 walnut taps I had 30 foot of drop or more on approx 1/2 of the trees. Other half had less down to a minimum of 5 feet of drop on ones nearest my collection tank. I made 14.5 gallon of maple syrup and 9 gallon of walnut syrup. ( 81 to 1 ratio, ouch ! )

Note: Walnut trees on buckets near water ( Creeks , ditches , meadow bottom ) produced twice the amount of sap at roughly the same sugar content. If you have the option, tap walnut trees in low lying areas if on buckets.

[Michael Greer]

I experimented with Butternut along with the Maple this year, and made syrup early in the season that was probably 10% Butternut. I think it has a wonderful effect on the flavor and mouth-feel of the syrup, but was painfully difficult to filter all along the process. It will clog a sap filter, gum up a pump, foul the float valves, and slow final filtering to a crawl. I will tap Butternuts in the future, but only as a small fraction, perhaps 2 to 5% of the mix to try and minimize those problems.
Someone with a whole forest of Walnut or Butternut could make a fine, special, and extremely valuable product completely separate Maple, but for most of us, it will be a bit annoying.