How many taps did you have your first year?

[GoldyCon]

Newbie here, just moved to a state with maples and am excited to get going next year. I want to keep the project manageable and I'm thinking of using 30 taps but wanted to see what everyone here started with.

[regor0]

I didn't know anything about making syrup. Including and most importantly, EVAPORATION RATE. I started out with over 100 taps on buckets and tried to boil it on a turkey frier. On average I made a gallon of syrup every 50hrs straight boiling. Ended up with 13 gallons, which is more than my first year my 2x6. Enjoy the addiction!

[tuckermtn]

140 taps and a raised flu 2x6

[mudr]

40 taps on 4 steam pans. 52 the second year. Will see what is to come next year with the 2x6. Thinking 80, hopefully enough to run the rig.

[heus]

200 taps (buckets and some gravity tubing), raised flue 2x6

[maple2]

2 coffee cans, one tree. 8yrs old

[maple flats]

Started season with 27 and grew to 70 when I found that my Half pint (2x3 flat pan) would not keep up when the sap really flowed. They were all on mini tubing systems, 2-3 taps to a 5 gal jug.

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

125, gravity tubing

[RC Maple]

Started my first year with 20 taps and ended the season with 35. Boiled on a 1.5x2 pan.

[Maple Man 85]

200 buckets, thigh deep snow and arms I couldn't lift above my shoulders after the season was over.:lol:

[MJPJ Sugars]

Our first year was 2015 -- a dozen buckets hung around the yard of our new home. Old 20-gallon soup pot over a King Kooker on the front porch boiled down to 2.5 gallons or so. Built a beautiful 12x8 sugar shack last year to house our new 1985 Leader 1/2 pint and expanded to 25 buckets and just under 8 gallons of the good stuff. Still figuring out how to get just a little more next year :):)


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[sweetwater sugar shack]

4 taps on buckets large stock pot on Coleman stove now have 200 with 2x5 smokylake hybrid

[Big Daddy's Sugar Shack]

Started with 6 buckets our first year, then went to 12. I just bought a piece of land with approximately 125-150 taps and am looking for an evaporator. At this point, the 12 buckets with taps we had last year produced 6L of syrup. We are excited to see how we can do with new place. I can see how so many on here call it an addition... it truly is.

[Parker]

Like 400? On gravity,,trucking it to a bud to boil,,,,,,,,your evaporation rate is the big limiting factor

[DocsMapleSyrup]

12 taps into 5 gallon buckets. Boiled on my neighbor's two 20"x30" flat pans on barrel stoves. Took us 10-12 hours to boil approximately 90 gallons of sap down in a batch and finished it on a turkey cooker.

[220 maple]

Can't remember exactly how many taps Spring of 1998, 100 to 150 on gravity tubing, cooking like the ancestors in three iron kettles, on run we had over 200 gallons of sap that took us 26 hours to process, had plenty of family members working in shifts. Oh the good old days, did make 45 gallons of syrup in kettles.

Mark 220 Maple

[Locust Farms]

2013 18 home made taps. 3/16 tubing to 5 qt ice cream buckets. Boiled on wood stove in shop,also a shop heater Granite canners.
made 1 gal of syrup. Tapped 1st week in march . No run after.
2016 360 taps on 5/16 tubing vacum & 3/16 tubing gravity 22 1/2 gal syrup.

Dwight

[johnpma]

Started 4 years ago using a turkey fryer with 10 taps and milk jugs

2nd year we got our hands on some buckets and did 10 buckets on a used barrel unit somebody gave us

3rd year we went to 10 buckets and a 5/16" tubing system on the used barrel unit

this past year we did 50 taps on multiple tubing lines and built our new bricked barrel unit

(all boiling done outside)

Just purchased a used Mason unit from a member here. We are moving inside to a stall in our poll barn and I'm going to add 25 more taps, and maybe tinker with the 3/16" tubing

Did syrup as a kid with my cousins, great uncles, and great grandfather we had 150 wooden buckets on his farm and we collected using a sleigh and a draft horse.........boy I miss those days later in life

[chuckwagon]

This was my first year, 7 taps boiled in Turkey cooker over wood fire,will definitely be tapping more next year using multiple turkey cookers. Hopefully with some type of shelter.

[huxta]

last season was my first year. ended up with 60 taps on 3/16. used 2x4 mason evaporator.

[Bucket Head]

I was 14 years old, 12 taps on a neighbors trees, with gallon plastic milk jugs hung on them. Boiled in a cast iron pot and a large diameter, deep dish aluminum frying pan on a concrete block fireplace. I don't remember how much syrup we made but I did melt the handles off the frying pan, which made it impossible to pick up off the fire, therefore I burned the syrup and the pan!
Year number two went a lot better, lol.
Steve

[DuncanFTGC/SS]

15 Home made taps, milk jugs, turkey fryer and a thermometer! Quit now, while you are still sane!!!!!

[Drew Pond Maple]

20 red maple taps, lugging 5 gallon buckets a few hundred feet through 2 feet of snow. Cooking on a homemade flat pan with propane. Made 1.5 gallons of syrup that year.
After that year I was hooked

[RileySugarbush]

6 Split a dozen with the neighbors, and boiled on a charmglow gas grill. Slowly.

[adk1]

175 or so gravity tubing taps and 12 sap sacks

[AdirondackSap]

350 taps mostly red maples with 200 on 5/16th tubing and 150 homemade sap bags.

Boiled on a 2x6 leader drop flue oil fired with american set of pans and a copper pre heater. We made roughly 35 gallons of darker syrup and used 150 gallons of oil to make it lol. The good days.

I will never boil again without an RO and vaccum tubing the best things to ever happen to syrup.