Recommendations for this rebuild

[Winslow]

Retired a couple of years ago and moved to a new location which as 80 acres with about 30 in sugar maple and white birch. The original owner who passed away several years before i got the place had built this sugar shack in the 1950s. I have re-leveled the structure but that is it. I have not done anything to the brickwork. Looks like I'll need new stove pipe, some shingles for the outside, new benches inside, and restring pulleys for the cupola. I'll need to get a pan(s). I have never tapped before so this is all new to me. I did buy 10 taps and buckets to get started. The property has about 50 sugar maples 3'b - 6' in diameter and hundreds from 12" to 24" all a nicely sloped hill to the shack. I found some old tubing in the shack so at one time the original owner had used some. Mostly buckets, hundreds of old buckets laying around.

Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated.

17397

17398

17399

[maple flats]

Good start. There used to be a lot of homemade arches in use of brick or cobble stone or concrete or a combination. They are few and far between now.
If you have a nice slope up from the sugarhouse or below with a good way to move sap to the sugarhouse, I suggest you start small but with a line of 3/16 tubing with 5/16 taps and drop lines to it. The 3x16 will generate some natural vacuum and bring the sap to a collection point (nice if that is the sugarhouse). It depends on how much you want to make. If on buckets you can figure about 1 qt /tap in an average year. If on the 3/16 tubing and if you have 30' or more fall in elevation below most of the taps, it will about double that. Just realize, on a flat pan you get about 1 gal/hr evaporation /sq. ft. If you get a pan with flues that rate can go up considerably.
Just make it fun.

[Winslow]

Appreciate the thoughts on the tubing, yes very nice slope down to the shack probably a 30 ' drop in elevation. At this time I'm only looking to make syrup for us and family so starting small but understand the the bug may hit and I'll succumb to more than I can handle.

There is an old flat pan, no dividers or baffles in the shack. So I take it that he used to boil whatever he put in and eventually heated to syrup? I find no other tools or pans around and his daughter told us that he came out of the house with syrup. Does that make sense that he got finished syrup with that setup?

[maple flats]

Most any pan can make finished syrup, but if the pan was made before the mid 1990's and has soldered joints it likely has lead solder. If that is the case, do not clean the solder joints, leave the protective coating that developed over the solder. It will lesson the chances of lead in the syrup. Pans made after the mid 90's are generally lead free if made by a maple company. To be sure, lead test kits are available at hardware stores.

[red dorakeen]

That's wonderful old sugarhouse to preserve/restore.

[Michael Greer]

Start with as many buckets as you can walk to from the sugarhouse. Once you've fed the family, you'll want to give some gifts. After you've given away enough of your hard work, you'll want to sell some for pocket change...and so it goes.

[claystroup]

I would love to have an old vintage shack like that to restore and use. Please post updates.