Backyarder, on the cheap, mini maple

[Seasoned Mini Maple]

I'm in for around $700 with a barrel evaporator, a Christmas present, and tubing. I tapped in January and am on my second run. No RO, no vacuum. If I make ten gallons of syrup, I'd be very happy. This year I'll probably get no more than five.

Boiling unconcentrated sap is work. Wood is work and it takes a lot of wood. But I don't hurry the boiling, don't get the stack hotter than the most efficient range, no glowing stack. Mine is a two food pan system and so far, I like it pretty well. Thought about using one bigger pan, but that reduces the surface area exposed to the flame. Two pans exposes two bottoms and six sides versus one bottom and four sides in a larger pan.

I don't spend all my time watching the fire. I can do chores around the house or read or watch TV while keeping the fire a size that doesn't waste heat up the stack. I split my wood, mostly ash, fairly small so it burns hot in a small alternating stack, fed often. I can let it go out at any time and go to sleep.

My syrup tastes buttery smooth, tastier than any commercial syrup I've ever tasted. It's my experience that unconcentrated sap boiled on a wood fire tastes better than commercial systems using highly concentrated sap boiled with wood and far better than systems using oil. My current tapping is almost all sugar maple. Years ago, when I had more taps in a different bush, half were red maple, the syrup was also buttery smooth. Once boiled the red maples separately, and the red maple syrup taste was especially buttery.

One last point. Because I make syrup only for family, I don't filter it. I let the niter settle out, takes a couple days to clear, pour the clear into finish jars, heat and seal them, and keep pouring the niter on top of niter till it fills a jar to get the maximum clear syrup out of it. Oh, and I use wide mouth half gallon and quart canning jars.

[BAP]

I'm in for around $700 with a barrel evaporator, a Christmas present, and tubing. I tapped in January and am on my second run. No RO, no vacuum. If I make ten gallons of syrup, I'd be very happy. This year I'll probably get no more than five.

Boiling unconcentrated sap is work. Wood is work and it takes a lot of wood. But I don't hurry the boiling, don't get the stack hotter than the most efficient range, no glowing stack. Mine is a two food pan system and so far, I like it pretty well. Thought about using one bigger pan, but that reduces the surface area exposed to the flame. Two pans exposes two bottoms and six sides versus one bottom and four sides in a larger pan.

I don't spend all my time watching the fire. I can do chores around the house or read or watch TV while keeping the fire a size that doesn't waste heat up the stack. I split my wood, mostly ash, fairly small so it burns hot in a small alternating stack, fed often. I can let it go out at any time and go to sleep.

My syrup tastes buttery smooth, tastier than any commercial syrup I've ever tasted. It's my experience that unconcentrated sap boiled on a wood fire tastes better than commercial systems using highly concentrated sap boiled with wood and far better than systems using oil. My current tapping is almost all sugar maple. Years ago, when I had more taps in a different bush, half were red maple, the syrup was also buttery smooth. Once boiled the red maples separately, and the red maple syrup taste was especially buttery.

One last point. Because I make syrup only for family, I don't filter it. I let the niter settle out, takes a couple days to clear, pour the clear into finish jars, heat and seal them, and keep pouring the niter on top of niter till it fills a jar to get the maximum clear syrup out of it. Oh, and I use wide mouth half gallon and quart canning jars.
Sounds like you have fun making your syrup and enjoy it. Absolutely nothing wrong doing the way you do. Many others do it your way. My Grandfather did it that same way in his retirement up until he was almost 90. Keep enjoying your syrup.

[Andy VT]

Love everything about your post.
Interesting about your experiment keeping the red maples separate.
I did this with my norway maples (versus sugar maples) in the 2021 season, and the norway maple syrup was consistently lighter, and perhaps more of what you're describing as buttery.
At first I concluded the norway maple syrup was quite different from the sugar maple syrup.
But now I suspect it is because I had far less norway sap versus sugar maple sap, so the difference was more related to batch size (just a theory).
One batch of norway maple syrup was made from just ~3 gallons of raw sap, to give you an idea of how small a batch I'm talking about.
If you get in the mood for more experimentation, it might be interesting to see if you can get the same results from a very small batch of sugar maple sap.

[Seasoned Mini Maple]

Batch size may be the answer. Mine was quite a bit larger than yours, perhaps twenty red maple taps at the time. Probably relates to terroir, the soil and local environment. The larger the operation, the more varied the terroir is likely to be, especially if combining sugar bushes. My pleasure is discovering my local sugar bush, a very small bush. I'm in Salisbury, Vermont, part of the Lake Champlain valley, with a local milder climate than the mountains to my immediate east that offer protections from northeasterlies. I'm open to the south and have good sun exposure.

My first batch here, from 15 taps, is silky smooth and buttery, much like the red maple experience from my bush when I lived much further north, only miles from the Canadian border. In small bush small operations, I feel you get a much more local flavor, like varietal grapes made into wines, than larger operations where expansive bushes have mixed sap covering more averaged terroirs. My tasting experience reflects a less distinct taste in commercial syrups. And, of course, there is no finer taste than syrup still warm straight from the evaporator.