Where is the line between too much and not enough?

[Loun]

This will be my first year giving this a try. I am 30, I have a full time job although I will be working from home a majority of the time. I have a disgruntled girlfriend who isnt thrilled about helping lol.. and im trying to figure out the fine line between, enough to make it worth it, and too much that might make me dred doing it :)

I have 25 buckets on the way, I have enough tubing and taps for 25 more (wanted to try at least a few with tubing to get some practice with it). I have a 2x3 pan with preheater being made. No arch yet, this year will likely be cinder block and brick.

Sooo...

How many trees should I tap? My thoughts were, and mind you this is just from reading and research, not from any sort of experience which is why im asking here. I wanted to take 40-50 trees so I would have enough sap to make it worthwhile to boil and keep enough in the pan while boiling it down. There are 2 days a week that I definitely will not be here, was considering saving the sap for 2 days and boiling the next when those days arose. I know this isnt optimal but..

So form experience, how much will be too much for my setup? 2x3 pan 1.5 people working on it 4-5 days a week :) I appreciate all input. Thank you!

-Lou

[Loun]

I forgot to post my goals. My plan wasnt for resale, I wanted this to be a hobby this year, I was thinking about 5-6 gallons of syrup which would allow me to have syrup to bottle and give as gifts. As well as make maple candy etc for family members. Thats the goals for this year.

-Lou

[gator330]

loun, I would say 20 - 25 taps if your looking to make 5-6 gallons go for a few more and if you get to your goal you can stop any time. YOur not going to want to but the option is there.

My real concern for you is the disgruntled girl friend. If she dosn't catch the bug after one season. She needs to catch the bus!!!! And thats no bull!!!

Happy syrup making!!!

[The Birdman]

loose the girl friend buy more taps bigger equipment.:lol: :lol: :lol:
In my area I figure @ 1 quart per tap 50 tap = 12.5 gal. You might keep the girl she may come around.

[Gary R]

The line is when it is no longer fun and just a lot of work. That would be different with each person. There are guy's that have run 100 taps on a 2X3. If you put in all 50, YOU WILL be looking for a new girlfriend. There will be some long boils. I would think 25-30 would get your feet wet and make you about 5 gal. If things go well and the girlfriend comes around, you can go all out next year:)

[Haynes Forest Products]

Dump the girl and get more taps those maple trees will never talk back. Get some Hersey bars, Graham cracker and Marshmellows tell her your having a samore party every night. GEESH whats wrong with girls these days. This is you big chance to prove you addicted;)

[ehausinfrats]

Well, I can tell you I started around 2004 with a friend on a 2x3. It was his rig I was helping. he would do 50 gal a sap during the day and I would do 50 at night, All night. He quit the following year after I got the bug. Since I started a year ago approx on my own. This will be my first year since 2006. My wife is not excited but my son is. My thoughts are if you enjoy it, keep on.

eric

[KenWP]

Well if it was me with a 2x3 I would be looking at a 100 taps. But I am crazy. I would suggest that GFs are hard to come by so try and work around the problem. Up here 50 taps wouldn't give me enough to make it worth while boiling but hopefully down there you get better runs. Just try 50 and if they are too much take a couple of days off a week and boil.

[michelle32]

Loun double the size of your holding tank run all your tubing to it. Now your girl dosn't have to gather while your away. If she likes it next year put out the buckets to. Invite friends while boiling to show her it can be fun. Make sure she gets plenty of boiling sodas and your go to go. I guess i've got a good girl. Just about have to drag her out of the woods. Keith

[Loun]

haha I definitely didnt expect as much focus on the girlfriend lol. Im sure she will come around. I dragged her to the meeting at session woods, I dragged her with me to meet MarkCT today to check out his setup. Here dad and little sister are all about the idea of doing this although they arent going to be around to do much other than enjoy the syrup :)

I am still thinking that I want to do 50 taps but I have a couple more weeks still. So I will work on getting my cinder block / brick arch done, work on getting firewood together since that all needs to be done regardless. Then I can figure out how many taps makes sense. I might not tap the trees in the front yard near the road so I dont get exhaust particles in them so that might drop the tap count too...

hmmm so much to do in 2 weeks!

Thanks for the advice so far, keep it coming. What did other people start with tap wise?

-Lou

[maplemat1]

there is no line between fun or profit . started out close to 20 years ago with 25 taps whichwas fun this year i'm up to 2300 which is still fun . you only bust your butt for a few weeks so what is the problem . for the girlfriend tell her watch this and have fun and get a work out.

[Littlesap]

Lou,

Last year was my first, I started with an old parlor stove and a home made flat pan. Tapped about 20 trees to start with and halfway through I upgraded to a cinderblock arch a few more pans and wound up with 33 taps in total. I wound up making about 3 gallons of syrup and boiled exclusively on the weekends... some weekdays I would freeze some sap overnight and then add it to my gathering tank the next day to keep the overall mixture cool enough so as not to spoil. It was a ton of fun and my kids (and neighbors) got into it, so your girlfriend will eventually come around. I went with a legit arch and pans this year and even went so far as to build a sugar shack.

Good luck and have fun with it.

[markct]

yea your girlfriend seemed to be paying attention to all the stuff today at my sugarhouse, but hard to tell if she was going wow this maple stuff is pretty cool, or oh god is this how addicted lou will be after a few years! but either way it was nice to meet the both of you. as my operation has expanded it has its times that i go why do i want to do this much work, like splitting all the wood or today when i was going thru the miles of tubing in the woods taking off fallen branches and cutting brush, but to be honest is look forward to the season every year and the work getting ready is all part of the fun, figuring out ways to improve, add more taps, boil more sap faster, easier. just like the sink in the sugarhouse i installed, yea a bucket to wash stuff in is just as good, but i had a sink that needed a home so it was a project to keep me outa trouble!

[Loun]

Mark, thank you again for showing us your operation. She actually enjoyed it as did I. We are both amazed at how nice everyone has been. She also loved the fainting goats btw lol. The syrup was great, it was one of these first things we did when we got back to the house. Her exact words were "If our syrup comes out anywhere near as good as this.." Ive already started planning and searching for more things that I need to try to pick up. Looking at the turkey fryer now and trying to find a coffee maker lol. So much to do, so little time!

Mark again I appreciate it and I appreciate the help with the Y's and the defoamer. If you decide you do want to put together a website, even just for fun let me know, its on me. Its the only real way I can give back at this point :)

-Lou

[gmcooper]

Loun,
The one thing everyone forgot to mention is the amount of time you may end up boiling on good runs. With the small pan it might make for some very long nights. The simple solution if you get overwhelmed with sap and no time you might be able to give it to another producer or if that isn't an option you can dump it. I know no sugarmaker ever wants to hear or do that but for many of the small guys that I knew getting started trying to boil off every drop of sap nearly killed them and took all the fun out of it. Also as the end of the season gets closer if you've had enough you can pull the taps. If you don't have a good time in year 1 year 2 might not happen.
Good luck
Mark

[KenWP]

The first time I brought my goats home and they keeled over and started kicking I figured I got took. Funny thing was after a while they wern't scared of me and never did it again.
She who has to be obeyed figured I was nuts to do syrup also until the first batch and then she sort of came around also. By the time we were done she run the evaporator for hours while I gathered sap and did business in town. So theres alwasy hope.

[dano2840]

theres a freshman girl that found out i sugared on my own and shes all over me because of it im not sure if i should go for it or not (me being a senior) but hey either way shes coming to my sugar house and its free help! nice to look at too!

[gator330]

O'dano the sweet smell of a sugar house.;) Stick to maple syrup, less trouble just remember freshman girls have angry fathers:evil:

[Hurry Hill Farm]

Hi Lou,

If you are going to save sap two days to boil at a later time, look in the paper for a big, old, used chest freezer - should be able to get one for $50 - $ 100. Take your sap and put into food grade pails (available from bakeries for a buck - get ones that had pudding filling or frosting, NO pickles!), partially freeze the sap and throw off the ice several times a day. You can go from 20 gallons of 2% sugar sap to 5 gallons of 8% concentrated sap pretty easily AND you will be saving the quality of your sap and not letting the bacteria eat all the sugar. And bacteria doesn't grow under about 40 degrees so your sap will be nicer than if you just held it over at ambient temp.

I always tell wives of sugarmakers "Don't worry about losing him to another woman, worry about losing him to another EVAPORATOR!"

Good luck,

Jan Woods
Edinboro PA
Hurry Hill Farm
2009 PA Farm Show Priemier Exhibitor and Best of Show
2010 PA Farm Show Primier Exhibitor
800 buckets, no electricity, all wood and a Maple Museum

[PerryW]

What a great idea for a hobby sized operation Jan! The ice contains practically no sugar, so I always toss it out. I wonder if anyone has considered freezing to concentrate sap on a commercial scale?

[red maples]

once you do it'll be fun and stay fun it is alot of work but if you like getting out of the house and like being in the woods the it really doesn't seem like work...you'll love it!!!! My wife understands the obsession and the excitement!!! She still thinks I am crazy but so what.

We went to the maple guys place last year for maple weekend and it's about 2 hours from here. I was thrilled... she was board. on the way home she said, "wow!!! what a demonstration how drill a hole in the tree whoopie!!!"

So anyway divorce is a little more expensive so get out while you can (just kidding):lol:

[BarrelBoiler]

loun
last time i made alot of syrup we did 25 taps only 5 hard maples. the season started real slow 2-3 days gathering to get 64gals to start with along with that days gather. so i put in 5 more. then the season turned and i had a 36 hour run with one of the rock maples filling a 3gal bucket 3 times before it slowed down i was gathering kids were tending to things at the fire,they gathered friends tended the fire. that run lasted a week and at the end of things i had to dump 64gal of sap. wifey had had enough and so had my back.made 7 gal of syrup.
boiling sap is a high attention job: fill the pans, light the fire, wait, check the fire -add wood, wait, steam, check the fire add wood, wait, boiling,check sap depth open preheater valve, boils gone ,oh add wood, etc. but all inall it is alot of fun and it tastes good and no matter how you make syrup just make syrup:D

[oldfox]

Lou, I would think 25 taps would keep you busy. You want to have fun, not torture. I started with a beat up 2x6 and 50 buckets in the mid 70's. My girlfriend would not let me spend more than 1oo bucks that first year. We doubled our number of taps every year til we hit 4000.
In 1980 she wrote the checks for $4200. (a lot of money back then) for all new equipment including a 5 x 16 evaporator. Two grown kids and over 30 yrs later she (now my wife) still gets excited when sugar time comes, so don't write off the girlfriend just yet. Oldfox

[Stickey]

I like barrel boilers advice, "no matter how you make syrup, just make syrup"


Oh and just one more piece of advise, be careful with your hot syrup. I done burned myself good last year, took the fun out of it.....for a few minutes.

[dano2840]

"O'dano the sweet smell of a sugar house.;) Stick to maple syrup, less trouble just remember freshman girls have angry fathers:evil:"


DAAAAAHHHHH i met her father i could take 'em

[3rdgen.maple]

Well My she who must be obeyed could care less either way but we support each other in all we do. I would suggest if you plan on keeping your girlfriend not to overwhelm her on the first year. Start out with 25 on that 2x3 pan. If you find you can keep up without her complaining add some more. I gotta think you would be getting 5 gph on that and with 25 taps and the potential for 2 gallons a tap on a good run with two days of no boiling you could have 100 gallons to boil down while it is putting another 2 in each bucket. So that is 20 hours of boiling just to get caught up with the 2 days you missed. Could get real old with her in a couple weeks. Then on the other spectrum you might not be getting much out of those 25 taps and be waiting to boil. SO until you poke some holes in those trees to find out what their potential is I would start out small. Or you could just do what Ken did last year and read all the post from the states and say what the heck why am I not getting enough sap, then go out and drill a few hundred more and in a few weeks say what the heck was I thinking:D . Just make sure you both have fun at it hey light a few candles while boiling and give her a good book to read and she just might sit there right with you.

[KenWP]

Yes but I have this sweet concoction that I dab behind my ears and the woman follow me anywheres now. That and I now have to invent ideas to use up syrup. Found a way to use up my B now. It makes good wine.
If you have 50 good trees try that. If you get 50 gallons of sap in one day your going to be amazed and over whelmed .

[Loun]

Ken, im interested in hearing more about the wine. I was trying to thing of other things I can do with syrup too. Not that I even drink but my mind was wandering towards white lightning lol.

Funny side story, my gf initially said the maple syrup was hairbrained and not something shed let me do. So I started researching how to make moonshine and stills etc.. she heard some youtube videos I was listening to about it and freaked. Thats when she decided to let me do maple syrup :) Shes still coming around. But I thought it was a very good tactic on my behalf.

But yes what are you thinking for uses for syrup? PM me if you dont want to post haha

[mapleack]

my gf initially said the maple syrup was hairbrained and not something shed let me do.


Lou, not to be harsh, but if the phrase "let me do" is coming into play, I'd throw her back and get one that's more easy going. Just my two cents on women and sugaring. That being said I'm **** lucky that my GF says we need more taps.

[michelle32]

Loun if you google mead it will give recipes for making this old still wine. The main thing to remember when making it. Is to use quality ingrediants And to keep everything very clean. One small speck of the wrong bacterria and the taste is bad. You can order a kit from Dadante bee catalog with the bottles and every thing else you will need. Keith

[Mark]

I got rid of mine and now I am over 15,000 taps.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I would give away everything maple I own including sugarhouse and I have a lot of money invested if my wife said it had to go. I enjoy it as much as everyone else, but wife and family comes first. Guess after 10.5 years, that is why we enjoy each other so much and spending time together and with kids also.

[Loun]

WVmapler, I understand what you are saying but I think the argument here is if "they" loved us, would they really ask us to do that.

I see both sides, dont get me wrong. I am openminded and dont usually say "NO" to anyone elses hobbies. I can choose not to be part of them but would never straight up say NO. She might be coming around haha she just asked why we dont tap all the trees down the side of a farm field we have available. I am calling her on my way home to discuss. It would be at least 400 taps on tubes. hahaha I dont think she knows what she just said.

[red maples]

what is this the I love my wife thread???:lol:

Come on I love my wife too. I honestly hate spending this much money on something but just like I told my my wife when she said the same thing about spending money on her art and getting things set up(she's not in it for as much as I am ) but I said are you having fun she said yeah I said OK then we'll make it happen.

I am just greatful that we have the money to do it. because when you get to the point where you start to sell it there is a bunch of other things you need to take into consideration. like Insurance, leagal fees, changing your homeowners policy to a farm(which is more expensive might I add). what ever so there is that on top of everything else evap, tubing taps containers bulk storage sugar house and the list goes on and on.

SO I guess in the end as long as you can do it ...go for it. when it becomes work and not fun anymore then its time to sell everything get a nice sage flyrod and reel combo some waders a few flies go fishing.

[KenWP]

Ken, im interested in hearing more about the wine. I was trying to thing of other things I can do with syrup too. Not that I even drink but my mind was wandering towards white lightning lol.

Funny side story, my gf initially said the maple syrup was hairbrained and not something shed let me do. So I started researching how to make moonshine and stills etc.. she heard some youtube videos I was listening to about it and freaked. Thats when she decided to let me do maple syrup :) Shes still coming around. But I thought it was a very good tactic on my behalf.

But yes what are you thinking for uses for syrup? PM me if you dont want to post haha

Yes for maple wine you just use a mead recipe. So far it seems to look really good. I can't even taste my product so she who has to be obeyed sometimes guestions my table spoons of product I stick in her mouth. LOL Just follow the directions and keep everything clean and your away. I plan on doing another batch straight off the evaporator .
As to a still. I would say there's got to be a couple around. Just a hard thing to do as if it's not boiling at the right temp you make something other then ethanol and start acting like a nut case. Wait we are nuts. All that sugar around and a poor market and Vodka $20 bucks a 750ml bottle and guess what comes to mind. Friend from school spent 20 years in Arabia and he said they made all kinds of things as they could not import it or buy it there.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

No, not a I love the wife thread! LOL! Just siding a little bit with the other gender, seems they have been taking some bashing on this thread.

Either way, get a good wife and you won't ever regret it!

[Dill]

Either way, get a good wife and you won't ever regret it!
Yup. That makes all the difference. My wife likes farming etc, she has her hobbies I support but it helps that she enjoys the farm. My middle brother married a girl who doesn't share that belief. She won't even visit my parent's place during the summer, cause "all the tractors wake her up too early". Now you can believe that my youngest brother took that to heart and found a farm girl.

Its too much when its not fun anymore.

[Dill]

changing your homeowners policy to a farm(which is more expensive might I add).
Hmm, I never got a call on this. How do you know that? :lol:


My wife is doing a mba right now and she wrote about supply and demand factors for syrup. The other people in class couldn't believe that I don't factor in my labor when I figure profit and loss. She told them, its no different than ice fishing or snowmobiling, I just might turn a buck.