LawnMowerMan
04-12-2010, 11:05 PM
Hello My name is Todd and I have been an addict for 1 season now!!!!
Well what a fun "experiment" I set out to show my 6 year old where Maple syrup came from, Started with the turkey fryer......:lol: That was fine in the beginning, allthough the $20.00 or more per gallon of propane kind of hurt but hey I was only going to do 2 gallons for my own use............
Well then a friend of mine got ahold of my extra taps and went crazy, about the time we were sitting on about 50 gallons of sap and me evaporating about 1 gallon per hour with the fryer, I told him he had better find a more efficient way to boil and fast, Being landscapers we had all kinds of cement blocks, pavers, ect laying around as well as loads of good hardwood. So with a case of beer and some good cigars we built our first true evaporator. Here is a picture.
MAN THAT WAS NICE, we were now evaporating at over 10 gallons per hour average. Our best day we did 97 gallons of sap. We ended up doing 5 batches of syrup for a total of 6.87 gallons! (about 870 oz)
We learned alot, like how NOT to run in and take a shower when the sap is getting close, (my friend did this with almost 30 gallons run through a turkey fryer.......very burnt pan) Oh and also learned NOT to buy a 55 gallon drum used for rasberry flavoring.........no matter how much bleach/baking soda you run through it it still flavors the sap.....:o That was a loss of 40 gallons of good sap.....although at least I did not cook for hours and hours and then ruin it all.........lol
In the end it was a riot, we tapped only about 10% of the trees we have access to, We even found a buyer of the end of the year, VERY VERY dark stinky stuff.......as we call it, My friend is actually related to someone who brews beer and said it was hard to find the strong stuff to mix with his beer (and he paid a fortune for it in previous years), next year he wants 5-10 gallons! So in our first year we already had an order we could not fill. Cant beat that I guess.
We went into this year not wanting to spend much money, the only thing we bought was the steam pans, some filter material, some used taps, and a few jars. We used milk jugs for collection, and we have friends in the resturant business, so all the food grade buckets we need. (and all the beer growlers we need for temporary storage next year)
So for next year, who knows. more storage, more evaporation, more beer..........lots more beer!:D
Here are some of the pics of our backwoods operation...........and yea one night we sat in the rain and got soaked............we dont need no sugar shack........:lol: There IS a roof over the evaporator, so the sap stayed out of the rain, just not us.
This site was a great help!
Well what a fun "experiment" I set out to show my 6 year old where Maple syrup came from, Started with the turkey fryer......:lol: That was fine in the beginning, allthough the $20.00 or more per gallon of propane kind of hurt but hey I was only going to do 2 gallons for my own use............
Well then a friend of mine got ahold of my extra taps and went crazy, about the time we were sitting on about 50 gallons of sap and me evaporating about 1 gallon per hour with the fryer, I told him he had better find a more efficient way to boil and fast, Being landscapers we had all kinds of cement blocks, pavers, ect laying around as well as loads of good hardwood. So with a case of beer and some good cigars we built our first true evaporator. Here is a picture.
MAN THAT WAS NICE, we were now evaporating at over 10 gallons per hour average. Our best day we did 97 gallons of sap. We ended up doing 5 batches of syrup for a total of 6.87 gallons! (about 870 oz)
We learned alot, like how NOT to run in and take a shower when the sap is getting close, (my friend did this with almost 30 gallons run through a turkey fryer.......very burnt pan) Oh and also learned NOT to buy a 55 gallon drum used for rasberry flavoring.........no matter how much bleach/baking soda you run through it it still flavors the sap.....:o That was a loss of 40 gallons of good sap.....although at least I did not cook for hours and hours and then ruin it all.........lol
In the end it was a riot, we tapped only about 10% of the trees we have access to, We even found a buyer of the end of the year, VERY VERY dark stinky stuff.......as we call it, My friend is actually related to someone who brews beer and said it was hard to find the strong stuff to mix with his beer (and he paid a fortune for it in previous years), next year he wants 5-10 gallons! So in our first year we already had an order we could not fill. Cant beat that I guess.
We went into this year not wanting to spend much money, the only thing we bought was the steam pans, some filter material, some used taps, and a few jars. We used milk jugs for collection, and we have friends in the resturant business, so all the food grade buckets we need. (and all the beer growlers we need for temporary storage next year)
So for next year, who knows. more storage, more evaporation, more beer..........lots more beer!:D
Here are some of the pics of our backwoods operation...........and yea one night we sat in the rain and got soaked............we dont need no sugar shack........:lol: There IS a roof over the evaporator, so the sap stayed out of the rain, just not us.
This site was a great help!