I've made it and it sells very well. Start with a recently emptied bourbon barrel, drain any left in the barrel. Then fill it with 185-190 F maple syrup. The only grade I've used so far is Very Dark, because I sell less of that. Then I turn the barrels every day, and I spray then lightly with potable water to help keep the barrel staves expanded and minimize leaks. For this I built a sort of dolly like a furniture dolly, I set it in a tray with the wheels facing up and I set the barrel on the wheels. None of the wheels are swivel type, just ridged. When I spray I turn each barrel once fully. My spray schedule is 2x a day the first 2 weeks, then once a day for a week or 2, then every other day. If any leaks develope in the barrel, soak clean rags in hot water and lay the rags on the spot leaking.
The aging time varies with the barrel size. All I've done so far is 5 gal and 10 gal barrels. A 5 needs about 3-4 months to age and a 10 needs 6-7 months. When done I pump the aged syrup into my finisher, heat it to about 190 or more, then filter it. From the filter it is pumped into my bottler where I pack it, label it and price it. I also like to seal the caps with a wax seal.
I sell mine at 200ML for $12.00. My first batch was bottled in late August and since then I've sold about 75% of what I made (20 gal) and at the rate it is selling, I'll be sold out before my next batch is ready, I'm just going to fill 2 more 10 gal barrels this week, again with my Very Dark, which will finish off all my Very Dark. I did just fill 2 barrels 5 gal each with Dark for the friend who got me into making the bourbon barrel aged maple syrup, because he was under the weather so to speak, he bought the syrup, I just heated it and filled the barrels.
The barrels can only be used once, so you want to come up with a plan to sell them once used. My plan is to cut them in half and sell them as planters.
There's a lot of labor and occasionally some loss due to leakage, but the mark up is real good. I turned about $1000 worth of retail syrup into $4500 in bourbon barrel aged syrup. I bought 200 ml bottles at $.96 each, with the caps, then I paid $.17 each to get labels printed (now that I know how well it sells, I'll get more printed at a time which cuts the price each by a considerable amount.) and the wax was about $3/#, I bought 6# and I may have used about 1.5# to 2# max to seal the caps. I did 2 barrels of 5 gal and one 10 gal. The 5's had no leaks, the 10 lost maybe 6-8 oz max.
Since I introduced my bourbon barrel aged maple syrup I've found it has been my best selling item in terms of containers sold, and had I not made it one 16 gal barrel of very dark would have gone to bulk sales at $1.85 a lb. That would have brought in $325 rather than $3600
For the 2 -5 gal and 1 ten I pd. $370, my hope at this time is that I can recover 60-70% of that in planter sales, maybe more.
Last edited by maple flats; 01-12-2018 at 07:23 AM.
Dave Klish, I recently ordered a 2x6 wood fired evaporator from A&A Sheet Metal which I will be converting to oil fired
Now have solar, 2x6 finish pan, 5 bank 7x7 filter press, large water jacketed bottler, and tankless water heater.
Recently bought another Gingerich RO, this one was a 125, but a second membrane was added thus is a 250, like I had.
After running a 2x3, a 2x6, 3x8 tapping from 79 taps up to 1320 all woodfired, now I'm going to a 2x6 oil fired and a 200-425 taps.