Hi from Mike in MN.
My wife and I have lived in our current home (which sits on 1.3 acres) for 22+ years. All of our trees are 30+ years old (including several versions of Red Maples). I ran across something a couple of years ago that said you could actually tap any Maple (not just the Sugars), so it has been in the back of my mind for a while.

This January, I got around to ordering 10 plastic taps with drop lines and also picked up a couple of pails with lids. With temps this week running from the low 20 to highs around 40, I decided to give it a try and tapped 4 trees on Tuesday to see what would happen. I have a couple more trees I can tap later if this works.

The taps from 3 trees are dry, but I've gotten 1 gallon of sap from the 4th tree in 2 days. Probably not the best for a large Red with 3 huge branches coming off the base (with a tap in each branch), but it's a start. I've thrown the sap in the freezer for now and will accumulate until the weekend.

Before this week, I knew basically zero about this whole process, so I am reading articles like crazy to try and figure things out. I'd like to say that I really appreciate all of the articles, questions and responses that I've seen from the members here. Not sure if I will ask very many questions (seeing as Google is our friend) and nearly every possible issue has already been covered.

The plan right now is to just use the turkey cooker along with a stainless stock pot that I have to boil this down on the weekends. Not very efficient from the sounds of it, but I don't have much to process yet at this point. If the flow picks up, I'm sure I will find a way to adapt

So, I will hopefully post some results in the MN section later this month and would again like to thank everyone for taking the time to share your experience and expertise with those of us just starting out on our syrupy quest.

Mike