Introduce yourselves....

[Fountian]

Hi guys, my name is Rob and I am a rookie. I live in Powell County, KY, about 40 miles southeast of Lexington. A friend of mine from WI visited in the summer and brought us some maple syrup that he bought up there around Madison. I loved it, but so did my 10 yr old son, especially on his pancakes. So I had to start buying it. I never realized how much the stuff cost due to how much goes into making it. I knew I had maple trees on my 150 acres so I started researching the process. I've been obsessed with it for about the last 5 months. Unfortunately on my land there are very few big maples. Only a couple sugars and a handful of big reds and silvers. So I went out into town and got permission from those that have 100 year old sugar maple. I tapped 10 of them yesterday around noon and I had over 2 gallons in each bucket at10:00 last night with the sap still dripping good. Can't wait to check them today.
I basically am doing to have syrup for ourselves, friends and family. I bought a 275 gallon food grade tote for storage. I found a good deal on an evaporator that a guy had made out of a metal tank. It has three pans, a preheat pot wth copper tubing wrapped around the stack. It has a blower on it to keep the fire hot too. He said I could boil off about 14 gallons of water per hour. We will see.
Probably the biggest I will get is 50 taps. Small compared to most on here but I am very excited about. People around here are getting a kick out of me because it's not something that is normal here.
My biggest obstacle is going to be storage. I am a school teacher and a basketball coach so I'm gonna have to find time in the next day or two to run before my sap goes bad. I will be posting a question about that on a different thread.
Thanks guys and good luck!
Rob.

[maplehound]

Hello everyone It has been a long time since I have been on here. The last several years have been very hard for me and I have not been able to tap trees. I have more metal in me than my automobile. With 2 artificial knees, an artificial hip and a double fusion plus a single fusion with a cage in my back. All leaving me with a drop foot where I am unable to put weight on the inside of my foot. this makes it almost impossible to walk in the snow, or soft ground found in the woods this time of year. Because of all this I am now working at developing web sites. currently I am working on my first blog about Maple syrup production. I would like as many of you to visit my site as possible. It is in it's early stages but plan to make many more post of what my experiences were when making maple syrup.
the address is raccoonrunmaple.com Hope to see you sign up and follow my postings.

[MichtonTree]

Hi guys and gals, first time sugaring. Putting in 12 taps for my first try. I'm in East Canaan Ct. I have and old woodstove found in the barn with a 2x2 SS pan on top that i'll boil down with. Great website you have here. Very excited and can fully understand the obsession. A great way to welcome in Spring.

Good luck to all.

[Cedar Eater]

Hello from the pointy finger of the mitten state. I'm Cedar Eater, and I use firewood moving as my main source of physical exercise. So of course, my wife brings home a spile and a bucket and a book to give me more reasons to exercise.

But maybe I won't be burning any more firewood this season. We're going to give this maple sugaring thing a try using single burner stove that used to heat my tower blind before it blew over in a big wind. If that doesn't work, I'll borrow a turkey fryer. I've just finished routing a propane line from the house out onto the back deck. At the very least, it will make gas grilling more convenient in the Summer. Tomorrow we'll be tapping our first tree and I'll be rigging a tarp over the deck to keep the birds from adding any extra flavor to the sap. The low tech evaporator will be only about five steps from the kitchen.

Making maple syrup is something that I thought wouldn't be worthwhile, because I was under the mistaken impression that only sugar maples were worth tapping. We only have reds on this side of the state. So learning that they were almost as good as sugar maples changed the picture. We have an abundance of trees that are big enough to tap. It's just a question of whether we want to work that hard. We're in our fifties, so I don't picture us making a business out of this, but we've got friends and relatives who would love the occasional quart as a gift.

[pauliwalnutz]

New Member here from Northern Ontario. Started off with about 25 taps but this year i'm up to 50 taps with all them being buckets. Just do it to keep myself busy before camping season starts. I have been boiling my sap in turkey pots over an open fire but this year i'm considering using some steam table pans and maybe building a brick arch.

[littleTapper]

Hi gang! Newbie here. I'm in southeastern Wisconsin. Grew up on a dairy farm in west-central Wisconsin (Jackson County). Dad used to do decent-scale tapping and taught me as a kid. I tapped and sold syrup as a teenager. Then I moved down to the Milwaukee area for college, got a job, got married...that whole deal.

Lucky for us, we bought a new place last summer and one of the selling points for me was the sugar maples on the property. We've got a nice wooded 1.2 acres. Right now I've got 20 taps in and I'm out of spiles. My neighbor has given me the ok to tap on his little patch of woods, so I could do 5 more, easily. My main reason for tapping is that my 5-year-old son inherited my maple syrup gene. He loves the syrup and he's loving the whole process and gets absolutely giddy seeing even a drop in a bucket. Gotta pass on what I know too. Hopefully he can keep these trees going for more generations.

It's a shame the farm is almost 4 hours away or I'd be making a lot more syrup

[Ken McGarry]

Bill, I've been tapping in Lincoln County in middle Tennessee, west of Fayetteville, since '02. I have family in west Michigan, but never was exposed to sugar making prior to starting here. As a matter of fact, I am somewhat of a "lone wolf" in this area. Started out crude and simple with 6 spouts, sap bags, cinder blocks, and my wife's canning pot. Got the "bug" bad, bought a Half-Pint pan from Leader in '04, next up is building an actual sugar house. Last year we made about ten and a half gallons of syrup. I even talked our local county fair into adding a category for maple syrup and products (our neighbor has made some syrup as well).

We have hundreds of sugar maples on our place and the neighbor's that are tappable, although the most I've ever tapped at one time is sixty. That will change when I retire in a couple years!

[Hannah]

Hello everyone, so glad I found this site. I was looking for something to keep the itch scratched during the off season! I live in central Michigan with my wife and three boys. I have been taping trees off and on now for probably 25 years. We only do this for personal consumption and usually tap around 10-15 trees. Last year I built a home made stove and pan and realized my volume needs to increase, so we upped the quantity of taps to 30 this year and adding more as the season progresses. The kids love the outdoors and this gives us a great way to shake off the cabin fever. Looking forward to tapping into the vast knowledge that is contained with in this site and hopefully improving and becoming more efficient.

[RobRings]

I'm Robert, I live in Alpena, Michigan. This is my first year making syrup, I'm married with 5 kids. We have 3.4 acres completely wooded aside from our house with a fair amount of maples. I just did 10 taps this year to get my feet wet, but probably have enough trees to do 50-60 taps.

[casaw78]

Hi all, Our names are Corie and Steve we live in New Hampshire near Lake Winnipesaukee. This is our second yr tapping and as Steve says we go big or go home... Haha! This yr we bought a used 2x3 Mason and put in 60 taps. Last yr we had 7 and used the outdoor propane cooker! We are excited to get started this yr, and just collected 16 gallons today. Some of our trees are good size but the majority are 12". I am more nervous about using the evaporator and burning the syrup and Steve is so excited!
This forum has been great so far with all the questions we have had! Looking forward to a fun season!
Corie and Steve


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