Maple Syrup Time

[Paul]

Very small home operation here. Might end up with two or three gallons of syrup this year. Will know better at the end of this week. We'll keep the taps in till we get tired of boiling!

We've tapped three walnut trees, too. Will freeze that sap till we get enough to boil down all at once. I love that stuff! I think it's better than the maple syrup.

How about some of you bigger operation guys?? When did you start tapping?

[Vintagesleds.com]

[71TXman]

That stuff is the best ever! Let me know if you need to send some away, I can send you my address 

[Paul]

Hah!!! I'll put you on the list!!

It's amazing how, once you do this, friends are sure ask if you're sugaring again this year. Can't blame them. The stuff is really good. But they never return the jars!!!!

Lots of work. Lots of time. And an investment in propane and some other equipment. But....... it's worth it!!

[Skier76]

It's such a cool thing to see! There are a lot of people by our place in VT that sugar; for their own supply or some sales. We rode our sleds yesterday right by a friend's operation. They aren't boiling yet and it was hard to tell if they had their taps in at this point in time.

On our small town trail system, we cross a lot of sap lines! I'd say there's a good 4 operations we pass through at some point on the 17 mile loop.

[duallydave]

Open pan, wood fired.
Good ol' fashioned syrup has just a hint of ash in it.

[belthead]

Tapped friday 29 trees earliest ever for me here in central Wisconsin

[jr37]

Nothing but the real syrup for me and my family. I grew up cooking syrup. I think we tapped around 700 trees when my parents got out. There will never be the fake syrup in my house. In fact, we just recently bought 10 quarts from 2 different friends of ours.

[racer73]

We put in 150 taps today in SE Michigan. Should be boiling non stop for next 10 days or so the way the weather is looking, Nothing like being in the sugar shack with the aroma of the maple steam. Almost as good as the smell of Klotz and race gas!

[svnuccadoc]

The nostalgia, tradition, and harvesting one of God’s marvelous resources like this make me very envious of you guys. No sugar trees here in western Wyoming.

[Paul]

Any of you guys tap walnut trees?

You don't get the volume of sap that comes from maples, but man, is that stuff great!!! Nutty, almost butterscotch taste. Really good when you heat it up before pouring over the pancakes.

I also read where you can tap butternut and hickory. Up in Alaska the tap a lot of birch. Would like to try that syrup.

[Ski of Plenty]

Wife and I visited the Amish maple syrup shack today. They upgraded to this set up last spring. Really works great. They run all the sap through a reverse osmosis system which really speeds up the cooking process. They had just fired up when we got there...and in about one hour they had cooked, filtered and filled a 55 gallon barrel of syrup. 1200 gallons of R.O. prepped sap in the tank and more was coming in.  We took along 4 quarts of fresh syrup when we left...still hot in the bottles! There's just nothing like the smell (and taste) of fresh maple syrup cooking. 

[71TXman]

The nostalgia, tradition, and harvesting one of God’s marvelous resources like this make me very envious of you guys. No sugar trees here in western Wyoming.

Well then my friend, here is a way you can enjoy some of the best dang syrup out there, right from a place I like to call Gods Country here in MN.

When other local friends don't have any syrup, I get it from here. It literally is out of this world!

They ship it to you!! Love having fresh maple syrup show up in my mail box. 


https://www.wildcountrymaple.com/

[71TXman]

We took the kiddo's out yesterday to my bosses place, they had tapped a bunch of trees and had collected in a couple days 100 gallons of sap.

It sure is quite the process, he has his mostly automated to feed itself, but he has a blower powered cooker that you have to babysit and keep throwing logs into it.

All of us got to drink some of the sap too, it has an interesting taste! Basically sweet tasting fresh water.

[Skier76]

The syrup right out of the evaporator is amazing. Our friends used to have small paper cups and they'd give everyone samples while they were bottling. 

[JLOpower]

I used to help my grandfather with his 14 acre sidehill maple operation. Love the work. Can't stand the taste of maple syrup.

Klotz stinks too.