We tapped our maple tree!

[Henrietta23]

Cool! Thanks for the link. I'm telling everyone what we're doing and I'm starting to hear that people know other people and they might have some extra supplies. We don't need much, we only have the one tree!

 

[Henrietta23]

I just boiled down a half cup to see what would happen. Sure enough it thickened up and turned a golden brown and it's sweet! I figured now that we've collected 6 gallons of sap in 48 hours we'd better make sure this is even going to turn into something that resembles maple syrup ! It does!
We spent the day at Old Sturbridge Village (yes you've heard me say that before. We go up frequently.) They were having their maple days. We had a blast!

 

[justusnak]

Congrats!! One day I will get brave enough...and attempt it too. Maybe next year. I think I am too late to start now. Was 70ish today...and in the 50's at night. Altho, we are supposed to get back into the 20's at night, and 40's for highs. CRAZY weather!

 

[Henrietta23]

We boiled down somewhere between 1.5 and 2 gallons of sap yesterday. I have a half cup of syrup!!! It tastes great. We'll be doing a little each afternoon because I have somewhere I really want to be Saturday and I don't want to be boiling sap all day!!

 

[Tallman]

This is fantastic!

Are you doing the boiling in the house? I too have heard stories of people having a real mess with this in the kitchen.

 

[sylvie]

Good that you are doing in small batches. I did a huge amount once and put it in containers in the cool basement. It all grew mold within a month so the whole season's work was wasted. Gallons of syrup.

 

[Henrietta23]

Since we're only doing small batches I did do it in the kitchen with the vent fan going. It wasn't too bad. Today it will be warm enough to have the windows open as well. I think in the end we'll have no more than 4 or 5 jelly jars full. I'm going to keep them in the fridge and we'll use them up and share them rather than trying to store any long term. This was really an experiment this year. Happily it seems to have been a successful one! Next year my husband will rig something up so we can boil outside.

 

[DrakeMaiden]

I had read that this can be done with other species of maple. I think it is really cool that you went ahead and did this with a different maple species. I was waiting to hear what you thought of the taste and I'm pretty excited that you say it tasted like maple syrup.

My husband and I like to have pancakes at least once a week, and we love the real maple syrup, but the price has gone up so high, that we had to switch to using homemade blackberry syrup instead.

I hope to try this some day.

 

[miss_thenorth]

A long time ago,I got a Harrowsmith Country Life magazine and there was an article in it about being able to tap many different species of trees. We were living up north at the time and had huge Aspens and birches. I had planned to tap several of those, but never got around to it.

Now we are here, and have no big trees near us, so, unless I plan on planting a maple and then waiting for it to grow up and then tap it, I'm SOL.

 

[sylvie]

A long time ago,I got a Harrowsmith Country Life magazine and there was an article in it about being able to tap many different species of trees. We were living up north at the time and had huge Aspens and birches. I had planned to tap several of those, but never got around to it.

Now we are here, and have no big trees near us, so, unless I plan on planting a maple and then waiting for it to grow up and then tap it, I'm SOL.

I planted a sugar maple in 1998 and it will be 10" in diameter next year. That's the minimum size needed for tapping. Had I had coddled and fertilized it, it would have been sooner. I say plant those maples!