Renewable Resources – Maple Syrup

Three years ago, MrsMac and I were at a friend’s house attending our weekly Bible Study class with our worship group. Somehow later in the evening a discussion shifted from the New Testament to the up and coming sugaring season. Living on or very close to the water for the past 36-years, I have never really thought about taping a maple tree, collecting the sap, and then boiling it down to make maple syrup. I asked a slew of questions and due to my enthusiasm, I was even showed a few smartphone videos. Driving back up the mountain after our class I said to MrsMac, “I am going to make my own maple syrup this year!” Her response was, “watch the road. Don’t hit another deer!” Apparently, my enthusiasm for this new project stopped at me.

The time of year was late fall and the next day found me wandering the woods close to the cabin looking at the remaining leaves on the trees. Once identified as a maple tree the tree was marked with surveyors’ tape. I focused on trees that had a diameter of 10 plus inches by measuring the circumference and dividing by 3.14.

A couple of days later I found myself at my local library looking for books on sugaring. I checked out the most promising ones with lots of pictures and trekked back up the mountain. Once back at the cabin, I threw a few more logs into the wood stove, poured a cup of coffee, and settled into my lounge chair to read and “get educated” on my task at hand. As the readers know; you collect maple tree sap in the late winter, boil it down, and then bottle it. Pretty simple huh? Simple it is but I found out it is very time consuming. More on that later.

According to the locals, you tap your trees when one of two things happen. The first is when the robins return. The second which is a bit more scientific is when temperatures during the day go above freezing (32 degrees for you Bernie Sanders supporters) and drop below freezing at night. Typically, at my latitude, in February.

By the beginning of February, I was more restless than a Dutch Shepherd in heat knowing that Jose’ the Chihuahua across the dirt road, was keeping a vigil at your front door; waiting for the weather to change or for a robin to show up. Finally, while checking the future weather forecast, I saw a stretch of days that would be above freezing during the day and below freezing at night. I went off to buy my supplies which were; 15 Home Depot orange buckets & lids, 10 tree taps, and 30-feet of 5/16” hose. Some of you may wonder why Home Depot orange buckets.

When you look at the bottom of those buckets, they are stamped with the “food grade” symbol and they are orange. Orange is a lot easier to spot than a white bucket when there are still several feet of snow on the ground or when it is still snowing.

Using a 5/16” drill bit I put a piece of blue tape around the bit at the 2” mark so I knew when to stop drilling the tree. With a few buckets, drill & bit, ¼” twine, pre-drilled bucket lids, tree taps and hose in hand, off I went to my pre-marked maple trees. I would drill a tree with the hole going a bit up to allow for easier sap flow. Clean the hole out as best I could of wood shavings and lightly tap in the tap with hose attached. Once that was done, I put one end of the ¼” twine around the tree and the bitter end through the handle of the bucket. Most of the buckets sat atop snow so over the subsequent days the snow would recede, and the twine would keep the bucket suspended. Last, I fished the hose through a pre-drilled hole in the bucket lid. Viola! I was done with bucket one. Now only nine more to go.

Only nine more to go

Several days after I tapped my trees, I looked out the window and saw a robin pecking away at a small patch of ground under a pine tree that snow had not accumulated during the last snow dump. Huh, interesting timing. Alas, the locals were right once again. That same day the sun was out, and it was a nice warm 34 degrees, so I headed off with two empty buckets and collected 10-gallons of sap from the ten buckets around the cabin. Put the sap in the shed and then headed out to buy a 55-gallon metal barrel, a few hinges, stove pipe and fire bricks. It was time to make an evaporator for the sap. I used this video from YouTube© as my guide to making my evaporator.

Once I was done making my barrel stove, I lit a fire to burn off the paint on the barrel and to see if it worked. I was not impressed with the way the fire burned because the wood just laid on the bottom of the barrel and there was little air flow around the logs. Did some research and found a grate that was made for a barrel wood stove. Ordered it along with two 5-gallon stainless steel hotel pans. Thanks to Amazon©, several days later I pulled out the fire bricks, put the grate in the bottom of the barrel, re installed the fire bricks and lit another fire. Now we had a nice hot fire going.

Once the barrel had cooled down, I cut two opening’s in the top of the barrel so the hotel pans could nestle in the top. These pans would be my evaporators. The one in the front was the heating evaporator and the one closest to the chimney would be the boiler. This location was the hottest place on my barrel stove. The plan was as the fire was blazing away, I would take the preheated sap from the front evaporator with a ladle and put into the evaporator at the back of the barrel stove which boiled away the water.

As the days progressed, I collected more and more maple sap from my trees. It got easier by the day as the snow was receding and snow shoes weren’t needed anymore. Once I had collected most of the maple sap the day of reckoning arrived and at 0700 hrs. on a nice sunny morning.

I started a fire in the barrel and poured about 3-gallons of maple sap into each hotel pan to get things started. During the day as the back-evaporating pan boiled down I would refill it using a ladle from the front evaporating pan. Then refilled the front evaporating pan back up from my collected buckets of maple sap. Watching maple sap boil is about as exciting as watching paint dry so when a group of friends showed up late morning, I was very happy. At last someone to talk with and share the hard work of making maple syrup. Chairs were arranged around the barrel stove, an Armagnac bottle appeared out of nowhere, and the stories began.

This years set-up complete with Yaesu 817 transceiver to help fill in the time

At noon MrsMac drove off to town to get a “big sandwich” and some additional beverages for the growing crowd of friends helping with the tiring chore of; skim, ladle, pour, load the stove with wood, and telling great stories. As the sun was setting the last of my friends had left and I had only boiled down about 35-gallons of maple sap. With 20-gallons still to go I let the fire go out, covered the two evaporators with aluminum foil, and went in for the night.

The next day found me out again boiling sap by 0900 hrs. By sunset I had boiled down all the remaining maple sap to about 3-gallons. I put the processed maple syrup into a 5-gallon stew pot, brought it inside and put it on our gas stove to finish the process. The final process is to boil off the remaining water to end up with one’s maple syrup for the following year.

You know you are at the right point when the sap boils up the sides of the pot not unlike when you scald milk. Like scalded milk, you do not want to allow that sticky lava like goop to boil over the sides of the pot. This requires constant watching of the bubbling syrup once the temperature reached 218 degrees Fahrenheit. The sap changes into syrup, depending on altitude, between 219 to 221 degrees.

Finale task—Finishing the Maple Syrup

Off to the side I had a slew of 1-pint sterilized mason jars & lids ready for the big moment. Once the maple syrup had erupted, I turned off the heat, positioned a strainer over a jar and ladled the very hot maple syrup into the cloth strainer and filled up each mason jar and affixed the lids.

The next day I looked at my jars of pure delight and each jar had set and was sealed well. I counted my pint jars and I had eight with the ninth about three-quarter full. So out of 55-gallons of maple sap, I got just over 1-gallon or ~2% of all the maple sap collected. Typical harvest range for maple syrup from maple sap is 2-5%. I would have done better if I had only used “sugar maples” rather than the mixture of maples I did use. In subsequent years, I limited my tree selection to only sugar maples, and I get about a 3-4% return on my efforts.

We typically use about one quart of maple syrup a year. This leaves six or so pint mason jars to give away to special friends. We have been asked; why do you go to all the effort in making your own syrup? Our reasons are several. First, the syrup has a smoky flavor which MrsMac and I like. An older farmer friend tells me it tastes like the syrup of his childhood. Second, what a great skill to have in a SHTF period. To have the skill and the apparatus to make maple syrup … What a great bartering item.

Freedom Through Self–Reliance©

 

 

 

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16 Comments

  1. James May 1, 2019 at 08:02

    Nice Johhny,welcome to the world of usually limited returns,that said,fun as hell!My friend just started this year and for well over hours/weeks of work ect. I believe 6 quarts was the return.Next year as we identify more “hives” of maples and get a process going will be bigger returns.I will say he has many huge stands of birch that also produce sugar but at much lower returns per gallon of sap.I think we figured we could probably have bought a huge drum of quality syrup for the time and effort/monies put in but fun anyhow.Of course,this gets big enough gotta have a sugar shack,right,then,friends might hang there so need a bar perhaps in it,ah,the list of how silly can get goes on but good hobbies that get you working with nature always a good thing,now,about a few hives……

    • johnyMac May 1, 2019 at 08:34

      James wrote, “I think we figured we could probably have bought a huge drum of quality syrup for the time and effort/monies put in but fun anyhow.” Yeah you might however you will miss the fellowship and that home made taste of wood fired evaporated maple syrup. ;-)

      Six-quarts is a great ROI. Your friend must have boiled down around 150-gallons of maple sap. WOW! My hat is off to him/her.

      Raising chickens, cutting my own fire wood, growing 80% of our yearly vegetables, raising protein and yes making my own maple syrup is a great way to get squared away before the shumer hits the fan. I encourage everyone to at least try to do some of these things to learn, produce quality goods, and for the fellowship of other like minded folks.

      Peace Brother!

      • James May 1, 2019 at 09:27

        I might be mistaken and could have been only 6 pints,need to look at photo of final process as was not there during the “final”boil down.I will say like the pans on drum,those evap pans cut to fit drum/make em your self,nice setup either way.I have also found out though birch a candidate besides much less return also need to get on rough sap quickly for whatever reason.My friend has stated the birch are up to me but am going to tap a bunch of the colinies and see what happens.I will say besides one bucket(for S&G’s) we cheated with lines as all the trees on a fairly steep hill,let gravity do the work!Oh,and my other job besides birch is a lot of hardwood dead fall that needs cutting up for fuel,good times!The bored part of me is wondering on nice days perhaps a Fresnel lens to boil,that could be interesting/trouble!

  2. Patriotman May 1, 2019 at 08:39

    Excellent write-up as always my friend. Your quest for self sufficiency is certainly inspiring for me.

    Glad to see the hard work pays off!

    • johnyMac May 1, 2019 at 08:55

      Thank you Patriotman.

      I will throw a challenge to you and others out there…Grow some veggies this summer. Start small like with… Tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, and lettuce. All can be grown in a 4’x 12′ raised bed in your backyard.

      Oh I almost forgot, get your amateur radio Technicians license. :-D

      Peace Brother!

      • Patriotman May 1, 2019 at 12:12

        I will take you up on that challenge! Get ready for a wave of pics from my super awesome garden. :)

        And yeah yeah I know about my license :P keep on me

  3. Jennifer May 1, 2019 at 09:31

    Speaking of renewable resources, while you’re out in the woods looking for your sugar maples, keep an eye out for Usnea. It’s a moss that grows on trees (prefers conifers), and it is a top-notch antibiotic for skin wounds, pneumonia, and tuberculosis.

    You can read more about identifying it and preparing the tincture at PrepSchoolDaily dot blogspot dot com. The first post appeared 22 October 2018, with subsequent posts one and two weeks later.

    And while you’re out looking for sugar maples and Usnea, juniper berries are also antibacterial.

    • johnyMac May 1, 2019 at 10:45

      Thank you Jennifer.

      Some great advise for sure. I will check out the link you provided.

      Peace Sister.

  4. Not My Name May 1, 2019 at 09:47

    If you need hotel pans, go to a local restaurant supply store. Especially for this use, buy used: Just as good. All the restaurant supply places I’ve ever been to will sell retail for cash. It is good just to wander around to see what’s there, could be useful stuff for non-food projects.

    • johnyMac May 1, 2019 at 10:49

      Thanks NMN for your suggestion.

      You can also find a lot of restaurant supplies at restaurant/business auctions.

      Peace Brother.

  5. Anonymous May 1, 2019 at 09:51

    5

  6. Jim Wilkins May 1, 2019 at 12:16

    You can speed up the process of reducing the sap by running it through a reverse osmosis setup. That will take out a lot of the water before you start boiling it down. The R.O. system will leave you with two products, more concentrated sap and purified water. I learned this in Alaska where I was working for a couple who were experimenting with making syrup from birch sap. They were successful but said they needed twice as much birch sap as they would have needed maple. The maple sap contains about twice as much sugar.

    I realize not many people have a reverse osmosis system lying around but the parts are available and you can make one for a reasonable cost if you needed more production.

    • Johny Mac May 1, 2019 at 14:29

      You are 100% correct Jim. Another more natural and cheaper way to reduce the water is to allow the maple sap to freeze. The water particles will solidify but the maple syrup particles will not. Just like if you take hard cider and freeze it, the center of the frozen mass you will find a pocket of pure apple alcohol. This is called “Freeze Distillation”.

      Anyway, I can go off on this subject but I do not want to bore you.

      Again, great idea Jim.

      Peace Brother

  7. SneakyBaztard May 1, 2019 at 19:09

    That is super cool! Great you had your radio out there as well.

    • johnyMac May 2, 2019 at 07:26

      Always SneakyBaztard! Any excuse to use a radio in the field.

      I was using a QRP slanter antenna. The farthest QSO south was “4” land and west was “0” land. I could RX a station in Belgium hut he could not hear me. :-( oh well ya’ can’t win if you do not play.

      Peace Brother!

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