Another sweet hobbie

[sugarbush]

It is the time of year when New Englanders tap maple trees for the clear water like sap and turn it into Maple syrup. I was tapping trees well before I ever started keeping bees and my user name on here is a term that comes from making maple syrup. I snapped some photos today so I thought I would share. Ben Franklin once said that Maple trees would one day supply the US with all of its sugar.... he was wrong, but it does provide us with 6 very busy weeks a year and gallons of sweet syrup for our pancakes.

The sugar house: This is a small one, built about 20 years ago to replace a much larger one that formally sat on this site.

 

[sugarbush]

Pumping the sap from the collecting tank into the holding tank above the sugar house, the sap then flows by gravity down into the sugar house to supply the evaporator.

Firing the evaporator; most places have switched to oil now, but traditionally the process was wood fired

Checking the syrup; a stainless steel ladle is used to check the syrup, when it aprons off of the ladle it is time to draw off the syrup.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Good pictures SB and thanks for sharing,i find this subject interesting..Mike Palmer said he used to mainly do this as his business,before the bee bug took hold. How much sap do you get on average from a good tree in a good season.

 

[sugarbush]

Vermont Sauna: it takes about 40-50 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup, lots of steam is produced in the process.

Sampling the finished product: dipping home made donuts in hot syrup, a family tradition

 

[sugarbush]

Good pictures SB and thanks for sharing,i find this subject interesting..Mike Palmer said he used to mainly do this as his business,before the bee bug took hold. How much sap do you get on average from a good tree in a good season.

We average about 70-100 gallons of syrup per year. That is with about 800 taps, probably 300-400 trees. The per tree amount varies greatly, some of our trees can only handle 1 tap, others we put 3 taps in.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Have tapped birch trees for sap,similar process regards the tapping bit..be good to have a go at that maple syrup making though.

 

[sugarbush]

I have heard of people tapping birch, it is yellow birch that produces sap right? We have a carbonated beverage here in New England called Birch Beer which is supposedly flavored with birch syrup.

 

[hedgerow pete]

birch sap is easily the brit equillavent to maple as we dont have many sugar maples about, but what many people dont realise is the other trees we can tap as well,

i have just finished collecting mine, sofar this year over the last two weeks i have collected 40 litres of birch sap to make into wine and syrup but,

i have also 25 litres of sycamore,
25 litres of walnut, (black)
3 litres of ash,
3 litres of maple( it will never catch on you know!)
there are several others we can do as well, most of mine goes straight into wine making but some times i also do concentrations to syrup as well,

i love the idea of 800 taps, now that does sound fun

 

[Erichalfbee]

I was just going to ask if you could tap sycamore(that's a maple isn't it?)

 

[roche]

Thank s for the pictures - really interesting...How do you tap the tree? Cut a scarf and put a drain of some sort in?

 

[Erichalfbee]

.How do you tap the tree?

Lots on youtube

 

[Hombre]

Sneak up on it with a big auger bit and a bung with a tube in it to draw off the sap.

 

[sugarbush]

We tap with a gas powered auger and then drive a steel spout into the hole we drill in the tree. Used to hag a bucket off of the spout, but have switched to all lines now... The spout has a small hose hooked up to it which runs to a larger tube... it all runs by gravity into a large holding tank. We then pump it from that tank into the tank on the truck and then off again into the tank at the sugar house.

800 is small scale, back in the day we ran 5000 taps, all buckets collected by hand. It would take 3 weeks to tap out, 6 weeks of sugar season and three weeks to take everything down and wash it up for storage.

 

[Nose Ma]

What is the difference between the "grades" of syrup? Is it down to trees, or evaporation time, or something else?

 

[sugarbush]

What is the difference between the "grades" of syrup? Is it down to trees, or evaporation time, or something else?

The grade depends on the sugar content of the sap. In Vermont we grade in A, B, C with subdivisions of A into Fancy and Amber. Vermonters sell all of their A grades, they eat all of their B grades and C is for cooking, it is dark like molasses and has a very strong flavor.

So syrup is measured on the Baume scale. Depending on the sugar content of the sap, it can be lighter or darker in color when it hits a Baume of 7. At 7 it is syrup, so if it reached 7 at a higher sugar concentration the syrup will be lighter and have a lighter flavor. The darker it gets the stronger the flavor. The light stuff is usually produced early in the season when sugars are really concentrated in the sap, as the season progresses the syrup gets darker.

Grade B has the best flavor so we keep it for our selves.. The lighter stuff is too mild for a Vermonter's pallet so we give it an A grade and sell it to who ever will buy it B is the best in reality.