You are right James I reckon, the tree lost loads of twigs this year, particularly in the storm and currently crows are snapping the highest bits off and carrying them away as nest material. I’ve not noticed the sap dripping in prior years - perhaps the temperature has an effect too?
When the Howden Glucose Refinery was still operating, producing 10 tons per hour of glucose syrup we used to run the evaporator at -0.9 bar. The vapour went into a spray cooled condenser with a tail pipe 40 feet long. Warm water from the tail tank was pumped through a cooling tower then back into the condenser. The vacuum was generated by liquid ring vacuum pumps and flow/tank level conditions had automatic controls which operators kept turning into manual until I got sick of being called out of bed at night because the system got out of balance through their efforts. I chained up the overrides and never got called out to condenser problems again. (That's possibly a bit bigger system than would be involved for a small scale maple syrup enterprise)
Wow ... so are you making birch sap wine ?
No, I just drink it straight. I could have boiled it down to make syrup (my preference over wine) but really, I just like drinking it straight out the tree.
My Howes lists Sycamore among the 13 best sources of nectar in the UK, especially so as they flower in late May, so I'm thinking of trying to encourage them locally - they seem too sparse to self seed here. I don't know if they'll coppice or pollard well, but if you have animals they might offer a treat every year or two.
Organic honey-now that is a proper joke
