Making maple syrup is an old timey, back to the land kind of fun. You only need a maple tree, a maple tap, a bucket for collecting sap and lots of time for boiling. The complete step by step guide on how to make maple syrup at home. (whether you live in a cabin in the woods, or a house in the suburbs)
One large backyard maple like this can create gallons and gallons of sap every year.
Go grab your sap bucket, bonnet and lace up boots. I'll wait here in Vermont with the plough horse. You don't have a bonnet or lace up boots?? That's O.K., because I don't live in Vermont or have a plough horse. You don't need any of those things to make maple syrup.
All you need is ONE maple tree. It doesn't even have to be yours. Tap a friend's, family member's or unsuspecting neighbour's tree. I have yet to meet a single neighbour who won't readily allow me to tap their tree in exchange for a bottle of golden maple syrup.
Table of Contents
How is maple syrup made?
Syrup is made by boiling down sap. Sap is made of around 98% water and 2% sugars. The water is boiled away until the sugar content becomes 66%. So a LOT of water needs to boil off before it becomes syrup.
It takes 42 parts of sap to create 1 part syrup.
In order to do this you’re going to need a few things:
Tools needed.
Tapping
- Drill – The drill is for drilling a hole into your tree to insert the tap into.
- Drill Bit – This has to be the same size as your tap.
- Tap (spile) – This is what you tap into the tree for your sap to drip out of.
- Hook – The hook is on the tap and it allows you to hang your bucket off of it.
- Bucket – A bucket catches the sap. Duh.
- Bucket lid – You need this to keep debris from falling into your bucket of fresh, clear, beautiful sap.
Boiling & bottling
- Stock pot – A big stock pot with a lid to constantly heat up your sap.
- Shallow roasting pan – It needs to be at least 5″ deep with a large surface area. This is known as your evaporation pan.
- A propane outdoor burner or fire pit / rocket stove.
- A digital or manual refractometer or a hydrometer or hydrotherm. (for testing syrup consistency)
- A digital thermometer
- Syrup filters
- Syrup bottles
Which variety of tree?
So what is the magical maple syrup tree?? It's just a maple. Any maple.
Sugar maples are the most popular tree for making syrup because they have the highest sugar content in their sap but ANY maple will produce perfect maple syrup.
Maple sap has between 1-3% sugar in it (sucrose, fructose and glucose).
Don’t worry about whether your maple tree is the “right” kind of maple tree (Acer saccharum) for making syrup.
They’re all the right kind.
Besides - sugar content varies based on the actual tree, its location and other factors. So you might have a black maple that actually has more sugar in its sap than your neighbour’s sugar maple.
The 4 varieties of Maple Trees that have the highest amount of sugar in their sap are sugar maples, black maples, red maples and silver maples.
sugar, black, red, silver - birch.
BUT WAIT!! IT’S NOT FAIR! WHAT IF I DON’T HAVE ACCESS TO EVEN A SINGLE MAPLE TREE??!
O.K. Seriously, calm down. You’re being very dramatic.
Don’t have access to a maple tree? You could make birch syrup instead. Yup. It’s made the exact same way as maple syrup only out of sap from a Birch tree.
You can also make walnut tree syrup!
What size of tree?
Do NOT tap a maple tree that is less than 10″ across. (not around … across) Anything with a trunk that’s smaller than 10″ is too young and tapping it could kill it.
If your tree is 10 – 20″ – you can put 1 tap on it
If your tree is 20 – 27″ – you can put 2 taps on it
If your tree is 27+ (and healthy) – you can put 3 taps on it
(some say to never put more than 3 taps on a tree because it’s unhealthy for the tree and it changes the pressure in the tree too much so you don’t get as good a sap flow)
How to tap maple trees.
In the spring …
- Clean your sap buckets well with a light bleach solution before using them to prevent bacteria.
- Do not tap a tree that’s less than 10″ across.
- You can tap once nighttime temperatures are below freezing and daytime temperatures are above freezing.
- Drill a hole in your tree with a 7/16ths drill bit at a slightly upward angle.
- Insert the tap (spile) and hammer in gently.
- Hang bucket and collect sap.
- Store collected sap in a cool area for up to one week.
Once temperatures drop at night the sap stops running.
Tapping a maple tree for sap literally means putting a tap in it. How to tap a maple tree? You just bore a hole into the trunk, hammer in the tap and watch the sap flow out of it into your collection bucket.
The first time you do this it will be the most exciting thing you’ve ever experienced. Even if you’ve experienced the joy sounding really good singing once because you had a cold and sounded all sexy and husky.
Mark your drill bit with Sharpie Drill at a slight upward angle
Tips for tapping
- The hole you drill should be no more than 2" deep. Mark your drill at 2″ using a piece of tape or a Sharpie.
- Drill your hole on a slightly upward angle.
- Choose a day that it’s above freezing to drill your hole. If it’s freezing you risk the bark on your tree cracking which will cause sap to drip out.
Clear away the shavings from drilling with a small twig so your tap hole is clean.
On a good day pails will fill to the top. Other days there will be less.
Gently push your tap in. Give it a small tap with a hammer. The tap needs to be tight enough in the tree that the weight of a full bucket doesn’t pull it out but not so tight it cracks the bark around it.
If it’s above freezing, the second you put your tap in it will start dripping. And unless you have the shrivelled heart of a rainbow hater, your eyes will drip too.
It’s a sappy miracle.
Don’t forget to put the lid on to keep twigs, bugs, leaves and curious teenage boys out of it.
Storing sap
Think of your sap as milk. Not water. Even though it is crystal clear like water. It is perishable and needs to be kept cold. Store your daily collected sap in 5 gallon buckets with lids. You'll have to empty out your sap pails once a day. You can keep the sap outside in the cold for up to 1 week.
If you have snow available, pile snow around the buckets to help them stay cold. Shady spots are the best.
Maple Water
"Maple water" is being sold and marketed as the new coconut water with all kinds of health benefits being claimed by sellers. They say this sap drink rehydrates humans better than regular water and contains vital nutrients. There is some truth - maple water does carry antioxidants and minerals that regular water doesn't. But according to an actual scientific study on maple water it can't rehydrate a person any better than regular water can.
Sap is perishable. Keep it cold. Sap is NOT blue, it's just reflecting the sky here.
When to tap.
You need to tap the maple tree when the “sap is flowing”. I’m sure you’ve heard that phrase before. So when does sap flow?
Sap flows in the early spring when nighttime temperatures are below freezing and daytime temperatures are above freezing.
A 7°C difference in the temperature range between night and day is ideal. For you Americans, that’s a 12°F difference. For example:
For Canadians:
Nighttime temp -2C
Daytime temp 7C
PERFECT FOR TAPPING A TREE!!
For Americans:
Nighttime temp 28 F
Daytime temp 40 F
Don’t worry too much about that. Just remember as long as it’s spring and it’s below freezing at night and above freezing during the day the sap will be running.
Fun fact: Sap doesn’t run because it melts inside the tree when it’s warmer out, it runs because of the change in atmospheric pressure.
Making maple syrup.
Turning sap into syrup is just a matter of boiling away the water until you're left with a high concentration of maple tasting syrup.
Quick Guide
STEP 1. Heat your collected sap up in a stock pot with lid. (It just heats faster if you have a pot w/ a lid) Once hot, add it to the evaporation pan.
STEP 2. Keep your evaporation pan of sap boiling. When it starts to evaporate, add more hot sap from your stock pot.
STEP 3. Once you've added all your sap to the evaporation pan and it's looking a darker colour (like syrup) and is approximately 213 degrees, dump it all into a finishing pot.
STEP 4. Water boils at 212 °F where I live. Syrup always boils at 7.1°F (3.94°C) above the boiling point of water. When you reach that temp., you have syrup.
STEP 5. Now you need to test if what you have in the pot is no longer sap, but is actually syrup. You can test whether it's syrup in a few ways.
STEP 6. Filter your syrup.
STEP 7. To bottle your syrup to give away (as if) you need to reheat your syrup.
STEP 8. Things are about to get real. You can now, FILL YOUR BOTTLES.
Detailed Guide
STEP 1
Heating the sap takes many hours so it's best to do it outside if you can. Otherwise you'll have a kitchen with sticky walls. And floors. And cabinets. And cats.
Use a propane fuelled burner or a wood pit if you have one. You can also make a rocket stove like I show you here.
On boiling day ideally you have 2 areas going - one that's heating a stock pot of sap, and another that's boiling down the hot sap in an evaporation pan.
I'm just a gal making a few bottles of maple syrup in my backyard.
So I just skip the stock pot heating up phase, and add my cold sap straight into an evaporation pan.
An evaporation pan is any pan that is at least 5" deep and has a large surface area. A large surface area means water can boil away faster.
My first method of boiling was with a propane burner.
Last season I built a maple syrup boiler out of cinderblock. It worked GREAT. If you have the room for this I recommend it 100%.
The base is 2 patio stones which are surrounded by 12 cinderblocks, with an additional 2 to act as doors.
1-2 evaporation pans can be placed on top.
The fire is built on the patio stones, underneath the evaporation pans.
My most recent way to boil syrup is with a cinder block fire pit.
STEP 2
Once the sap is hot, transfer enough to your evaporation pan to fill it. Let it boil. You'll notice it become golden coloured as the water starts to evaporate.
As the sap boils down in the evaporation pan, continue to fill it with new, hot sap. Repeat this process until your reserve of fresh sap is gone and you only have the evaporation pan of sap left.
See? This is a rocket stove. A tower of bricks creates a remarkably hot fire.
STEP 3
When the final sap in your pan reaches 213 degrees while boiling it's time to pour it into a finishing pot and bring the operation inside. The last part of boiling down the syrup is more precise and using stove burners makes it easier.
The finishing pot is just any regular pot, but you need to use it. It helps ensure you don't burn your syrup, because the smaller pot (as opposed to the large surface area evaporation pan) means less chance of burning and ruining syrup. Just trust me on this.
Transfer the pot to your stove and boil it until it's syrup.
How to know when your sap is syrup
When it's boiling temperature is 219°F.
Syrup always boils at 7.1°F (3.94°C) above the boiling point of water. When you reach that temp., you have syrup.
Water boils at 212 °F.
So sap reaches 219°F while it's boiling, it's officially syrup.
To calculate your syrup boiling point, boil a pot of water and check the temperature. Add 7.1°F to that number and you will have the temperature you want your syrup to hit.
When syrup looks like this when it's boiling it's almost done.
STEP 4
Once you *think* you have syrup, and its boiling point is at 219°F (depending where you live) it's time to test it to confirm it.
Maple Syrup needs to be between 66.5% and 67.5% sugar. Anything below or above that isn't syrup.
You can test whether your sap has turned to syrup in a few ways:
The Drip Test
The first way is by looking at how it drips off of a spoon.
When it's syrup, the final drop off of the spoon, will just hang there for quite some time. When it finally drops off the spoon, you will see a *tiny* thread of a tail from the drop. Like a sperm. A maple syrup sperm drop.
This method is fine and it works but really to test maple syrup you should use scientific tools.
Using a hydrotherm or a refractometer.
Hydrotherm for testing maple syrup 
Refractometer for reading Brix level in any liquid.
A hydrotherm tests the viscosity of the syrup by floating in it. You have to have a vessel as deep as the hydrotherm, fill it with your syrup and put the tool in. You then read your viscosity level based on the level the hydrotherm floats at. They can be bought at maple syrup supply stores.
A refractometer is much easier to find and use. You have a choice between an inexpensive manual read refractometer like above, or a digital brix refractometer like below.
The manual is about $18. The digital around $140.
Digital refractometer for reading Brix levels in maple syrup
Both the manual and digital read the Brix level of liquids. In this case syrup. It will tell you exactly what the level of sugar in your syrup is down to a decimal point.
You just squeeze a drop of liquid onto the plate of the manual tool or into the recessed cup of the digital one. The refractometer does the rest.
If it reads between 66.5% and 67.5% you have syrup.
STEP 5
Filter your syrup. Large operations filter through a felt sock with paper liners inside of it. Filtering helps get rid of any contaminants as well as "sugar sand". I ONLY USE PAPER LINERS. The felt sock absorbs a lot of syrup. More than I care to share with a bag of felt.
Sugar Sand: This is also known as Nitre. Sugar sand becomes visible when your sap becomes condensed as syrup. It's a sandy looking sediment that's made up of minerals from the earth in the tree's sap. It isn't bad for you but it's gritty and will make your syrup cloudy.
If you don't filter out sugar sand it will settle on the bottom of the maple syrup bottle. Just don't shake up the bottle and it'll stay at the bottom of the bottle and out of your tasty syrup.
You can order these specialty bottles online.
STEP 6
After filtering you need to reheat the syrup before bottling to get rid of any "ick" that developed while you screwed around testing its Brix levels.
Reheat your syrup to between 82℃ - 88℃ (170℉ 190℉) before bottling.
You can skip the reheating step if you store your bottles of maple syrup in the freezer instead of in a cupboard.
Maple Syrup Grades
There used to be a confusing system of maple syrup grades and up until a few years ago the US and Canada had different names for them which made it even more confusing.
NOW all maple syrup is graded using these words which describe their colour.
Golden - delicate taste
Amber - rich taste
Dark - robust taste
Very Dark - strong taste
The grades or colour of maple syrup has nothing to do with how much the syrup is boiled. The colour of maple syrup depends on the daytime temperature the sap was collected.
Maple syrup grades are explained a bit more along with the more sciencey stuff in my Maple Syrup Grading post.
I think you have all the information you need now. These are alllllll the things I struggled with or had questions about when I first had the inclination to tap my own tree for homemade maple syrup a decade ago.
Here's some extra info that should clear up any other questions running through your head right now.
Maple Syrup by the Numbers
(numbers vary depending on the weather)
- It takes 10 gallons of sap to make 4 cups of Maple Syrup.
- It takes 1 week to collect 10 gallons of sap from a single large maple tree.
- That means you can produce 4 cups per week, for around 3 weeks, resulting in 12 bottles of syrup a year from one tree. (if that tree is producing very well)
- On a cold day it takes 9 hours to evaporate 10 gallons of sap outside.
- Then it takes another 1-2 hours inside on the stove to turn it into syrup.
- A minimum of 3 fingers are chopped off anyone who tries to steal a bottle of my syrup.
FAQ
There's some debate about this and not a lot of scientific papers I can reference. A lot of maple syrup producing sites say that the mold found on the surface of maple syrup is harmless. They recommend scooping off the mold and then heating the syrup to 179℉ to kill remaining bacteria.
In this post from the Cornell University mushroom blog, the author recommends throwing away any moldy maple syrup even though the xerophile fungus (Wallemia sebi) isn't always toxic.
If it's been properly bottled, maple syrup will last indefinitely on the shelf. Once opened it can be refrigerated for months. Freezing maple syrup in bottles is also a good way to store it.
Sap is clear liquid. But near the end of the tapping season it may start to look slightly cloudy. As long as it tastes fine and isn't deeply cloudy it's still good to use.
The perfect conditions for tapping a tree are when it's below freezing at night and above freezing during the day. Once the tree starts to go into bud you can't tap your trees anymore, the syrup this late sap makes will be bitter.
It depends on the season, but generally you have 3-4 weeks before conditions aren't right for sap to run anymore. Plus after 3-4 weeks the hole you drilled into the tree will start to scab up and close over.
The rate at which the sap drips will depend on the weather conditions that day. Sunny and warm always = faster running sap.
Good question. Sap is basically the tree's blood delivering minerals and nutrients around the tree. In the spring sap jumps into action pumping energy around the tree as buds are forming.
Maple Syrup Recipes
If you have even one INKLING of interest in making your own maple syrup DO IT. Do it right now before you forget about it and the season has passed. There are only 3 weeks every year that you can do this.
For the love of pancakes and french toast, do it this year.
can you use coffee filters in place of paper liners when filtering?
HI Frank! I would first let your maple syrup settle. After boiling it to become "syrup" pour it into large mason jars and leave it undisturbed for about a month. This will allow all the sugar sand to settle at the bottom of the bottle. Then just decant the syrup into regular maple syrup bottles, leaving the sand at the bottom. You can then pass *that* sand and small remaining syrup through a coffee filter with water and have maple flavoured water to keep in the fridge for cooking with. ~ karen!
sugar sand is full of minerals - the same as a vitamin
What a thorough tutorial! My husband just recently learned we could tap our maples. We erroneously thought only sugar maples made maple syrup. Boy do we feel dumb. Anyway, we have 4 large silver maples and put a tap on two of them and wow did it ever flow. It was hard to keep up as we didn't have the means to store all the sap until we had time to boil. Glad we only put out two taps. Our first boil was in the house and it was messy. Got about 8 oz of syrup. We ended up buying a turkey fryer and went through 4 propane tanks to get about 3 quarts of syrup done in about 10 gallons of sap batches. Once each batch got down to about 2 gallons, we finished boiling on the stove at a lower temperature to manage the steam better. As you mentioned, this isn't really a cheaper a way to do it, but it is a great experience! Not sure how much deeper we are going to get into it. We don't have the fancy syrup bottles either. We put the syrup in whatever random container we could find!
P.S. I love tip #8 too!!
I forgot to add that we do have syrup in all three stages you posted (boiled too little, boiled too long, and boiled just right).
Great! Don't worry, no ONE knows that you can tap pretty much any maple tree. :) I boiled outside for a while but now I'm back indoors now that I have a supersonic exhaust fan, lol. ~ karen!
Your story brings back great memories! I got the maple bug about 10 years ago when my kids were little. Yep...tried the indoor stovetop method. Ruined a lot of house contents. Settled on the turkey fryer, which we already had. But the cost of propane, plus having to give some syrup as a "thank you" to the folks whose trees i tapped, just ruined the whole experience for me.
Sugar maples aren't too common here (near Philadelphia), and starting out with twice the sugar content saves half the boiling. So it definitely helped to find some. I got friendly with some folks who lived along my drive to work who had sugar maples - i spotted them by their fall color the previous autumn. Every afternoon on my way home from work, I'd switch buckets.
Speaking of buckets...i used tubing and buckets to collect sap. It turns out that, if you get friendly with folks in a bakery, you can get 3 to 5 gallon icing buckets when they're done with them...no charge. With lids. Supermarket bakeries usually buy their icing instead of making it.
When i got to know what I was doing, i put on small demonstrations for my kid's cub scout packs and preschool classes. That's how i justified my insanity. "It's for the children..."
Thanks for a great article! I was reading it because i briefly considered getting back into it next spring. Thanks for the reminders of all the reasons not to! It was fun for a few years, but I'm not ready to do it again. Although I must say, the earlier comment about using a crock pot sounds very intriguing.
I just love your blog! Thanks to your writing about maple syrup making, I ordered taps from Amazon and tapped my silver maple tree in Arkansas. I had no idea I could do this, but decided to try it on a whim. I collected about 15 gallons of sap, which condensed down into just under 3 pints of syrup. Sap collection here was slow, with about a gallon of sap collected per day. I boiled down the first batch to nearly nothing, and then got the idea to try using my crock pot instead. Every day I poured the day's sap collection in and let it run continuously on low. When the contents of the pot were really low, and it seemed like syrup, I removed it to a half pint jar. I ran these through a cycle in my instant pot to seal them. This process only took me a few minutes per day instead of hours at once. The whole process took 2 weeks, but it was very doable. I did end up with sugar sand, which I filtered with a fine mesh strainer. I will be ordering the paper filters for this coming sugar season. I have many sycamore trees, and I plan to try to figure out when to tap those next. Thank you for writing your blog. I share many of your interests and love your writing style.
I'm so glad it worked out for you! Sounds like a great process, maybe I'll try it next year. Actually I think I'm good for maple syrup for a couple of years, so maybe the year after that, lol. ~ karen!
For every Canuck who makes their own maple syrup, myself included, there should be a special stamp we can get in our passports...you know...to prove we are true Canadians....eh.
I'm going to start a petition. I could get behind this whole idea. ~ karen!
This is my 3rd year tapping my two trees, and the first time I've found your site. I wish I'd found it the first year. Or the second. But hey, better late than never. First of all, hysterical. Your adventures in maple syruping (I just found out it's really called "Sugaring") kept me sane this year (again, so wish I'd found you the last 2). Just finished boiling the first batch this year (started at 530 this morning, it's now 445pm), and I've got just shy of 3 cups. But every year, I ask the same thing - is it supposed to be soooo thin? I let the temperature get to 225F, and it's still super thin. Don't want to get it too close to the candy stage, but should I boil it longer still, maybe at a low heat to thicken it up a bit? I know it won't be "store-bought-thick," but still.
Hi Matt! Yeah, making maple syrup has a bit of a learning curve, lol. My first couple of years involved a LOT of calls and emails to people who ran professional sugar bushes, lol. Oh! Yes. I'm hysterical. Didn't want to forget to circle back to that. Honestly, you need a Brix refractometer if you want to be sure of when your maple syrup is done. The thicker it is the higher the sugar concentration obviously. It has to be *just* right to be considered maple syrup, but frankly as long as it tastes like syrup ... I started out using an inexpensive glass refractometer like the one in these posts, but last year I upgraded to a digital refractometer and it makes maple syrup season MUCH easier. You just take a little drop of the liquid, put it on the tester pad and it tells you immediately what the Brix level is. no guessing, no pouring from jar to jar, no nothin'. Either way, unless you're an absolute genius with the spoon drip test you might want to think of getting a refractometer just to make your life easier. :) ~ karen!
Hi Karen. We boiled down 30 liters and got 4 small bottles today. It seems to be crystalizing which I guess means we boiled it too long, but the hydromyometer didnèt ever float to the proper level. What is up with that
Your article rocks. I borrowed a spile from a friend today and tapped one of our (Norway, I believe) maples - got three pints in as many hours. Tastes like three pints of water that someone stirred half a sugar cube into. I'm absurdly excited to actually get to the syrup-making stage - will blog it if it's a success (or a sufficiently hilarious failure).
Hi Matt. Frankly I'd think it absurd if you were to consider making your own maple syrup to be anything other than absurdly exciting. YOU ARE MAKING MAPLE SYRUP!!! Come now. Getting excited over a squirrel that has learned most of the alphabet in sign language? Absurd. Getting excited over making maple syrup? Not absurd. ~ karen!
Thanks for the great advice! You saved me a lot of suffering. My son had a gallon of sap from school and wanted to make candy. It isn't perfect, but I wouldn't have made it through without your post. In fact, I would have tried to do it inside... :-)
Did you make the syrup then? How did it work out?! I didn't tap this year because I still have a few bottles of maple syrup from last year but I miss doing it. It's a great reason to get outside at this time of year. ~ karen!
We made imperfect syrup, and then brought that inside and boiled it super hot to the candy stage, and then poured it into a cupcake pan. One gallon of sap produced enough for a piece of candy the size of an Oreo. And it has a bitter taste to it, like molasses. But I know I did a few things less than perfectly, so it could be any one of those.
I made a video for my son to show at school. It's 3 minutes. (There's some dead space after the 3 minute mark, but there's nothing interesting about to happen. Just stop watching.)
Hello
I read your blog about making syrup last year but was able to try. I have been dreaming and planning for a for year to give it a go. I have been gathering supplies for some time now and I have one question. I have a Hydrometer, what is the difference between that and Hydrotherm. Do I need both or do I need to go by the Hydrotherm? Thanks
Thank you soooo much...with your explanation...I have finally PERFECTED the art back yard maple sugaring!!! Thanks a million!
That's great! I'm very happy for you. And thanks for letting me know! ~ karen
You did GREAT !!!
We make maple syrup every year.
We first started out using restaurant stainless steel rectangle pans over a fire outdoors.
Well, that got old real fast...so we built a sugar shack (the man cave the rest of the year !!!)
If you under cook it, you will get mold on the top (just scoop it off and you're ok). If over cooked, you'll get sugar crystals on the bottom. we make around 10-12 gallons of syrup each year, mostly to give away. We burn 1 batch every other year (literally BURN) to use for baked beans and ham basting. I call it cooking syrup. It gets a smoky rich flavor.
An interesting thing is that the first boil from early sap, the syrup will be quite light in color and flavor. As you go later in the season, the syrup gets darker and more flavorful.
Once the buds on the sugar maple trees start to swell, that's when you stop collecting sap.
It starts to get bitter when boiled...called Bud Sap.
The more leaf buds on the trees, the more sugar in the sap. So older trees give more sugar per gallon of sap.
The sap water comes up from the roots and the sugar comes from the buds.
It takes anywhere from 35 to 65 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup. Again, depending on the amount of sugar in the sap.
TIP : if the sap in the buckets freezes, take out the ice as it's ALL Water. Sugar won't freeze. It won't take as long to evaporate.
Thank You for letting me Ramble On !!!
It would be nice if I could spell my own name !!!!
Patti
Thanks so much for the information! I made my own yesterday and unfortunately, it crystallized. Would I be able to add more sap and cook it down again or isn't it savable? You said you could add more sap if it was too think, but mine has hit the crystallized stage. I have more sap and can't wait to keep trying until it comes out right!
Hi Erin - Chalk the crystallized sap up to experience and start anew. :) ~ karen!
I have a short story.
About five years ago I told my wife I was going to make some maple sirup. I drove 90 miles to a sugar bush and talked with the owner who gave me some spiles and tubing to get me started. I made my first batches and ended up with slightly over a gallon of sirup. Well, the wife tasted it sirup and declared that the next year I had to make more. In the fall we drove up to Mason, Mi to the Sugarbush Supplies store and she bought me a 3 burner camp stove. I had a 2' x 3' stainless steel pan made and this year I plan on making at least 10 gallons. I have shipped it as far as Ca.
Holy cow thats alot of work lady! Im really impressed! Living in northern N.J.with big glorious trees and seeing the price of pure maple syrup i thought maybe i would give it a go. Hmmm. Now im not so sure about that. I thought id be swimming in pools of syrup all free for the taking. But after seeing your yield of 3 cups maybe i'll spend the 20 bucks! HA. call me lazy!
I just found this blog and I'm so impressed! I grew up in Toronto and can remember going out to see the whole maple syrup process on more than one occasion when I was a kid, but I never thought it was something I could do at home. Until now, that is. Sadly I live in Florida and I'm thinking that palm trees won't work...
Mmm. Maybe you'll get palm syrup? - Katen!
Hmmm...don't give me any ideas! My ass will be out there entertaining the neighborhood by "tapping" the palms!
I try to be self-sufficient mostly because I'm cheap and think I'm saving money, but in reality I spend probably twice as much on all the equipment "necessary" for my soap making, ceramics, jewelry, chickens, etc., etc. It's a mental illness I think! :)
I really love your blog - you are hysterical!
Dear Karen, I have a question... after all that work are you going to make it again ?!?
Excellent question. Yes. Yes I am going to make it again. I have a love of making ingredients. Maple Syrup, yogurt, cheese. LOVE IT! :) - karen!
... making ingredients... that's really something!
I started reading your blog and I love it... it may not be any news for you but I had to say it... I recently started looking for mascarpone cheese and sour cream recipes since it's hard to find them in my area. Have you ever tried any?!?
Keep up the good work !!!
XOXO,
Thais
You must be one crazy lady to have done this; I'm so incredibly impressed. The process wasn't new to me, being a Canadian living in maple syrup country, but the very idea of trying it myself - holy hell! Especially when the end result is so very miniscule compared to the effort. But my goodness you should be pleased with yourself. Wow - enjoy every last drop! (Oh, and I must agree with other commenters - I can see that you have created a foolproof method here, for anyone brave enough to try it!)
Now that I've figured it out it really isn't very hard. Just longgggggg. It doesn't look promising but I hope there's one more sap run this year. By the time I figured it all out, I only ended up with 2 medium and 2 small bottles of really good stuff. ~ k!
Congrats on the syrup! Everything you learned this year will make next year's syrup better.
My husband and I are late-bloomer doers. Make maple syrup? Sure! Several years ago, we tapped trees on our property 22km from our in town rental apartment. We filled our little Honda Accord with random containers of sap, hauling back and forth, cooking it down in a black canner on the electric oven in our open concept apartment. All surfaces were soaked and sticky. But it only took an entire day to get a litre of syrup. Hmmm.
After we built and moved into our house, we tried again. Hauling sap was easier and we cooked it down on the BBQ side burner. Only the finishing was done inside. When we burned through the second propane tank, and still had a ways to go, we realized, "Next time, it's wood."
This year we built a temporary outdoor fire pit and borrowed a real evaporating pan then finished the syrup on the BBQ. It worked great! It's a great way to welcome spring - although it feels like we've skipped spring and landed in summer already.