Howdy All,
Making homemade maple syrup was a hobby my 2 brother in laws and I started about 3 years ago. With only 12 trees single tapped, we collected roughly 120 gallons of sap YTD. We tapped the trees roughly 4 weeks ago as it got into the 60's during the day and froze during night which was ideal. We have been yielding roughly 35-40 gallons sap / 1 gallon finished Syrup which I believe tends to yield sap that is somewhere between 2% and 2.5% sugar content
It's been a goofy season for us here. We ended up boiling down 3 different weeks and still collecting right now.
We collect the sap using a 4 gallon sap bags attached to PVC pipe with a hole notched which then hangs on the tap.
Our evap system consists of a drum with sections cut to fit 2 buffet pans. We also rigged up a 5 gallon bucket that flows through copper tubing wrapped around the chimney. This brings it to roughly 100+ degrees before it enters the pans. We average about 4.5 gallons per hour with this set up. Next year we are hoping to have a much larger evap pan to reduce time.
A little something we call Sapskey. Half Crown Royal / Half semi boiled sap. It's quite delicious!
Once the buffet pans boil down, we transfer to the turkey fryer to keep evaporating. Once our total batch hits a temp of 217* we bring it inside to hit a final temp of 219*. It then gets filtered and bottled.
Finished product of our 3rd boil down.
I understand why pure Maple Syrup is so damn expensive. After eating/drinking this syrup, I refuse to ever use the fake store bought stuff.
I would say our biggest expense was the multiple cases of beer purchased to keep us hydrated. This year we spent close to 30 hours boiling. Every second was worth it!
Making homemade maple syrup was a hobby my 2 brother in laws and I started about 3 years ago. With only 12 trees single tapped, we collected roughly 120 gallons of sap YTD. We tapped the trees roughly 4 weeks ago as it got into the 60's during the day and froze during night which was ideal. We have been yielding roughly 35-40 gallons sap / 1 gallon finished Syrup which I believe tends to yield sap that is somewhere between 2% and 2.5% sugar content
It's been a goofy season for us here. We ended up boiling down 3 different weeks and still collecting right now.
We collect the sap using a 4 gallon sap bags attached to PVC pipe with a hole notched which then hangs on the tap.
Our evap system consists of a drum with sections cut to fit 2 buffet pans. We also rigged up a 5 gallon bucket that flows through copper tubing wrapped around the chimney. This brings it to roughly 100+ degrees before it enters the pans. We average about 4.5 gallons per hour with this set up. Next year we are hoping to have a much larger evap pan to reduce time.
A little something we call Sapskey. Half Crown Royal / Half semi boiled sap. It's quite delicious!
Once the buffet pans boil down, we transfer to the turkey fryer to keep evaporating. Once our total batch hits a temp of 217* we bring it inside to hit a final temp of 219*. It then gets filtered and bottled.
Finished product of our 3rd boil down.
I understand why pure Maple Syrup is so damn expensive. After eating/drinking this syrup, I refuse to ever use the fake store bought stuff.
I would say our biggest expense was the multiple cases of beer purchased to keep us hydrated. This year we spent close to 30 hours boiling. Every second was worth it!
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