O/T Maple Syrup

huntingreen2day2 · Jan 2, 2016

I live in the Clarksville TN area and always have wanted to try to make some maple syrup. It had been extremely warm here for Dec and has now turned off cold for a few days. So I was afraid I might miss the sap flow for this area. I tapped a couple trees to see what the flow was. The attached picture is what I got out of one tree today. Woodpeckers are working on the trees on the south side where the sap is weeping out.

T in NE · Jan 3, 2016

I could be wrong but don't you want to tap the trees late in winter/early in spring, just before the trees bud out?

Donald Lehman · Jan 3, 2016

Normally you are correct. But we have a couple of fellows that have made syrup in November and early December this year. Don't know any of the details. Seems odd, especially for this area, but they did.

T in NE · Jan 4, 2016

An uncle used to make syrup. All I really remember of it was the snow was melting when he collected sap.
Built his boiler from plans from popular mechanics. All I really remember of that is us kids would play on the platform that held his sap tank and it took up most of the fair-sized building he put up over it. I bet it was big enough to park 2 crew cab pick-ups side by side.

And it was always warm in there when he was boiling.

Brian G. NY · Jan 4, 2016

I have heard of people tapping trees in the fall....but....I've never seen it.
For the sap to run, you need below freezing nights and bright sunny windless days which are sometimes seen in the fall as well as spring.

buickanddeere · Jan 5, 2016

A fresh taped tree runs best.
Tapping trees high will leave marks in the lumber and reduce it's sale value.
Boiling the sap/syrup too long will make it dark and burnt tasting. Instead of a light Carmel/Maple flavour .

Brian G. NY · Jan 5, 2016

Boiling the sap/syrup too long will make it dark and burnt tasting. Instead of a light Carmel/Maple flavour .[/quote]

Boiling it too long does not necessarily give syrup a burnt taste.
Letting the syrup run too low in the pan may give it a burnt taste.
The longer sap is boiled, the darker and sweeter......however.....it will also tend to crystallize after has set for awhile.
The result will be a container with a larger amount of "rock candy"
attached to its sides which is extremely sweet but nearly impossible to remove from the container.

O/T Maple Syrup

huntingreen2day2

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T in NE

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Donald Lehman

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T in NE

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Brian G. NY

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buickanddeere

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Brian G. NY

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