Headed to the cottage for the weekend with the kids and a some friends and it was such a nice day we decided to tap a few trees. Not being totally prepared we had to improvise a little with our collection system. No buckets so "rednecked" some containers by melting a small hole in each bottle to held onto the spiles. We were able to dump the bottles by just removing the cap and turning slowly (pivoting on the spile) and pouring into a larger bottle. Had 7 spiles in 5 trees. With the temperature into the 60's we picked the right day and collected over 8 gallons of sap in just a few hours. This kept the kids running. They were collecting over 1/2 gallon every 1/2 hour or so. Starting to boil A couple hours later and getting closer. After a finishing boil inside we ended up with with about 2/3 of a quart of syrup. Kept 1/2 quart of syrup (looks darker in the picture) that everyone enjoyed on french toast this morning, and the rest I continued to boil a little longer to thicken some more to make some maple taffy in the snow for the kids....young and old
Wow! What a way to spend the day. I haven't done that in years, I would have loved to be right out there with ya. And improvising with the bottles.....priceless
We did the same thing with our grandsons here this weekend too. You had a lot more sap than we did. We ended up with maybe 1/4 of the syrup that you did. WTG XXL ... love that sugar on snow. Had that as a kid in Vermont...
We got lucky with the weather on Saturday and the sap ran great. There was a cold east wind yesterday and it didn't run near as good and we only collected less than 2 gallons more. Between the sap we collected after the batch late Saturday and yesterday, I brought home about 3 1/2 gallons of sap that I boiled down here last night into another pint of syrup. Calling for cooler temps this week and into next weekend so it looks like we picked a perfect day to tap.
Yummy. Can almost taste that on a bowl of vanilla ice cream! Of course, that comes after the waffles.
That looks like a great time and perfect weather to be out enjoying it. I normally don't eat yellow snow, but when I do, it's maple flavored.
Im going up Friday to upstate NY to hopefully help make some syrup. Friend of my brothers runs a fairly large maple syrup operation. Hopefully there is still some to be made since we have had these warm ups and cool downs recently
Just across the pond from upstate NY and it's still pretty cool here so I think you should be okay still. It may be running slow but likely still running. Good luck, have fun and take
Ok well I had a wonderful time in NY making maple syrup. Didnt have the best weather for it as there was a small cold front that came through but still got to see and help out during the whole process. Here are a bunch of pictures from the weekend. Taps in the tree, I was amazed at the miles and miles of tubing setup for all of this. 40 gallon barrels of maple syrup all filled and ready to go The beast of an evaporator, thank goodness our stoves dont require as much wood. Firebox was huge
Here are a few more pics. If you need to get your maple fix I highly recommend my buddy in NY here is the site Maple Syrup Upstate New York NY Pure Home Made Maple Syrup Candy Cream tell him Kyle from the wood forum sent ya he will get a kick out of that. Temp of the flue Standing in the loft of the sugar shack while making maple syrup This is where the sap comes in at first. All the lines are hooked up to a vacuum to achieve max sap as possible. Was a tight fit for my big self to squeeze into a tank to get it cleaned Requires lots of cleaning to keep the quality of the maple syrup high.
40 gallon barrels of liquid gold. Commercial sap operations are well worth visiting. That one is yuuuge capetownkg ... thanks for taking us along.
