Adirondack Case Guy...Maple Syrup

Mr. Adirondack Case Guy...while eating breakfast with my family this morning my 11 year old son asked about maple syrup. I explained a little about how it is made. He has some questions he would like to ask. If you would be kind enough to answer them I would appreciate it. I am turning the computer over to him:


Hello, Mr. Case Guy! I would like to ask you a few questions on how you make the maple syrup. They are as follows:

How do you purify the sap for the syrup?
Would you send me some pictures of you purifying the sap?
Would you send me some pictures of you tapping the tree and transporting the sap?
Is your job very time consuming or not?

Thank you for time!




This is now JWalker. Thank You for your time and kindness.

I will be very glad to answer your questions as we proceed into the season.
To start with; the sap is very pure as it drips fron the spile driven into a drilled hole in the tree.
The sap is a combination of water drawn up through the cambium layer of the maple tree and stored sugar that the tree produces. The sugar content usually averages about 2%+-. The water is boiled off as steam, and as the sugar content is concentrated it comes to a temp of about 221F adjusted for berometric pressure, to become syrup. We go by temp and a hydrometer to make sure the sap has become surup. A bit above that point we start drawing off the syrup from the evaporators, and continue drawing off until the temp drops back just below syrup, and then run it through cloth strainers on a caning vat to remove the sugar sand, (calcium and minerals that are in the sap) and then bottle it. With our evaporators the batches will run between 5 to 15 gal of syrup depending on weather conditions and when the syrup comes off in relation to when we stoked the fire last. We don't have modern day high tech RO machines.
I don't know where you are located, but if you have a few maple trees on your property, you could make some yourself in your kitchen.
My e-mail is open down in RH corner of this post.
Give me a shout there, and I will answer all your question to the best of my ability.
Loren

Jwalker where are you guys located? Im in northwest CT and have and operation of around 1300 taps if you are within a reasonable drive your more than welcome to come see it done. I have almost all tubing on vacuum, it runs to tanks near the road where I can pump it out and then it is trucked to the sugarhouse where we run it thru a reverse osmosis to separate out a portion of the water to save time and firewood boiling it. By taking the 2 percent sap and concentrating it to about 8 percent you can make 4 times the syrup with the same amount of firewood and time in the evaporator. If you have look on facebook and search Crowhill Sugarhouse you will see my page and there are many pictures over the last few years of everything. Even the modern way its still the same basic idea, take the water out of the sap! And still a ton of work, I usualy start with tubing repair and such around December to be ready for the season. Even just tapping takes days especialy with this deep snow.

Have any of you guys ever used red maple for syrup.That's the only maple we have on our place,just wondering if it can be done?

About 1/4 of my sugar woods is red maple. Red Maple sap has more water content and more grit in it - but otherwise works fine for syrup. Hard Maple and Black Maple are the best.

Syrup is put through a filter-press to clean it up before bottling.

In regard to time consuming? Heck yes. Cutting wood, drilling trees at least once, sometimes twice, running lines or buckets, boiling time, canning time, clean up time, transporting the sap often by truck.

Making syrup is fun. It is time consuming but spending time with my dad I find it brings us closer. We tapped around 50 or 60 trees last year, our first year. We made over 10 gallons of syrup and it was delicious. We even made maple sugar. To collect the sap we drilled 3/8 inch holes about 1 inch into the tree and put the taps I have pictured. We didn't buy commercial taps just used some harder plastic with a hose clamp. It might not be the best but it worked. To filter the sap we used a mesh bag or an old pillow case that was sterilized. Again it worked for our purposes. The holes all grew shut from last year when we looked yesterday. We tapped 13 trees yesterday and already my dad collected 10 gallons of sap from them. We haven't bought a thing to make syrup, using only what we had laying around. Having the plastic tubing is a big help. This year we put bigger buckets on the ground. Last year we had one gallon buckets hanging from the hose clamp on the plastic tube.

Sorry forgot to show the pics of the sap boiling.

Gentlemen,
Thank each and everyone of you for your replies. I came in to late tonight for my Son to read the replies tonight. He will see them tomorrow.

Mr. Farmalls,
Thank You for the pictures. It helps my understanding of how it is done.

Mr. Jdemaris
This is JWalkers son
Thank you for answering about bottling and time consumption.

Mr. Markct
This is JWalkers son, Thank you for the invitation to visit but we are in SC and thank you for telling me how you ship it.

Mr. Case Guy,
This is JWalkers son thank you for your information and reply. I would like for you to continue writing. I did receive your e-mail and I will send you some e-mails in the future. Thank you for your time.

I grew up in Massachusetts ( in a family of Loggers and Lumber mill owners- that farmed for our o wn food & lumber was the source of income) we had somelarge wood lots andmade our own syrup in the home on a small scale. we tapped and hung buckets -the kids lugged them to the kitchen. We had 2 large metal buckets (kinda odd buckets , around 5 gal with maybe a 10 inch pen top and 2 fet at the bottom (kinda like a upside down funnel) they sat on the end of the wood fired kitchen stove and slowly simmered 24 hrs a day. I am not sure why but I think the slow simmer yielded a lighter colored amber with a more delicate flavor maybe because there was less scorching than on an evaporator sheet (I would like any comments on this theory ) as I have always preferred this flavor than the flavor that I can buy today. Maybe there is other reasons that I don't understand as we did it "small scale". When the syrup as cooked down to where we wanted it we filtered it thrufolded layers of cheese cloth . I remember us kids all would get turns on a piece of the used cheesecloth that would serve as an all day "sucker" that we would chew and suck on for the flavor like a piece of candy. Some was cooked more tomake a fudge like Maple candy. When we were gathering the sap (before it was boiled down_ a good "swig" sure made a refreshing drink sweetened water like drink. It also seemed like it was a good laxative too LOL. How I wish I could go back and enjoy growing up in those times all over again, and watch the next generations grow up as we did. Loren has been blessed to have generations living that life style. Our new way of life may seem easier - better- more advanced , but is it? I am not sure.