Collecting Maple Sap for Syrup

I made a video of me collecting some maple sap for the first time. So far I collected 2 gallons and boiled it down to about a cup of syrup, sorry no video on that. I do believe it tastes better than any maple syrup you buy out of the store and its thicker too. I'm no expert by far, this is just my experience and also some footage of some small caves on my property that I plan on videoing inside at a later date.

Here is the link  

Thank you and God bless.

I used to buy it from the Mennonites around us then smartened up and tapped the trees in my backyard.  I had a huge, old sugar maple and two silver maples that I tapped.  They gave me about 2 gallons of syrup every year.  I had my daughter's friends come over, all about 6-7 years old, and had them put a tap in.  I boiled off some sap and sent them home with tiny 100mL syrup jugs.  We talked about the different sugar contents and I showed them how to use a brix meter.  Great learning experience and I always loved it.

It's pretty stunning how much sap an old tree will produce if you tap it.  And that's good, because you have to boil it down 98% to get syrup.  So 50 gallons of tree sap produces 1 gallon of syrup.

Commercial operations use reverse osmosis filters to take a significant amount of that water out, leaving only the sugars that are then boiled down to the right consistency.  It uses so much less fuel.

Marco Banks wrote:It's pretty stunning how much sap an old tree will produce if you tap it.  And that's good, because you have to boil it down 98% to get syrup.  So 50 gallons of tree sap produces 1 gallon of syrup.

Commercial operations use reverse osmosis filters to take a significant amount of that water out, leaving only the sugars that are then boiled down to the right consistency.  It uses so much less fuel.

My silver maples averaged about 1.4-1.5% sugar, which would be good production from a sugar maple in a stand.  My sugar maple averaged over 2.8% sugar, so I didn't have to boil off nearly as much water.  The tree was over 60 and in a back yard, so it had a huge canopy.

Thank you all for commenting, Timothy, I have a lot to learn about making syrup but I'm afraid I am now hooked on tapping trees. Out of 2 gallons of sap I got about a cup of syrup and I did most of it on my stove inside but no way will I boil 40 or 50 gallons in the house. I'm going to make an evaporator with a stainless restaurant warmer tray 12" x 22" x 6' deep and build a cob stove that it will set down in right on the fire, I'll try to make a video. It will be a great addition when I build my outdoor kitchen, plus I could take the pan out and put a grill on top. Love two or three purposes for everything.
  Also I learned you can make syrup from other trees like walnut. Some say its even tastier than Maple syrup. People are also raving about shag bark syrup but its made with sugar and the bark, they scrub and then boil the bark, strain it and add sugar,corn syrup (to stabilize the sugar) and cream of tartar. Suppose to be high in potassium too.
I plan to experiment and maybe add the hickory bark to walnut sap or maple sap.

Thank you guys for watching my videos and God bless all.  

Hi William.  Great minds think alike and fools seldom differ.  I bought the exact same warming pan for boiling off the sap after my first 2 boils.  I ended up putting it on the BBQ with another pan on the warming rack above it to pre-heat the sap and then drip down into the warming pan through a small hole.  It was nice not to have to swim around the kitchen with all that water vapour.

We've got a maple syrup festival near here, in Elmira, ON.  I've been going to it for over 20 years and it's now grown to more than 50,000 people for the 1 day festival.  I don't think I'll go this year as my daughter is in her last few weeks of college so she can't go, but it's pretty cool that that many people travel an hour or two just for tree juice.

I am boiling maple syrup for the first time. This year. I am just finishing off tonight (Sunday) I estimate I will have at least 15 gallons of sap by next weekend but I won’t have time to boil them this week or next weekend. I am thinking of freezing the sap in 1 litre bags and use the sap for making home made beans. Has anyone done this or is this a bad idea?

When I didn't have enough time for a full boil I would sometimes par-boil the sap and then store it until I could finish it.  The boiling killed anything I didn't want to grow in it.  I was using 5 gallon SS tanks to store and I would just keep them outside in the shade.

I think the freezing would work fine.

Timothy, would love to go to that festival but too far for me to travel. Amazon has that pan 12' x 23"x 6' deep for $14, just wonder how good it would be.

John Point, This was my first time too, so not sure how long it keeps in the fridge or if you could freeze it, I think I would take Timothy's advice and get it to a boil first. I know if it starts to get cloudy you better get cooking. Also when it starts getting warmer the tree sap starts to turn to starch and you don't get the sugar content.

Anyone ever heard of trying to make syrup out of grape vine sap, just my idea but I have drank it before while out in the woods and no water. What other kinds of trees can syrup be made from, I know you can make it from walnut and birch and even Sycamore. I just don't want to poison myself or even end up on the toilet for 2 days LOL.

I am collecting sap this Spring, it has been about 50 years since I previously did this as a kid in highschool. My primary source is an old farm "sugar bush" near me which the farmer's family had not tapped for about 50 years, the trees are very healthy, growing on a slope between a cow pasture (fertilizer!) and a creek (they never want for water!). Farmer does manage the area somewhat, they heat with wood and remove dead branches, dead or windfall trees and somewhat manage species, over half the trees are sugar maple (Acer saccharum) there were a few red oaks, pines and ash mixed in, amazingly, some BUTTERNUTS were there, they had signs of the canker but were alive & produced nuts last fall.

Testing the first run of sap, the 5 gallon buckets I collected varied from 3.2 to 5.1% sugar (by weight, tested with hydrometer). This is at the higher end of usual range for sugar maples as far as I know.

Those are some big HAPPY trees with good access to water & nutrients, spaced out enough not to compete too hard, plus nobody had tapped them for a long time. Some were large enough for 4 or even 5 spiles, most were at least large enough for 2.

I used 5/16" plastic spiles and adapted down to 3/16" collecting line, used old equipment a friend gave me. Made some collecting bags out of 11" wide vacuum sealer food bag roll stock, used a few commercial "blue" bags too. The collecting bags were zip tied to 6" long pieces of PVC pipe, I tried making these various ways.