This is a badge bit (BB) that is part of the PEP curriculum. Completing this BB is part of getting the sand badge in Foraging.
If you live in a colder climate, options to grow your own sugar are limited. Luckily it grows on trees! Or, in them... Let's make some syrup!
There are many trees that you can tap for syrup. Sugar maples are the gold standard but most maples will work. Box elders, birch and walnut can also be tapped but their syrup tastes different and boiling techniques may vary. For a maple tree in an average season, it will produce 10 gallons of sap which should make about a quart of syrup (40 to 1 ratio). So all you need is one half of a maple tree to complete this BB!
There are many YouTube videos and it's hard to pick a few that show the steps well. Before drilling holes in your trees, surf the web for a while or talk to some people who do it already.
The key details are:
Tap trees in the spring when the days start to hit 40F. Sap generally runs when it's above freezing during the day and below freezing at night. Collect the sap in a covered bucket or pail. The sap will "keep" about like milk so boil it into syrup periodically, keep it very cold and boil weekly or freeze it and boil once at the end of the season.
Boil the sap into syrup outside. 5 gallons of sap makes a pint of syrup and all that steam will make your wallpaper fall off if you do it inside
Syrup is done when measured with a syrup hydrometer. A free way to guesstimate its completion is when it drips very thickly and kind of "sheets" off a spoon.
Filter the hot syrup through a syrup filter or a milk filter if you live in dairy country. Coffee filters are too tight/fine. Dishcloth would work. This step isn't critical but it's nice to get the chunks out.
Put hot syrup into warm mason jars. If you know it was at official syrup density, you're done. If you guessed or used the spoon technique, keep the syrup in the fridge after this point since you can't be sure it's shelf stable.
To complete this BB, the minimum requirements are to make a pint of finished syrup from a tree (not necessarily maple).
To document your completion of the BB, provide the following:
- A picture of one of your tapped trees
- A picture of your sap
- A picture of your boiling rig
- A picture of the boiled down syrup
I made some maple syrup this year. Tapped 50 trees and made about 12 gallons of syrup and 1.5 gallons of maple sugar. The sap was very sweet (30:1) vs a normal ratio of 40:1.
Five and a half years ago, with my son strapped to my chest, we tapped some Big Leaf Maples. Most of it we drank as sap, but we also boiled some down for sap. It half filled one of those maple syrup bottles, so I believe this means I'm halfway to this badge bit!
I'd say you're halfway there! You can tap trees in the fall when the weather is in similar conditions as for spring tapping. Lows below freezing, highs above. Keep up the good work!
Here are some pictures of me making Big Leaf Maple syrup. Since taking this photos, I've switched to using sap sacks and regular spiles rather than than this clear tubing and jugs. I prefer the sap sacks because there is no tubing to clean at the end of the season (mine grew black mold inside that was hard to clean out) and I can get frozen sap out of the sap sacks unlike with the jugs. The only disadvantage of the sap sacks is that bugs get into the sap, but they are easy enough to strain out. Note that Big Leaf Maple sap sugar content is a lot less than sugar maple sap, so it isn't a case of boiling down 40 gallons of sap to get 1 gallon of syrup - instead it is probably closer to a 60:1 or 80:1 ratio and the syrup isn't as good for putting on pancakes (it has a stronger flavor), but is excellent drizzled over some vanilla ice cream!
BB Requirements wrote:
To complete this BB, the minimum requirements are to make a pint of finished syrup from a tree (not necessarily maple).
To document your completion of the BB, provide the following:
- A picture of one of your tapped trees
- A picture of your sap
- A picture of the boiled down syrup
We moved from town to our new country home in the northwoods just under a year ago and we're trying to do all the things. Last winter I read up on tapping birch for syrup, bought some crude supplies, and then in April got started. It was a slightly bumpy ride -- we have aspen and birch and had to learn the difference, reducing the birch sap needs to be done very slowly, on warm days you'll get a bunch of bugs in the pails, the sap runs enough to overfill the pails I used, real pails would work better (and I should start planning for next year), etc.
But I did it and took pictures. I'm not sure how to get the video into a post, so I've just decide to link you to an album I've shared at Google Photos if you want to see the sap dripping. Additionally, I'll call out a small set of images here to satisfy the BB requirements.
You can see three of my six pails in this image:
I reduced it indoors, in a pasta pot on an electric stove by keeping the temperature around 180F:
As it reduced, I'd periodically add more and more all day and at the end of the day put it in the fridge. It got pretty dark:
When it was all done, I reduced it further and ended up with just under half a gallon (which eventually got turned into forest brew ala Pascal Baudar):
I think my future probably includes a proper outdoor reduction facility with a wood fire and a broad pan, but not this year.
Hi Christopher, I can't see your photos. Could you edit your post and try to use the "Attachments" tab just below the text entry box to import your pictures? That works much better than photo hosting site links. Thanks!
It's only taken me 8 years to make the full amount....
Nicole Alderman wrote:Five and a half years ago, with my son strapped to my chest, we tapped some Big Leaf Maples. Most of it we drank as sap, but we also boiled some down for sap. It half filled one of those maple syrup bottles, so I believe this means I'm halfway to this badge bit!
tapping our trees when my son was an infant...
tubing flowing into 5 gallon jugs
final boil down
finished maple syrup!
I finally got a chance to really tap our trees. The sap was really flowing. We collected gallons and just let it simmer on our woodstove, slowly evaporating, pouring more in as we brought it in from outside. Then we went to do the final boil down on the stove. My husband thought he could help while I was gone. He turned it up and walked away...and came back to find inches of black charred lava stuff. Much sadness.
So, we started again!
My son is now 8, and still excited about maple syrup!
We didn't have clean 5 gallon jugs, so I just used plastic tubing straight into gallon-size mason jars. This worked pretty well! We tapped this tree in four places.
simmering it down on the stove
more slow simmering
And finally, after 8 years and far more burnt sap than usable sap,
Someone flagged this submission as not complete. BBV price: 1 Note: Looks like you're still a bit short of a pint since that appears to be a .75 pint container. Sorry!
It is "Le temps des sucres" here in northeast Quebec! The maples have been giving the past few weeks event though there's been ups and downs in temperature.
You can see a tapped maple in the first picture. In the second picture, this is my sap collecting system as I go from maple to maple every day. And finally the well-anticipated product! I am proud to perpetuate this cultural tradition.
Hello! I’m trying for my very first BB! My first time tapping trees and boiling sap down for syrup! Six total taps across 5 trees, and over 8 gallons of sap to start with. We spent 6 hours outside boiling down the sap, and then another few hours inside boiling it down to syrup! We’ve still got the buckets and taps up, so I have high hopes for next time too!
Ashley Cottonwood flagged this submission as an edge case. BBV price: 0 Note: Hi Elizabeth! This is a lovely BB submission, you are so close! Any chance you can show us the final product, say, being poured on some pancakes? Your final picture shows us the lovely bottles, but not the syrup itself!
Make maple syrup - PEP BB foraging.sand.maple
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