It’s that time of year to start thinking about the upcoming sugaring season. If you’ve never sugared your maples before I’d recommend that you give it a go. It’s loads of fun and you end up with maple syrup at the end. It’s a great way to slow down and take notice what goes into the production. It will certainly make you not ever want to waste a precious drop, even if it’s not your own homemade syrup.
Mr Chiots and I have been sugaring our maples for a few years. Last year we got over a gallon of syrup from our trees. It’s really not that difficult, basically you collect sap from maple trees (they don’t have to be sugar maples), boil it down, finish to a certain temperature, strain and enjoy. I’d highly recommend getting a book like Backyard Sugarin’ to read through before you begin. I’d also highly recomend reading the book Sugartime: The Hidden Pleasures of Making Maple Syrup, it is not only the story of making maple syrup, but some history and an explanation of the beauty of the process. This article from OSU is also very informative.
This week I’ll be getting out all of my spiles and washing them up. I’ll also get all the jars and wire hangers ready. We’ll put a tap in the big maple tree that we can see from the kitchen window and we’ll keep our eye on it. When the sap starts to flow we’ll tap the rest of our trees (about 25 total).
Then we’ll spend our days gathering sap and boiling it down. Hopefully our season lasts longer than it did last year so we get a few gallons of syrup. There’s nothing more wonderful that enjoying tall stack of pancakes topped with maple syrup you made yourself. It’s also a great conversation when you’re at parties and gatherings. People are truly amazed when they find out that regular people make their own syrup.
If you’d like to tap a couple of your maple trees you’d better start looking for some supplies. If you don’t need tons of supplies Tap My Trees is a great place. I go my local Lehman’s store to purchase what I need, you may also be able to find a local store if you check around.
Do you or have you considered tapping your maple trees?
I can also be found at Chiot’s Run where I blog daily about gardening, cooking, local eating, beekeeping, and all kinds of stuff. You can also find me at Simple, Green, Frugal, Co-op, and you can follow me on Twitter.
I look forward to when we have a yard and maple trees and can do this. Being from NY, we have a lot of local maple syrup sources.
We tap our trees every year. We use to use 1 gallon containers but by mid-day they were running over. Now we use 5 gallon buckets so you only have to empty every couple days. We boil down on our wood stove, works slick. Looking forward to the start of the season, won’t be long!
I started making Maple Syrup as soon as we moved to ontario, and this will be our sixth season, but was raised making birch syrup in alberta, maple does not take nearly as long,
Have a outside kitchen with a propane stove for boiling down my syrup and for canning in the heat of the summer..
It will be a little while yet up here..hope we have a better run this year then last..
I have a few maple trees in the yard! Maybe I’ll give it a shot this year!
I considered tapping my maples, but I read that you need specific weather conditions for it to work. If I recall correctly, you must have days above a certain temperature, but nights below freezing, or something like that. Basically, if you don’t live in the right part of the country, you’re unlikely to get the right weather patterns to be able to get the sap.
Is that right?
Yes you do, it needs to be above freezing during the day and below or near freezing at night. This causes the sap to rise and fall in the tree which is why it flows and you can collect it.
Our bees were enjoying the maple sap the woodpeckers alloted them during the last warm spell we had. I really wanted to take some photos but we were on our way out the door. Unfortunately our maples are so small here that I’m not even sure we’d get enough sap to boil down! So we’ll just stick with honey for now. =)
I loved going to the maple festivals in New York when I was a little girl…Here in Arizona, we’re shy a few maples, so we don’t get the fun around these parts. You’re lucky!
I’m loving the jars near the end of your post – do you mind revealing your source or the name of the jars so I may look for them?
Cheers!
Teri
They’re Weck jars, I buy them from my local Lehman’s store, but there are various sources for them on-line. The Weck website can send you to a glass distributor that sells them.
I love these jars, they come in all shapes and sizes. I especially like them because they have glass lids and rubber seals. These are small one, about a cup fits in each one, perfect for maple syrup and jelly.
We don’t have maples – I’m not sure anyone really does in the UK – but we do have silver birches which can be tapped in the same way. The sap isn’t nice enough for syrup but can be made into a wine – we’re going to give it a go this year if we can find the time over the next few weeks.