Tapping maple trees to make maple syrup in this DIY video. We tap our Sugar Maple trees to collect sap in preparation for making maple syrup. This is a DIY low tech low volume method of tapping some trees in your yard or perhaps a neighbor's field. Several of my neighbor's have sugar shacks complete with large evaporators and huge piles of firewood, some use traditional sap buckets to collect sap, others use plastic lines and taps.
For my yard, I went with plastic taps and lines, they are not expensive, and I used the food grade plastic buckets from my homebrew beer kit to collect the sap. After we collected the sap, we boiled it down, and we'll post a video about that soon.
The general rule of how many taps to put in a tree, according to the Conn. DEP is 1 tap for a 12" diameter tree ( 38" in circumference ), 2 taps for 18" diameter or larger tree ( 56" in circumference )
The holes you drill for the taps should be 1.5" deep with a 5/16" bit. If you are tapping trees that were tapped previously, pay attention to the previous tap holes. New taps should be 6" left or right of an old tap hole, and 12" above or below the old tap hole.
Sugar Maple sap needs to be stored at 38F degrees or cooler, ideally you will boil the sap the day you collect it. If the sap has turned milky and foamy, it has gone bad.
Do you tap sugar maple trees? What are some tips you can share with us below? Thanks for watching!
Here is the tree identification book we like to use:
Buy From An Indie Bookstore Here
Buy From Amazon Here