GardenFork – Eclectic DIY

Tag: maple syrup

Simple Maple Syrup Evaporator : GF Video
Learn how to make maple syrup with this simple maple syrup evaporator. I’ll show you how to tap and collect sap from your sugar maples and then boil down the sap. This setup uses propane and 2 outdoor propane stoves.

We have used several methods to make maple syrup, watch all our maple syrup videos here and we have built a DIY maple syrup evaporator out of a file cabinet.

What’s great about this simple maple syrup evaporator rig is you can walk away from it. You don’t have to watch it constantly. I have mine outside the kitchen, and every 15 min or so I go out and check it.

I found a used large stainless steel pot that was probably used to boil clams, and I found a large shallow stainless steel bowl at the dollar store. The idea behind this DIY maple syrup evaporator is the cold sugar maple sap is brought up to a boil in the first large pot, and then it is ladled into the shallow finishing pan to be boiled down into maple syrup.
Sugar Maple Sap becomes maple syrup when the sap reaches 7.5 degrees F above the local boiling point. Boil a small pan of water on your stove and when it boils, measure the temperature with your digital thermometer. Add 7.5 degrees to that temp – at our house the boil happens at 210F – and when the sap reaches that temperature, it is now syrup. Quickly turn off the heat on the finishing pan burner, and strain the syrup in to jars. If you are up to it, you can let the sap boil to a slightly higher temperature for a slightly darker syrup – be careful not to burn the finishing pan.

Parts You Need For The Simple Maple Syrup Evaporator
- Propane Burner https://amzn.to/2GezLE0
- Wide Stainless Bowl https://amzn.to/2J1SkJo
- 20 Quart Pot https://amzn.to/2GxaSTt
- Digital Thermometer https://amzn.to/2GDEiiC
- Fine Mesh Sieve https://amzn.to/2IbeRlF
I strongly suggest buying a digital kitchen thermometer, old style candy thermometers are hard to use with this setup.

If you see your finishing pan foaming big time, you probably have syrup, and probably the temperature is above the ideal, turn off the propane and pour off the syrup.

The drawback of this system is that it uses quite a bit of propane, not the best use of what you’ve got. The plan is to build a wood fired evaporator next year. I have a ton of white pine from the trees we dropped that would fire a sugar shack nicely.

Watch all our Maple Syrup How To Videos here.

Here is a great PDF from the Univ of Maine on how to tap trees and boil sap

Questions? Comments? let us know below:
March 28, 2018
File Cabinet Maple Syrup Evaporator Photos From A Friend

Always love getting file cabinet maple syrup evaporator photos, these are from a friend who has greatly improved the GardenFork version 2.0 file cabinet evaporator. The photos tell the story best here. This is designed be used with a stainless steel evaporator pan made by our friend Zach of Silver Creek Maple Equipment. But you could certainly use this file cabinet with steam table trays, similar to our GF version 1.0 file cabinet evaporator.

Super smart way to build your homemade maple syrup evaporator.

My friend sent me this photo of his version of the homemade maple syrup evaporator and my jaw dropped. I had been trying to find a solution to how to slow down the heat escaping from the fire box, and here is the answer. A smaller firebox and a sloped channel to the chimney. There will be a baffle or bricks at the sharp bend in the floor of the cabinet. This closely mimics the arch of many evaporators I have seen.

The back of the cabinet is cut along the sides to preserve the right angle corner, and this slips over the cut sidewall of the cabinet. Self tapping screws hold it all together. You could also weld this seam with a flux core or mig welder.

The firebox is about 24″ deep, the fire grate was bought at Tractor Supply. You could do the same, or go to your local welding shop and pick up some scrap extended steel grate.

To create some turbulence and keep the heat swirling under the pan, a firebrick, or sand or some steel will go right at the sharp bend in the bottom of the box here.

Big thank you to my friend for sharing the photos and his crafty knowledge here. Read and see more about how to make maple syrup here.

Steam Table Pan Maple Syrup Evaporator Improvements – GF Video

December 27, 2017
I Over Did It On Making Maple Syrup This Year

I realized I bit off more than I could chew about one week into this year’s maple syrup season. Ever think about a project for months, only after you start you realize, OK what did I get myself into? That’s me this year making maple syrup.

Have to clean up the rig soon.

First I built a new homemade maple syrup evaporator, I had been building it my head since last season. I found a legal size file cabinet in Brooklyn for $50, hauled it up to the house, and started building the firebox. I bought a Harbor Freight Flux Core Welder to help with the build.

For a while now I have been wanting a MIG welder, but after learning about the flux core, it was the obvious choice, and I now had a project where it would be useful. So a deep dive on YouTube on how to weld led to our first basic flux core welding video.

I had also been thinking about getting a evaporator pan made to fit right on top of the cabinet. For the previous homemade evaporator, we used steam table trays, and that’s ok, but I wanted to boil more sap in less time.

I found a guy named Zach who was selling sap evaporator pans on Ebay, and contacted him about a custom pan. A week later a cheap maple syrup evaporator pan shows up on my doorstep. Cheap isn’t the right word, but mbe that phrase will help Zach get more biz for his site through search. Really well made is a better term to describe it.

Last fall I started collecting way too many pallets to supply the firewood to boil down all the sap I was going to collect.

Way Too Many Pallets!

All during last winter I’m eyeballing more sugar maples I can tap around me. How would I run the lines, how close can I get them to the road – too much thinking. I order more tree taps and sap lines. Sap line and taps are surprisingly cheap, BTW.

And I bought a food grade pallet tote on craigslist, which holds 275 gallons of liquid.

So I fire up the new evaporator and realize quickly I’m burning wood real fast, and not getting a lot of heat in the tray. The sap is boiling OK, but it should be really boiling or I should be throwing less wood into the firebox. The fire is racing through the cabinet and going right up the stack.

Firebox Raceway

Always fun to see flames coming out of the top of a 8′ chimney. No pictures, sorry.

So while I’m slowly boiling sap, I’m collecting A LOT of sap. I had been thinking about extending some of the sap lines I do along the road up into the woods, but I’m glad I didn’t.

The big problem with collecting lots of sap is storage. I then discover the neat pallet tank freezes. And you can’t just break through the ice in the tank like you can with an open barrel. So I had 150 gallons of sap in a pallet tote that I couldn’t get out of it. The valve on the bottom, and the water in the sap, was frozen. The tank is plastic, so you can’t heat it, or it melts. The beauty of the blue plastic barrels I use is that you can break through the ice and haul out the concentrated sap in the center, then turn it on its side to dump out the ice. Not so with an enclosed tank.

A related issue was when I wanted to run a gravity fed line from the storage area up by the garage down to the evaporator, I used the 5/8″ sap line. If it was 32F or lower outside, the sap would freeze in the feed line. I gave up and hauled it with buckets.

My two big problems were the heat racing through the firebox and sap freezing in storage.

The sap freezing was easy, sell the pallet tank buy some more blue barrels for storage.

The firebox inefficiency was not as easy. Reading on the Maple Trader maple syrup forum, many sap makers build a baffle or obstruction in the firebox to get the heat to stick around longer. My friend Bill, who I learned how to make sap from, has two bricks halfway down the firebox, covered with sand. This causes the air – heat to become turbulent (we think) and stick around longer. I read about others who put a metal baffle in the box to slow the burn. One could also put a damper in the chimney.

My experiment with pre-heating the sap by running a copper tubing around the chimney stack didn’t work. The sap just didn’t warm up very much. Copper tubing is expensive! Maybe running the tubing inside the chimney may work better.

And of course, we had the epic FAIL on a glorious winter day:

Not fun…

After this I went out and bought a food grade tank that sits nicely in my trailer. BUT, like the pallet tank, you can’t let sap sit in it, you have to get it into barrels or it will freeze. The fact that the tank sits low in the trailer (good for avoiding more spill fiascos) means I have to bucket it or pump it into the taller blue barrels. I see a pump purchase in my future…

Storage: I’ve been a big proponent of doing with less, minimalism, downsizing your junk. But making maple syrup causes you to need to store quite a bit of stuff. Kinda like beekeeping. The barrels go up in the garage, but I have to find a place for the tank.

More stuff to store

What did work quite well was lining the side of the firebox with firebrick. I found the firebrick at Lowes. It was pretty cheap – previous I always thought firebrick was expensive. This type was sold as bricks to replace cracked ones in a home wood stove. I basically leaned them up against the sides of the file cabinet. This directed heat up to the evaporator pan, and kept the sides of the cabinet cooler. With the previous file cabinet evaporator, you couldn’t stand next to the rig for too long without burning your pants.

The last thing that hampered the sap season was me. I did this all by myself. Friends would be interested, but wouldn’t show up. So if you are thinking about making maple syrup, get your friends involved early.

But I am already thinking about next year!

I will post some photos of my firebox on Maple Trader and ask the experts for suggestions. My friend Bill suggested the bricks and sand method, that is the first one I will test out. Improve the sap pre-heater. And yes, test the firebox before the start of the season. Did not think to build the evaporator in the fall and boil some water to see how it all worked.

It will be easy to sell the pallet tote to a neighbor, and blue barrels are easy enough to get.

So if you are thinking of making maple syrup, start small and involve your friends. Your eyes will be bigger than what you can get done in the 3 weeks of sap season. Learn from me!

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May 12, 2017
When Your Maple Sap Freezes Too Much

This last weekend the temperature was around 5-10 degrees F all night and day. So this played havoc with our maple syrup evaporator operation. The line that feeds raw sap to the evaporator froze as soon as I would defrost it, so I was ladling sap in to the pan by hand.

Bigger problems were elsewhere in the yard. My main sap storage tank was frozen to the point that the drain valve froze shut. Its kinda a bulky object to work with, so it just had to sit until it warms up later this week.

But one thing I had never seen is just how frozen one of my barrels out in the wood was. These barrels sit at the end of a line of maples we have tapped. This one had so much ice in it, the lid had been popped off.

I hacked through the top layer of ice knowing there would be slushy sugary sap inside. I scooped out the sap and carried it in buckets over to the evaporator.

Usually, if I have overnight ice in a bucket, its maybe an inch thick. I remove this ice and toss it. My thinking is the first ice that freezes on cool nights has a low sugar content.

But this barrel was different. It had gotten very cold, and this was a lot of ice. So I dragged a spare barrel over and connected it to the sap line, and let this one just sit. The temperature will go up later this week and I hope most of the ice will melt. Then I can haul it to the evaporator.

Tossing ice from sap buckets is one of those contentious topics in the maple syrup world. I want to borrow my friends brix refractometer and measure the ice in the buckets and the remaining liquid to see the actual sugar percentages.

March 7, 2017
Steam Table Pan Maple Syrup Evaporator Improvements – GF Video

After making boiling sap with out steam table pan maple syrup evaporator for 2 seasons now, I have a few thoughts on improvements. The build videos for our homemade maple syrup evaporator are here. Watch the update video below:

How To Improve the Steam Table Pan Maple Syrup Evaporator

I’m not sure why I connected the chimney stack about 6″ below the top of the cabinet. But I think the air flow might improve if the smoke exited higher up, in addition, the hot air would wrap around the back pan more. Also, consider a higher chimney pipe, it will cut down on the smoke the downdrafts on top of you.

For the turbo fan, which really womps up the fire, consider connecting it just below the fire door. I plan on adding a dimmer switch in the power cord, since controlling the fan speed is important. You can find bathroom fans at tag sales or in your neighbor’s garage.

For most 4 drawer letter sized file cabinet, two regular sized trays fit, but there will be space. As a result, that gap needs to be filled in with a scrap piece of metal or a small food tray. Put this small space above the fire door, and move the pans closer to the chimney. Because your fire is moving toward the chimney, the hottest part of the fire is on that end.

I found that putting the fire grate about 10-12″ below the steam table pans worked for me. It depends on the kind of fuel you are burning, consequently, adjust yours to the size of the wood. We burn pallets, which slide uncut into this evaporator.

This homemade maple syrup evaporator gets really hot, so be careful when standing near it. For our next evaporator build, I may line the sides with firebrick.

If you are thinking about buying a real evaporator pan, read our post here.

January 30, 2017
Homemade Maple Syrup Evaporator Plans

This is a homemade maple syrup evaporator made out of a metal filing cabinet. It is brilliant and works really well for how simple it is. Using free or almost free stuff, you can make a DIY evaporator. Most of the items I had around the garage or shop.

Couple of things first:
• Use this information at your own risk.
• Wear the proper eye, hand, mouth, ear protection when using power tools and assembling any DIY project.

If you haven’t already, watch the two videos we made about the file cabinet evaporator. One is a time lapse of the evaporator build, the other is a walk through of how to use the DIy evaporator to make maple syrup. Then go through the photos and info below.

Tools you will need:

Cordless drill, having a flip bit is real handy.

Right angle grinder with a metal cutting blade. Have several spares on hand.

New metal cutting drill bits slightly smaller than the screws you are using.

Self tapping screws #8 x 3/4

Angle Iron or a metal bed frame you can cut up.

2 hinges – almost anything will work, I recycled some I had laying around.

Metal hasp for fire door

4″ vent pipe 4′ – 6′ long

4″ to heat vent metal duct to connect chimney to cabinet

4″ metal vent elbow

Full size steam table trays

Zip screws for sheet metal

Terra Cotta garden pots or firebrick or some other heat resistant objects

Steel grate the width and length of the cabinet. This one is 12″ x 48″

After you build this, fill the pans with water and fire it up. Let it burn for an hour or however long it takes for the paint to blister. I scraped the blistered paint off and put it in the trash.

Some paint will remain, as you can see in the photos.

I tried different lengths of pipe for the chimney. It helps if the chimney is higher than your head, so you get less smoke in your eyes.

The steam table trays need the angle iron to suspend them over the fire. Do a dry fit with all the angle iron and pans in place before screwing them in.

In the video, I attached a bathroom fan to the evaporator. I discovered I did not need to use the fan, as I was burning scrap lumber, which burns hot and fast. If you are burning firewood, you may want to attach one. Its better if you attach the fan to the front of the evaporator rather than the side like I did.

I did not have an adjustable air intake, I found if I kept the door slightly open, that worked very well.

I used terra cotta pots and steel grating to raise the fire up closer to the pans. I found this worked well for me. I did not line the evaporator with firebrick. Though I could see lining it would make it easier to stand next to the rig and carry the heat better. If the fire died down, the boil did too. Firebrick may have helped that.

For Version 2.0 of this homemade maple syrup evaporator, I will move the pans closer to the chimney, and have that extra space that I filled in with a piece of drawer right above the firebox door. The area right near the front door was not nearly as hot as the rear of the box.

This design is based on one by Mike Bell of the Hinkel Garton Farmstead, I learned of it by listening to Annie Corrigan on Earth Eats, a WFIU radio show and podcast. Here is a set of photos on their Flickr page

Check out how I improved the original design in this video:

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Watch all our Maple Syrup How To Videos here.

April 10, 2015
Tap Maple Trees Update Video

A new how to tap maple trees video for you. We just tapped our sugar maples, getting ready for maple syrup season, and we made another video about how to tap your sugar maple trees. We have more great how to make maple syrup videos below this video.

We use tubing and tree saver taps to tap our sugar maples. You can buy tree saver taps here. The tubing leads to a barrel made of food grade plastic. You can also line a 30 gallon trash can with a food grade plastic bag.

You can also have 5 or 6 gallon buckets at the base of each tree and run your tubes into them. But its easier to empty one big barrel instead of a bunch of small buckets in deep snow.

This year the maple syrup season started late and we have so far only had a few days of sap running. We need warm days and cold nights for the sap to run, and we have had way too many cold days.

I am tapping trees on my neighbor’s land this year as well. They have some nice sugar maples right on the road, which makes hauling sap much easier. Imagine walking through the woods carrying buckets of water through deep snow. Now you know why I use lines and tap trees near the road!

We have a bunch of how to make maple syrup videos here on GardenFork. It is super fun to tap your own trees and boil down sap into syrup. Watch our videos to learn how.

Watch our How To Make Maple Syrup Videos here

March 23, 2015
Using Tubing for Tapping Sugar Maples, Some Thoughts

I am using plastic tubing for tapping sugar maples, and learned a hard lesson this weekend. When you only tap maple trees once a year, you forget stuff. And when you’re working in 2′ of snow and the wind is howling, your brain takes a hit.

I tapped our sugar maples a week ago using tubing, I find it works better for me than sap buckets, which you have to empty every day the sap runs. I’m only able to work on this on the weekends, so I run tubing to a large collection barrel that can collect several days of sap. You can buy maple tapping supplies here.

So last weekend I tapped the sugar maples, and ran the lateral lines to the barrels. But I made a mistake. The lateral lines where close to level with the tapping spouts, so the tubing connecting the spout to the lateral line looped down below the lateral. I didn’t think this was a big deal until the temperature dropped, and the sap in the loop of tubing below the lateral line froze.

The wrong way to tap sugar maple trees

The problem here is that sugar maple sap will run even when its near freezing, but if the tubing has frozen sap in it, the sap stays in the tree.

So as a reminder to myself and a lesson for you all, you want your taps and the tubing to be above the lateral line. So the sap drains to the barrel, not collect in the tube and freeze.

Tap spouts above the lateral line, the right way to tap maple trees.

Watch our How To Make Maple Syrup Videos here

March 23, 2015
Barrel Style DIY Maple Syrup Evaporator

Here’s a DIY maple syrup evaporator made out of an old metal barrel with a few enhancement you can easily put together from spare parts or a scrap yard. I ran across the homemade evaporator at my friend Priscilla’s house. She has upgraded to a stainless steel commercial evaporator, but this was sitting next to the barn, so I had to check it out.

The evaporator tray on this DIY maple syrup evaporator is an old turkey roasting pan, perfect for the wide surface area you need when boiling down sugar maple sap. The wider and larger your tray is the better. The whole idea is to boil off the water to make maple syrup.

I’m not sure where the firedoor came from, you might find one at a welding shop, or you can buy a kit online that will turn a barrel into a wood stove here. After you attach the fire door and the stovepipe, you cut out an opening for the evaporator tray, and you are good to go.

Couple things to remember using a DIY Maple Syrup Evaporator:

Maple sap becomes maple syrup when it reaches 7.5 F degrees above the local water boiling point. Water boils at 212F at sea level, so boil some water on your stove and use your digital thermometer to see what temperature it is boiling at. The temp will probably be lower than 212. Our water boils at 210F, as we are at about 1700′ in elevation.

Don’t let the syrup get overheated. I do the final boil in the stovetop in my kitchen in a big pasta pot. Its hard to control the temp on a wood fired barrel stove.

You don’t have to boil all the sap down at once. You can let the fire die down with sap in the tray, and just start up again the next day.

Store your sap in the cold. I keep it in clean plastic trash can buried in snow.

You can buy maple tapping supplies here.

Check out our other how to make maple syrup videos here:

March 2, 2015
Baking Bread and Landing Rockets – GF Radio 366

Batter Bread is Eric’s new project, and we talk about baking this bread into a good partial whole wheat sandwich loaf. Rick is skeptical and yes, a lot of whole wheat bread bakes up into a brick. But, we learned about a new small batch flour miller in L.A., Nan Kohler and her urban flour mill, Grist and Toll from a Root Simple interview. In that interview we discover there are whole grain flours that are more complex than your grocery store whole wheat flour.

Eric takes from the interview that it might be possible that some people with gluten intolerance may be able to use these flours and long fermentation times to create breads they can eat. No concrete evidence, but food for thought on how highly processed our baking flours are now.

Bill Gates funds a machine that extracts drinkable water from solid human waste that can be sent to developing countries. Wastewater treatment plants have been doing this for years, but to come up with a machine the size of a large refrigerator is pretty cool, we think.

Space X almost lands the primary stage of a cargo rocket on a barge in the Atlantic, and earns our high praise. “Close but no cigar” is still an amazing feat. The promise of recycling rockets would greatly reduce the cost of space flight.

Preparation for the Maple syrup season and tapping maple trees is underway at Eric’s house. a new DIY maple syrup evaporator made out of a file cabinet, inspired by this Earth Eats story, will debut in late February.

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but I earn a commission from. Thx! https://gardenfork.tv/amazon

Our Home Depot link: https://gardenfork.tv/home-depot-1

January 11, 2015
Cast Iron, Maple Syrup, & Cake! Viewer Mail Video #4

Here’s Viewer Mail Video #4, where we answer questions about Cast Iron, Maple Syrup, and Chocolate Cake.

March 16, 2014
Tap Sugar Maples for Maple Syrup with Buckets – GF Video

Its time to tap sugar maples to make maple syrup in our area, and I went out with my neighbors to help them tap with buckets and spouts. This is the traditional method of tapping trees, many people now use plastic taps and tubing. See the links below for our videos on tapping using tubing. My neighbor Bill puts out about 150 buckets, mainly along the roadsides in our town.

If you are thinking of what method you’d like to use to tap sugar maples, I have no strong opinion between buckets and tubing. The buckets are better for smaller operations, and for tapping on other people’s property. Most tubing stays up year round, and not everyone likes how it looks in summer.

I use tubing and plastic taps, and I take down the tubing every spring. I tap the same trees each year, and I can put back up the tubing. Its work, but so is hauling sap buckets.

This is a hard to find attachment for your chain saw

I’ve also seen people use plastic bags and milk jugs to tap trees. I have no experience with these, but at least with the milk jugs, i can see how they would overflow easily when the sap is running. That wastes a lot of sap.

Ask around your town or check on craigslist for buckets to tap sugar maples, I’m sure there are some in a garage. You can also buy them new, though I believe the new buckets are made of aluminum.

We have a bunch of how to make maple syrup videos, check them out below:

Click Here To Watch All Our Maple Syrup Videos

March 7, 2014
Your Feet Touch The Ground – GFR 334

Eric tells of his toe surgery, and rick talks about his hammertoe, great stuff to start out a radio show. we then talk about being careful with painkillers, and how its easy to overdose on acetaminophen ( aka Tylenol ) , one has to be careful if you’ve already taken acetaminophen and then take a more powerful painkiller, as many of these stronger painkillers also contain acetaminophen.

Eric sings the praises of nurses, who make the world go around. “A doctor will save your life, nurses will keep you alive” says Rick.

The computer upgrade fundraiser is going very well. Eric and Rick both like the refurbished Mac computers direct from the Apple store. These almost new computers come with a full year Apple warranty.

Why use Apple Macintosh computers? Rick and Eric are self described fanboys of Apple products because they just work out of the box.

Viewer mail shoutout to KC, who gave us a suggestion on using a SSD solid state hard drive install for Rick. Kevin suggested a hybrid drive, which has a solid state memory chip plus a regular hard drive.

The maple syrup season is not happening for eric this year, with the foot surgery, its just not possible, but we did just post a how to tap maple trees with buckets video, as Eric went with his friend Bill to tap trees last week.

Eric asks if people could suggest stuff for Eric could watch and read on the internet.

we then segue into building a house out of containers, and 2 have been built in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Here is the link to a NY Times article on those houses.

March 3, 2014
Getting To Ready Tap Sugar Maples

Its 7 degrees F in the yard. 1 1/2 feet of snow. I strapped on my snowshoes and took the Labradors out back on the woods trail. Charlie Pup grabs a large stick, Henry loses her ball in the snow almost immediately. She digs around to find it.

I’m also thinking about the maple syrup season. Around here, trees are usually tapped around Daytona weekend, aka, Valentines Day, February 14th. But its been quite cold this year, temperatures have been below average this winter.

The ideal for tapping sugar maples is cold nights and warm days above freezing (32F). This hasn’t happened yet. Have to see what happens in the next few weeks. I ordered some additional tubing and taps, hoping to tap more trees this year.

This post started when I grabbed the last jar of last year’s maple syrup out of the fridge. I let the first batch of syrup off the burner get too hot, and some of it turned to maple candy, which clings to the sides of the jar. Knock off junk of it with a knife and its hard candy. Don’t try to crunch it with your teeth, btw.

I think the sap season will be late this year. I haven’t seen any of my neighbors starting to ready their sap houses or buckets or lines, and they are usually right. I’ll have to make a few phone calls to see what they think today.

The maple candy has a subtle taste, kinda like a low key breath mint, I thought it would have a more pronounced taste, seeing that the syrup it was made from has a strong flavor. But sugar goes through all sorts of changes when its heated to different temperatures, and a few degrees makes all the difference.

We have a bunch of how to make maple syrup videos here on the site if you’d like to check them out. And let us know your thoughts below:

February 8, 2014
Maple Sap Collection Tips, Backyard Maple Syrup Project GF Video

Halfway through collecting maple sap to make maple syrup, I made this video on tips on tapping maple trees and how to collect sap to make maple syrup. Shot on the iPhone, it looks pretty good.

I use tree saver plastic taps and plastic lines to collect sap, i’m finding that buckets at each tree work pretty well. I have one large barrel that collects from two trees, and its kind of a pain to get the sap out. The benefit is if the sugar maple sap runs really well, the bucket can handle the sap. One time my smaller 5 gal buckets overflowed.

There has been some discussion on how much sugar gets trapped in the ice that we remove from the sap buckets. My neighbors, old time maple syrup experts, remove the ice from their maple sap buckets. But then I was asked how much sugar is lost with the ice, and I don’t know. The questioner brought up Popsicles, and the fact that they are made with sugar that seems to freeze with the ice.

It helps when hauling buckets of sap to have them only half full, its easier on your back and you splash a lot less. I store our sap in a big new trash can on the shady side of the house that has been surrounded with snow to keep the sap cool.

Check out all of our how to make maple syrup videos here

Here is a great PDF from the Univ of Maine on how to tap trees and boil sap

Let us know your questions or comments below:

March 22, 2013
DIY tapping maple trees for maple syrup – GF Video

Tapping sugar maple trees to make maple syrup is a big tradition in my part of Connecticut, so I wanted to show you how to tap maple trees to get maple sap to make maple syrup. We use plastic taps and tubing that are connected to buckets at the base of each tree. The advantage of using individual buckets is that some of the water in the sap will freeze in the collection bucket. The whole goal of boiling sap in an evaporator is to remove the water from the maple sap, so removing some of the water as ice is a super simple way to reduce your boiling time.

Tubing Connector for tapping sugar maples

We buy our taps and tubing from Leader Evaporator. The smallest length the tubing comes in is 500′, but don’t fret, its quite inexpensive, about $60 for that much tubing. To buy a lesser amount of tubing locally would cost just as much. We use Tree Saver taps. Buy a bunch of their tubing connectors too, you will need them to tie several taps into one bucket.

In a future sugar maple tree tap video, we’ll connect several trees into one large collection barrel.

Check your buckets every morning, scoop out the ice with a sieve, and then store the sap in a large barrel that is in a cold place packed with snow. The sap has to stay cold or it will spoil. You can tell if you sap has gone bad if it has a milky color to it.

We have a bunch of maple syrup making videos, including how to boil down your sap into maple syrup, click here to watch our maple syrup videos

Here is a great PDF from the Univ of Maine on how to tap trees and boil sap

Have any questions or comments? Please post them below:

March 12, 2013
Tap Maple Trees to Make Maple Syrup How To – GF Video

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
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April 16, 2012
Maple Syrup Season Update GF Radio

Eric talks with Bill of Maple Knoll Farm about tapping Maple Trees for sap, making maple syrup, and how this warm winter is affecting the maple syrup season. Bill can be seen in our GF Video Make Maple Syrup here. Bill has about 150 trees tapped, using metal buckets. He and his family collect the maple sap, and boil it down in the evaporator in the family sugar shack. This warm winter weather has thrown a wrench in the usual maple syrup making process. Sap runs in sugar maple trees when the nights are cold and the days are warm. This year we’ve had just warm weather for the most part.

In the sugar shack, Bill and his family fire up the evaporator and boil down the sugar maple sap to syrup. Its very cool process to watch. There are several maple syrup operations in our town, and we visited another one recently and made this how to make maple syrup video there. Each sugar shack is different, reflecting the interior design sense of each sap house owner.

Some additional maple syrup posts on Gardenfork:

How to make Maple Syrup at Bill’s Sugar Shack

How to tap sugar maple trees

How to make maple syrup at the Norfolk sugar shack

Summer Salad with Maple Blue Cheese

photo by earl53

February 27, 2012