Maple Sugar is flowing great here in CT.

[George-CT]

Most are doing now with the hoses going from tree to tree. But a few of the farms still do some with the old spigots, and buckets.
They make it a family learning thing and take folks on in horse drawn gear when they can and tractor pulling a wagon when no snow.
This seems to be a good year for it and I see a lot of tree's tapped right by me... Thought those that have not seen it might like to see what it looks like.......

Myself, the kids and my wife and most of the neighbors like to snap off a small branch. They drip sap at night and freeze. Very tasty ice cycle to slurp on in the morning. Or after its been cooked off, dump it on vanilla ice cream. Takes a lot of cooking off to get it where you want it. Yet, most people here still enjoy doing it. The kids in the North Windham elementary school come up here and tap some of our big sugar maples along the road and collect it almost daily in plastic jugs...

George-CT

 

[Wayne in BC]

your photo's and that Maple syrup the old way! Looks like it takes a huge amount of wood to do the boiling.
They also are collecting sap here on the Island now. When i found out that the weak skinny sap in these coastal Maples takes 150 liters of sap to get a liter of syrup i gave up on the thought of tapping my Maples

 

[Kelley (Texas)]

Thanks for posting the pictures, I have never seen this done. Kelley (Texas)

 

[Rob/Windsor Ont.]

n/t

 

[Micheal_R]

The problem was,... those were not sugar maples. They were, I don't know, .... just some other kind of Maple, I guess. Anyway, we did not get very much 'syrup'. Still, I have fond memories of trying

Up here, people are just starting to discover Birch Syrup. There is only about 1/4 to 1/6 of syrup per volume compared to the maples... and hence it is correspondingly more expensive. But it has its' own unique flavour, and we get it ourselves. With the number of birch trees on the property, we could supply a large population if we so chose. :

fair winds

Micheal

 

[Micheal_R]

n/t

 

[Royal]

I would dump some in the snow and then eat it when it froze. Some of those trees would just run sap. Sure takes a lot for a little syrup for sure

 

[Royal]

when Edith tried to get him to eat Tongue, "I ain't eating nothing that comes out of an animals mouth!" When Edith then asked him what he wanted instead he replied, "How about some eggs?"

 

[George-CT]

larger operations here around me that use the plastic feed lines from tree to tree and on down hill to a big stainless holding tank. I will get out and get some pictures of that tomorrow once the rain lets up and post them. Much more efficacy way to do it for sure but takes more of and investment and a heck of a lot of work to boil down that much sap. Most here only tap the Sugar Maples. The swamp maples are bitter. The gusy who run the tap lines of plastic will tap pretty much any tree 10 inches or larger. Our sugar maples here are old along the road and are 4 foot or better around at the base. Some them are starting to die off now. Plenty of smaller ones to take their place also. Pretty common tree in these parts.

Here is and interesting link on how to do it small scale at your home or larger scale and what it takes to do it. They use rule of thumb, 10 gallons of collected sap, will get you 1 quart of quality maple syrup.

Maple syrup collecting

I'll get more actual pictures up this weekend. Long day today. Had to do and MRI with and Isotope injection for the ticker. They mapped it and we will see what shows up. Had a few pings and pangs, so better safe than sorry.

Just fired up the wood here. Chilly today here with rain coming in for the next 3 days so settled in for goofing off weekend. Will spend a lot of it on the reloading bench. Loading for a .222, 22-250 and 220 Swift. .22 cal is a lot cheaper to shoot than some or the larger bore stuff I have and less abusive on the body. For the most part just target practice and snipping a few coyotes if they happen to show up.

Later George-CT

 

[George-CT]

I've tapped the other maples, even swamp maples, but it taste different.

check this link out, very informative....

Sugar Maple trees

 

[Buck]

Mike Rowe was at a Maple Syrup place on the show I was watching. Lots of boiling for sure to get the final product!!!

 

[Kelley (Texas)]

We don't have Maple Trees down here other that there is a park that has some, the park is named after them too. I have been told that our soil will not support them, not enough acid or something in the soil. I have seen some beautiful rifle stocks that were made from the Maple Tree, sorta had some stripes in the wood. Kelley (Texas)