Making pancakes is easy, but how do I make the syrup?
March 4, 2008 4:58 PM Subscribe
Does anyone have personal tips and advice on backyard sugaring. I'm looking to tap 5 large trees this spring for personal use. We don't have a woodlot, so I think the boiling would have to be done on the outdoor gas grill. I think I know what I'm getting myself into, but I'd love to hear tips for modern, low-scale sugaring.
My only advise is make sure it is a sugar maple!
When I was a kid I tapped what I thought was a sugar maple. Boiked down the sap and it wasnt too good.
It was a Norway Maple I found out years later.
posted by beccaj at 7:07 PM on March 4, 2008
When I was a kid I tapped what I thought was a sugar maple. Boiked down the sap and it wasnt too good.
It was a Norway Maple I found out years later.
posted by beccaj at 7:07 PM on March 4, 2008
Best answer: I tapped about 6 trees small-scale at a school where I taught a couple of years in a row, and then helped with a smallish-to-medium-size sugaring operation at an environmental center where I worked for another few years. That one had a tubing system and an evaporator, so it was a different experience though principles were the same. I don't think you'd ever need tubing for just 5 trees.
My system: 6 spiles, 6 buckets. I found that there were some days the taps fairly flowed and we really needed to empty buckets twice a day. We poured the sweet water into cleaned white tar/pickle buckets to store. I did this in Pennsylvania, where the weather back-and-forthed a bit - some days the sap slowed to a trickle, some days were really productive. We checked taps in the morning and at night and I only bothered emptying them when they were about half full.
It's a really good idea to cover your buckets (foil, a lid) so junk like twigs, bark, and bird poop doesn't fall into them. The sweet water attracts flies on warm days, which then drown in the sap. Even though you're going to boil it, it's just kind of icky.
We waited until we had enough to boil off. There are a lot of great websites about sugaring - science teachers seem to do it a lot, and some of the sites are wonderfully scientific, getting involved with hygrometers and specific gravity and such. I was more interested in doing it old-school, and went with the sheeting action and a candy thermometer as my boiling guides. Ohio State's was a pretty helpful one; Google for many more.
I boiled on a large, 10-burner industrial stove that we had at the school. I used a 4" deep steel hotel pan set over 4 of the burners. The burners were set to medium and then adjusted to maintain a gentle active boil. I'd pour in enough of the sap to mostly fill the pan, reduce that, then continue to add new dips of sap as room became available, a quart or so at a time. That allowed me to use a smaller pan rather than trying to boil the full amount of sap all at once.
It took about 5-6 hours to reduce 40 gallons of sap to reduce a quart of syrup, IIRC. It was fine doing it indoors, but it was a good idea to have windows and a door open because it produces a loooot of steam. That's not altogether a bad thing -- it smells terrific, and lends a pleasant springlike humidity. But it gets humid in the room.
Every now and then you need to skim off these foamy impurities that start floating on the surface. For that I used bent wire with cheescloth stretched around it, rinsing it after each pass.
You definitely don't want to let it cook too long after it reaches syrup stage, because it starts to progress into more crystallized stuff that is too grainy. For that reason I almost think a stove is superior to a gas grill - once you are at the right stage, you can cut off the gas, but if you have bricks or coals in the stove they will continue to supply heat. On a stove, when you cut the heat off, it dissipates more quickly. But it might be fine if you just remove the brickettes before using the grill.
All in all, it's really fun, and not rocket science. The satisfaction is awesome, as is the way it unites you with the changes spring brings in gradually. Hope it works out well.
posted by Miko at 7:31 PM on March 4, 2008 [4 favorites]
My system: 6 spiles, 6 buckets. I found that there were some days the taps fairly flowed and we really needed to empty buckets twice a day. We poured the sweet water into cleaned white tar/pickle buckets to store. I did this in Pennsylvania, where the weather back-and-forthed a bit - some days the sap slowed to a trickle, some days were really productive. We checked taps in the morning and at night and I only bothered emptying them when they were about half full.
It's a really good idea to cover your buckets (foil, a lid) so junk like twigs, bark, and bird poop doesn't fall into them. The sweet water attracts flies on warm days, which then drown in the sap. Even though you're going to boil it, it's just kind of icky.
We waited until we had enough to boil off. There are a lot of great websites about sugaring - science teachers seem to do it a lot, and some of the sites are wonderfully scientific, getting involved with hygrometers and specific gravity and such. I was more interested in doing it old-school, and went with the sheeting action and a candy thermometer as my boiling guides. Ohio State's was a pretty helpful one; Google for many more.
I boiled on a large, 10-burner industrial stove that we had at the school. I used a 4" deep steel hotel pan set over 4 of the burners. The burners were set to medium and then adjusted to maintain a gentle active boil. I'd pour in enough of the sap to mostly fill the pan, reduce that, then continue to add new dips of sap as room became available, a quart or so at a time. That allowed me to use a smaller pan rather than trying to boil the full amount of sap all at once.
It took about 5-6 hours to reduce 40 gallons of sap to reduce a quart of syrup, IIRC. It was fine doing it indoors, but it was a good idea to have windows and a door open because it produces a loooot of steam. That's not altogether a bad thing -- it smells terrific, and lends a pleasant springlike humidity. But it gets humid in the room.
Every now and then you need to skim off these foamy impurities that start floating on the surface. For that I used bent wire with cheescloth stretched around it, rinsing it after each pass.
You definitely don't want to let it cook too long after it reaches syrup stage, because it starts to progress into more crystallized stuff that is too grainy. For that reason I almost think a stove is superior to a gas grill - once you are at the right stage, you can cut off the gas, but if you have bricks or coals in the stove they will continue to supply heat. On a stove, when you cut the heat off, it dissipates more quickly. But it might be fine if you just remove the brickettes before using the grill.
All in all, it's really fun, and not rocket science. The satisfaction is awesome, as is the way it unites you with the changes spring brings in gradually. Hope it works out well.
posted by Miko at 7:31 PM on March 4, 2008 [4 favorites]
Also if you don't have equpment, check your local freecycle or craigslist if you have one [out here in VT we have the VBMEX] and see if anyone has an evaporator. When I bought my house in Vermont, it came with one that I didn't need. I traded it to someone for a record player and a few pints of syrup. With that they could make syrup more easily [as Miko says] and possibly outdoors over a cut in half steel drum. Even if you don't have a woodlot, you could theoretically get cordwood delivered that you could use for this, but cooking over a stove indoors is perfectly acceptable.
posted by jessamyn at 8:50 PM on March 4, 2008
posted by jessamyn at 8:50 PM on March 4, 2008
My only advise is make sure it is a sugar maple!
If it is a maple tree you only need to pick a leaf and look at the sap at the broken stem. If it is milky, you should not tap that tree. It's not just sugar maples you can/should tap. boxelders and moosewood (maple cousins) as well as mulberrys are good for a sweet syrup. Birches make a wintergreeny syrup (a la birch beer). Walnuts, hicories, pecans and butternuts can be tapped for a nutty flavored syrup.
Don't fret Floridians, you too can get into the game that was once thought to be the monopoly of carpetbagging snowbirds. Palm trees make extremely sweet syrup and sugar!
posted by Pollomacho at 7:21 AM on March 5, 2008
If it is a maple tree you only need to pick a leaf and look at the sap at the broken stem. If it is milky, you should not tap that tree. It's not just sugar maples you can/should tap. boxelders and moosewood (maple cousins) as well as mulberrys are good for a sweet syrup. Birches make a wintergreeny syrup (a la birch beer). Walnuts, hicories, pecans and butternuts can be tapped for a nutty flavored syrup.
Don't fret Floridians, you too can get into the game that was once thought to be the monopoly of carpetbagging snowbirds. Palm trees make extremely sweet syrup and sugar!
posted by Pollomacho at 7:21 AM on March 5, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by foodgeek at 5:14 PM on March 4, 2008