The Maple Sugar Thread

[Sporin]

Hey Gary? how's this weather treating you?

On a serious note, I have a huge old Norway Maple out front that my son wants to tap and see if we can make our own syrup. Possible?

We'd just boil in a big pan on the grill outside, he'd be thrilled if we got even a pint of our own syrup out of it.

 

[Wrench]

Yum!! I'm in for some!

 

[edwjmcgrath]

Sorry, wrong kind of maple. Ornamental maples, such as the Norway maple, have a milky sap and cannot be used for syrup production. Norway maples and Sugar maples are very similar looking but the sugar maple has clear sap. If you're unsure what kind of maple you have, you can tap it and see if it is clear. If it's clear, it's probably a sugar maple and it should work.

 

[Sporin]

I thought that might be the case.

 

[rapovt]

We have been frantically tapping to get ahead of the snow. We have about 3400 of 5400 taps in and collecting from. We have about 5000 gallons of sap that needs to be boiled- but have to plow

 

[rain76king]

rapovt, are you a stop for the vermont overlands "sugar house run" on March 27th? Vermont Ovelrand Guide Services, LLC

 

[antFJ]

man i gotta have you ship me a bottle of your syrup.. i loved that stuff.. milked it for a loooonggg time!

 

[rapovt]

rapovt, are you a stop for the vermont overlands "sugar house run" on March 27th? Vermont Ovelrand Guide Services, LLC

no they are a little north of me

 

[rapovt]

We ended up getting about 30" of very heavy wet snow resulting in alot of trees down and busted lines. The snow has no body to it, you sink almost to your knees with snow shoes. I have tracks on my 4wheeler and that gets stuck alot. We are almost done tapping, have boiled twice and made 250 gallons and I lost 15 lbs this week.

 

[green40]

Man if you produce as much syrup as last year you're going to shrivel away to nothing! You should plan a YT
workday in the sugarbush. Get all us bums up there to help you.

 

[rapovt]

It has been too warm at nights for good runs, but the vacuum helps out on the slow days. We are up to 480 gallons and still continueing to setup. You guys are welcome to stop by anytime. We have beer in the snowbank and extra work gloves.

 

[rapovt]

sap ran the hardest that I can remember on saturday. We boiled and got done at about 8 pm and had about 5000 gallons of sap left. We ran the RO and boiled again on sunday and had 3000 gallons left, so we are slowly catching up.

 

[rapovt]

What is up with this weather? Only one hard freeze in the last 3 weeks. We have been running the vacuum pumps for almost three weeks straight. We get about 4000 gallons of sap every day. We are up to 1200 gallons. Slow and steady, but we really need some 25 degree nights

 

[rapovt]

We have boiled every day since February 26th except for 3 days. We are taking today off because it is below freezing. Good freeze tonite, then turning hot next Wednesday. It will be time to pull the taps and get the cruisers out!!!!