The sap must flow! 2024

Cafe Society
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The tree is the sap. The sap is the tree. The sap enhances oatmeal and brussel sprouts. The sap expands waistlines. The sap maple, of course.

After a sketchy two weeks here where the temperatures never went below freezing, I took hope in the forecast of a good solid 12-14 days of below freezing nights with above freezing days predicted, and set my taps on Feb 9th. I’m a little spooked that the warm days and nights might have prepped the trees to bud soon, which really does ruin the sap for making syrup. But what the heck . . .

This year I added two huge old silver maples in a neighbor’s yard into my tap regimen. My other two silvers gave enough last year to make about 3 gallons of syrup, while my sugar maple and red maple made another 1.5 gallons together. So if I’m lucky, maybe I’ll hit 5 or even 6 gallons this year. BIG if.

But the real big difference this year is that I got myself a reverse osmosis set-up. It can concentrate my sap by about 50% without all that tedious boiling, and it can handle up to 8 gallons of sap an hour, turning that into 4 gallons of concentrate.

I collected my first sap today, with the eager participation of the neighbor who’s volunteered two of his trees for tapping. He’ll get a third of the syrup I get from his silver maples. He was also thrilled to help me put in the taps, listen to me drone on about the ‘art of the sap’, and he happily hauled the sap pail for me! I love it. We collected about 2.5 gallons of sap from all my taps, with his trees providing maybe about a tenth of that.

The reverse osmosis device worked pretty smartly, filtering the sap and concentrating it at an amazing rate, especially when compared with boiling. I’ve now got about 1.25 gallons of very sweet sap concentrate, which I’ll store outdoors since our temps are nice and low. Once I get about 10 gallons of concentrate, then I’ll do my first boil and make syrup.

I don’t think I’ll make walnut syrup this year, it’s just too much of a PITA as my sole walnut tree produces small amounts of sap, it takes adding enzymes to turn the sap into syrup instead of jelly, and no one really gets excited about walnut syrup. They try it, say “yeah that’s nice and delicate and different than I imagined; now pass the maple syrup”. And frankly I agree with them.

Anyone else tapping this year? In past years? Interested in trying it in future years?

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Our local maple farm had their first boil today. There are many sugar houses nearby (central New Hampshire near the Vermont border). Almost all of them have foregone buckets in favor of polyethylene tubing to a central vacuum pump and tank. We’re looking forward to a sugar house visit this week or next.

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Is this 5 or 6 gallons of finished maple syrup? As in, 5-6 gallons of syrup ready for oatmeal and french toast and pancakes and other goodiesm

If so, do you go through 5-6 gallons of syrup in a year?

Edit: I’m in western Oregon and (clearly) know nothing about maple syrup production. We produce wine and cranberry sauce here.

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Nope, nope, definitely!

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I feel like, somehow, these three could be combined. Maybe into a topping for vanilla ice cream?

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The cranberry sauce on ice cream sounds intriguing. I may have to try it one of these days.

We also grow outstanding peaches. Fresh sliced peaches on a scoop of french vanilla ice cream is :drooling_face:

We also grow lots of different berry varieties. A small bowl of vanilla yogurt topped with a handful of blueberries or rasberries or strawberries and a small handfull of pistachios, then drizzled with maple syrup (or honey) is also :drooling_face:

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Brussels sprouts? Not sure whether to be incredulous or intrigued :thinking:

Yeah, one of these years!

But…I’ve been saying that since our kids were little and we took them to a nearby park doing a maple tapping and syrup making display.

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Yes, finished maple syrup. And we give a lot away to friends and neighbors. I’ve still got about a pint of last year’s syrup. I had it yesterday on my oat groats.

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Here’s a recipe similar to my own for brussel sprouts with bacon and maple syrup. We use peanut oil generally though.

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Thanks! My usual go-to with Brussel sprouts is shaking them up in a gallon ziplock bag with salt, oil, and lots of garlic; then baking. I should change things up and try this.

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Well if you’re ad successful this year as you predict and are willing to package and send a pint to a Doper in Oregon, I’d be happy to buy one from you. It sounds delicious.

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I appreciate that, but it’s really not for sale, it is just a fun hobby, and fun to give the syrup away locally. I’ve spent more money on this pastime than I could ever recoup by sales, and I could have purchased more than 10 x the maple syrup I’ve made with that money I spent to make it. But it gives me great pleasure and satisfaction to do this, and also to natter on endlessly about it. ;-D

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OK, sap’s been flowing steadily if not super copiously for nearly a week now, and I’ve made over 3/4 of a gallon of some of the darkest, richest tasting syrup ever.

That reverse osmosis device has come in handy, as it can take over 6 gallons of sap and hour and turn it into 3 gallons of concentrated sap tasting of fresh air and snow and lots of sugar! Plus 3 gallons of some of the finest tasting water I’ve ever gotten out of a tree. I feel like I’m back in my organic chemistry lab days, working on yield and purity, and I’m having a ton of fun with it.

Now I’ve about 4.5 gallons of concentrate yet to boil down to syrup and we’re entering about 48 hours where I won’t see much sap flow due to temps staying mostly, if not entirely below freezing. But by Sunday we’ll return to nights below freezing and days nicely above. And honestly I won’t mind a bit of a break.

Maybe this year? Got any nearby trees? I started by tapping just one tree!

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Maybe…I do have a couple good-sized sugar maples and a magnificent big silver maple on our property.

To adapt the saying about planting a tree, the best time to have harvested sap and making syrup would have been 10 or more years ago, when the kids were younger and would have found it fun. But I guess the second best time is now. I still have that maple syrup brussel sprout recipe to try that you shared, and how else am I going to get ahold of some maple syrup-- buy it at the store? That’s no challenge :smile:

In any case, I do enjoy reading your posts about it!

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For sure. I missed that window of opportunity also, as I didn’t start tapping until after the kids were grown and flown. But I am having fun in my dotage.

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You’re sounding like the Walter White of maple syrup.

“Let’s cook!”

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I am the one who taps!

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Well, it’s been an odd season so far. Since the taps went in on Feb 10th, temperatures have ranged from 8 degrees to 53 degrees and back down to 10 then up to 55. NOT ideal weather for collecting sap.

Now we’re diving down to the teens again by tomorrow morning, then above freezing again on Thursday. I’ve collected enough sap to make about 1.5 gallons so far but the trees are threatening to bud out due to the warm weather, so I may have to halt at any time.

The resultant syrup is the darkest I’ve ever made though, with the most intense maple flavor I’ve achieved yet. It’s been quite popular with the neighbors too, so that’s nice.

I hope I can make at least two gallons. It won’t carry me through the whole year (I actually finished up 2023’s harvest of 4.5 gallons on some oat groats 3 days ago) but so it goes.