4/6/11 Off to Sap Camp Chat

[Go Go Diablo]

Hi all,

My second favorite time of year up at the cabin comes this weekend. Other than Deer Camp, there is not a much more enjoyable weekend up at camp than Maple Syrup Camp.

We are not seasoned sap suckers by no means. We have had this cabin and property in my family for 5 generations and about 4 years ago over a case of beer and a game of sheapshead at the cabin, my buddy Tom says to me "hey man, we should make maple syrup next spring'". I laugh and say "where?". He says "Right here you dumb ass. We have Sugar Maple Trees all around the cabin".

4 years later we are tapping 3 dozen trees and boiling down about 300 gallons of sap. Every year, we have made a few changes to increase our output and improve the efficiency of the boil-down and end product. It's been a lot of fun.

Any body else sapping around North America? Get on the forum and show us your stuff. I'd like to see how others are collecting sap and boiling. I'll check in next week and share some pictures of our process.

Talk to you all next week,

Bruce

[Go Go Diablo]

It was a good year at Sap Camp. We came home with 5 1/2 Gallons of Maple Syrup which took 48 hours to boil down in what we call our SapMaster 4100 .

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To add to the busyness of the weekend, we also stuff Venison Sausage, Venison Italian Sausage and Venison Kielbasa.

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This year, we had so much snow still in the woods, we had to use the trusty Yamaha to drive in and bring along all our supplies.

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It was a good year!

How about you other Sap Boilers out there? How was your year?

Bruce

[devil dog]

Hi Bruce, We had an AWESOME year for sugaring ! Temperatures were perfect and had some great runs, I could barely keep up,LOL (crazy). I almost ran out of wood. Made just over 10 gallons on a Leader Half Pint evaporator similar to yours, will steam off 4 gallons of water an hour. I do not have a huge storage tank,so I was boiling off small batches every 2-4 days.One day I collected 40 gallons of sap from 50 buckets. We have all Red Maples and doing the math was about 38:1 suger content. I only made one gallon last year, what a difference! If you go to mapletrader.com, you will see other nutjobs that got the sugaring addiction worse than we do!

[Go Go Diablo]

It's been a funny year. Tonight, we are getting another 8" of snow which is really late for us. The trees are still giving up sap and it's like the end of March. Thanks for sharing Mike. It seems like only you and I are sap collectors.

Ok - that was a bit of a jab to the rest of you guys out there. I know there are others that collect sap. I'm still waiting to hear from the rest of you.

Bruce

[devil dog]

Hi Bruce, Wow,more snow for you guys? Unreal ! I pulled all my taps a couple weeks ago. The buds popped open and that was it,no more sap. What a great season though. There is a beautiful Piliated Woodpecker out in the bush and he is making HUGE holes in some of the trees (not Maples). I watched him for a while putting half his amazingly bright red head in a hole he made and was eating like a whole colony of ants. The stuff you see while collecting sap. I love it! One of the 444 Hus-Skis I have was bought and used by the original owner for his sugaring operation. Cool history.

[beefyl]

I dont do sapping any more. but shore was fun . hope all are having a nice easter.i am working on my 444. dont know if i want to paint the blue& white it is now or yellow. any comments welcome . thans Beefy

[Red Devil 500]

It was a great year for friends of our family we added an additional 500 taps to bring the total to 2500 taps we doubled last years production!The temps locally were perfect!We did get started a week late compared to last year due to a cold spell but when it started it was heavy.I help with pipe line and tapping,pumps and when all starts to run i'am the taffy guy! It is the high pressure job!You stand there in front off 3 school buses of kids and tell them you just boiled a pot to hard ball and it now looks like cement but you will have a pot ready in 30 mins! DEAD MAN WALKING!!!

[Go Go Diablo]

WOW! 2500 Taps

That is incredible.