Until recently, we thought you had to live in New England to be able to make maple syrup. Fortunately, that assumption is not true. All you need is a series of days above freezing temperature and nights below freezing temperature. This temperature differential and the change from freezing to not is what makes sap run. What time of year this occurs will differ from region to region, and within a region it differs from year to year.

Here in northeastern Oklahoma, we just had our first successful sap run from January 8-13th. Our 3rd run was the first week in February, and we could have continued, but were traveling.  Here are the highlights from all 3 runs.

• • We tapped a total of 15 trees:  7 Sugar maples, 8 Black walnuts
  • We also tapped a Sycamore and an American Elm, but sap didn’t flow yet
  • Used some store-bought taps and made our own from copper water pipe (cheap!)
  • We obtained 60 gallons of sap
  • Total yield: 1.5 gallons syrup.

Where to tap:

First a word of caution.  Since you will be checking your taps at least daily, be sure the trees you tap are reasonable close to your house.  Consider the walk you will be taking every day before tapping trees.

Be sure to check out our post on identifying trees in winter here:

http://barefootfarmok.com/portfolios/homemade-maple-syrup-part-1-identifying-trees/

You want to tap trees 2-4' off the ground, or roughly waist to chest high.  The number of taps that can be placed without endangering the health of the tree depends on the size of the tree.  Measure the tree's diameter 4' off the ground and follow these guidelines:

• • less than 10", don't tap
  • 10-20" - one tap
  • 20-30" - two taps
  • > 30" - three taps

HOW to place taps:

Use of a cordless drill makes this task easy.  First, practice drilling into scrap wood to ensure you use the correct size drill bit to match your taps.  Drill the hole and try hammering in one of your taps.  You want the tap to be snug so no sap runs out around it and gets missed by you and the tree.  Most taps use either a 7/16 or 5/16.  If you make your own taps (read below), be sure you have a corresponding drill bit to fit.

Drill 1.5-2" deep into the tree.  You are aiming past the bark and into the sap wood, but not so deep as to hit the hardwood.  The larger the tree, the deeper you will need to drill.  Drill your hole at a slight angle so the sap will easily flow downward out of the tree.

Use a hammer to lightly tap your spile/tap into the wood.  If you do this on a day when temperatures are above freezing, you may see sap dripping immediately.  What joy!  Now attach your sap collector.  It's best to have something with a snug lid to keep out rain water.  We re-used old coffee containers, and drilled a hole on the side up top, and secured with rubber bands.  You can use sap bags or even plastic hose attached to sterilized plastic milk jugs placed securely on the ground.

Checking and storing sap:

Check sap at least once daily each day that is above freezing.  On warm days, check multiple times, especially if your collection vessels are small.

Sap contains just enough sugar to spoil, and not enough to work as a preservative.  For this reason, sap needs to be refrigerated until it is cooked down.  If you tap several trees, storage of sap could be an issue.  We collected about 25 gallons of sap one week!  You can freeze sap in sterilized gallon milk jugs, but again space may limit how much you can freeze.  Our pond and our stock tank stayed at refrigerator temperature throughout the sap season.  We collected sap in sterile gallon milk jugs, and then poured the sap into 5 gallon water containers submerged in our stock tank.

Cooking Sap:

Depending upon how you look at it, this is the most "work".  That is, if you consider sitting around all day by a fire to be work.  The first time we cooked sap, both of us had a mild but decent case of Covid.  Never having cooked sap before, we didn't know what to expect and were weary about being up to the task.  The cooking process takes all day, but for us busy-bodies, doing this on a day when we were under the weather was perfect, as the pace was slow and easy.

Since you are evaporating a huge quantity of water, you really need to do this outside - either over a fire (preferred) or an outdoor range (such as a propane turkey frier), but the later will use a lot of electricity or propane.

Again, since you are evaporating, a somewhat shallow but wide-mouthed cooking vessel is ideal.  The larger the surface area, the quicker the evaporation.  That said...

We cooked down sap in a 5-gallon enameled pot:

• • Able to cook down 10-15 gallons in a reasonable day.
  • From 9am-6pm outside, adding more sap as it evaporated (if any sap is frozen, take out at least 24 hours in advance and set indoors to thaw)
  • Used about a wheelbarrow load of hardwood
  • 40:1 sap: syrup ratio for both types of sap
  • After we were down to about a gallon of sap, we brought it in to finish.

Finishing

This is the last hour or so of cooking and can be done indoors.  Despite trying everything we read, there is really no way to tell with any reasonable certainty the final sugar content of the sap without a refractometer.  We tried going by temperature, 7-degrees above boiling, and when we tested it with a refractometer, it only had 30% sugar.  You are aiming for 66-67% sugar.  If properly sealed, this should be shelf-stable until opened.  Our advice: buy a refractometer!  They are only about $20.  You need one that reads high enough - those for wine making are insufficient.  They are very easy to use.

Filtering, or not...

If you are going to sell your syrup, you probably want to filter it.  There is a build up of what looks like gunk, called sugar sand, in the end product.  It turns out this is mineral-rich gunk, and possible good for you.  It is high in calcium and potassium, and we opted not to filter.  The sugar sand doesn't affect the flavor and is not noticeable on pancakes.

And so,

This sounded more labor-intensive than it turned out to be. Unlike cooking sorghum, the syrup required no stirring and very little foam skimming. Sitting around a fire all-day provided needed rest and stillness.

The sap produced per tree was vastly inconsistent between trees, which we read would be the case. We initially collected in 2-quart plastic coffee containers and had to check and empty twice daily. Some trees filled the containers nearly every time, while others consistently made only a few tablespoons.

We encourage more people to try their hand at back-yard sugaring! With the price of real maple syrup, making your own is the only way some people will be able to enjoy this delicious alternative to high-fructose corn-syrup.

There is almost no start-up cost. If you use clean, sterilized coffee containers or milk jugs, and make your own taps/spiles, then your initial investment is only $25 if you need to buy a refractometer.

From start to finish, the whole process of making a gallon and a half of syrup took three weeks and we cooked on weekends three different times. Compared to setting up hives for honey, or growing sorghum, this method of producing sugar at home is a clear winner. It can be used 1:1 for sugar in recipes, adjusting for liquid a little. And it provides a nice flavor, which we’ll appreciate this year when we won’t be using any store-bought ingredients like sugar or vanilla extract.

Try it!

MAKING YOUR OWN TAPS:

A 24” length of 3/8 inch copper pipe today costs $3.00. Johnny cut the pipe into lengths using a hacksaw. He cut it off square and used a grinder to put a 45-degree angle on the end where it goes into the tree. Alternatively, one could cut at a 45-degree angle, and then sand the rough end. We used a rubber mallet to pound these into the trees, as they are more malleable than the steel taps. One caution is ensuring a good tight fit in the hole drilled into the tree. Unlike commercial taps, the home-made ones aren’t tapered. Our 3/8-inch drill bit worked, but you might experiment. We drilled a 3/8-inch hole into plastic coffee containers, and “attached” these to the taps with rubber bands, which did the job. We drilled the hole in the side of the container so we could put the lid back on to keep out debris, ants, and rain.