Small batch MAPLE SYRUP making: you only need 1 tree!

maple syrup making seems intimidating but the truth is you only need a few things and one or two decent sized maple trees and they don't even have to be sugar Maples we tap just two trees every year each tree with two Taps and we average collecting about 50 gallons of sap over a 2 to 3 week period for us this yields around 2 entire gallons of maple syrup and the trees we tap are autum Blaze Maples which are across between a red and silver maple when the ground is still frozen and it's too cold to do most other outdoor projects Maple syruping is the perfect activity to welcome in spring now the common statistic you'll see is that it takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup this isn't a hard and fast rule though we often end up with a much better ratio than that I think this is because our two maple trees have gigantic canopies which means lots of photosynthesis and plenty of space for them to sprawl out and any type of maple can be tapped for syrup even box elder of course sugar Maples are recommended because they typically have richer sap which translates to less work and more finished syrup for you you know we eat a lot of homegrown food but there's just something extra special about making your own maple syrup this is something anyone can do in their backyard and I'm going to show you our very Cobble together but successful way of doing it in order to safe tap a tree it should be at least 10 in in diameter at about 4 ft up the trunk it's usually easier to measure circumference though so Carl use as a tape measure to check and I'll put the measurements in the video description below so you know how many Taps a tree can have depending on the size it's either one two or three three is the most tap the tree can have our trees are big enough to have two the sap will flow when the daytime temperature rises above freezing but the nights still fall below freezing the exact dates of when to tap will depend on where you live and also the weather that year just like any crop you'll have good years and bad years there is a little bit of an art that goes along with this science an art and reading and anticipating the weather and your specific microclimate because once you drill a hole in the tree you have about a 4- we window before the hole will start to close and essentially start to heal now if you tap too early you may miss a good later run and if you tap too late you may miss a good early sap run and you should absolutely not redrill a hole you get one shot to tap it and this is of course for the well-being of the tree the only specialized equipment you need for tapping is the actual taps or spiles as us syers call them everything else you may already have laying around the garage like a drill and a drill bit and a hammer and a block of wood there are a couple of different sizes of spiles available so make sure to use the correct drill bit for the size that you have the standard size the most common size is 716 and we actually use a/2 in drill bit which seems to work well for our Taps collection buckets can be anything we love these oldfashioned metal buckets with lids I will link them below but you can use the new fangled plastic bags or a plastic bucket on the ground with a tube running into it or even recycled plastic juice bottles with holes cut into them you want to let the spile tell you how deep to drill the hole we wrap a piece of masking tape around the bit so we drill EX exactly to the right depth which is usually around 2 in tap the tree at a height that is convenient we find like 3 to 4 ft off the ground to be best and try to pick a location above a big root or below a big Branch as these tend to produce the best and avoid anywhere with a big knot and don't place a tap in an area of the tree that is damaged or close to a tap hole from the previous year we usually look for somewhere on the southern side of the tree because the sun does help with sap flow and the hole should be drilled at a very slight upward angle because well gravity just stick the spile into the hole we like to use a wood block to drive the spile into the tree so that we don't totally mangle it cuz it does take a little bit of force it should be snug and not come out easily when tugged on and if the sap is running it will immediately start dripping out the tap so be ready and get your bucket underneath it I like this bucket and spile system because you can see here it's just really easy to use buckets have little holes that hang right on the Taps and then the lid covers them up these buckets are 2 gallons and we check them every single day and sometimes twice a day when the sap is really flowing the amount of sap we get varies every day but it's not uncommon to get two or three gallons of sap from one tap in a 24-hour period so make sure to check them often so that you don't waste a single drop here's a great example of why I like to use something with a lid there's a a lot of debris that falls from the tree this time of year and all of that would have otherwise ended up in my sap bucket as far as sap storage you can use a lot of different things to store maple sap just make sure that it's food grade and it can be closed we really like these three and a half or 4 gallon plastic buckets with lids which we have gotten for cheap at the grocery store bakery department they usually hold frosting and we pour the appp right into them from the collection buckets they're easy to move around they're easy to store and the lids are very snug so they keep Critters out like insects rodents and um well chickens apparently sap is alive and it's helpful to think of it more like milk than water because it needs to be kept cold we keep these buckets stored outside on the north side of our house where the sun doesn't shine and if we have enough snow which some years we do and some years we don't we bury the buckets of sap in the snow bank as we collect them every day and this allows us to store them for up to 2 weeks if you can't keep the sap super super cold like refrigerator temp cold you'll need to boil it sooner and more often you know if there isn't any snow for us to make a really cool maple sap snow fort like this we will boil what we've collected every week if it gets really hot out all of a sudden the sap won't sore for more than a few days but chances are that if the temps are good for the sap to be running in the first place you should be able to keep your sap for a week before it starts to ferment and go bad and if you have room in a freezer you can store it in there too okay two small details if it's going to Rainer snow collect your sap just before it starts even with these Lids precipitation will often still get in the buckets which dilutes things and also doesn't taste good so we always end up dumping whatever's in the bucket after a storm it's time to stop collecting sap when the tree buds start to swell these right here are dormant buds these have not started to swell yet and if this is new to you make sure to look at them make sure to take photos so you can tell when they do start to swell if you collect sap late after the tree has broken dormy it can get a bitter flavor it is maple boiling day well actually let me back up sometimes your sap will be frozen solid if it gets really cold out this is the case this year so 2 days before boiling we dug the buckets out of the snow bank and brought them inside to thaw much to our do hugs the light he thinks the melted snow on top of the buckets is his personal water dish and if they're not frozen if your buckets are not frozen solid of course you don't have to worry about this okay now it's Maple day we boil over an open fire and this setup works pretty slick these are some old concrete Silo staves holding up some heavyduty metal fence posts that are holding up some old oven and grill grates you know sometimes it pays to keep a well stocked junk pile on your homestead we like like this because it's a sturdy surface that won't shift as the fire burns the oven grates aren't totally necessary but they do help with stability and this is a fairly big setup we have now when we first started syruping we only had three pans and now we've graduated to running eight pans there are a lot of different ways to boil maple syrup but we prefer to do it over fire it's an enjoyable activity on a spring day and wood is an available resource here many people will make a small rocket stove setup usually a metal drum with a whole cut out of it for one or two large Buffet pans some use a propane burner you can get creative with what you have we made maple syrup for 10 years with no special equipment before we bought a set of six stainless steel Buffet pans see old junk again which I kind of love that it was a backwood setup for sure uh I mean really it still is we used old Nesco roster inserts those are the black pans there that Carl's filling right now we still use those and we used to use large en enamel canning pots as well which we've now retired once the fire is Hot Carl puts a couple pans on at a time and fills them up you wouldn't want to keep dry pans on the fire for any longer than a few seconds and surface area is your friend so wider shallower pans are the best I'll link these stainless steel ones below they were actually pretty affordable and we really really like them the more pans you use the faster the boiling will get done and if all you have is one pan that's okay too but you will enjoy a nice long relaxing day out by the fire so uh bring some marshmallows just don't boil maple syrup inside your house it's okay to finish it inside just not boil it all the way down inside as it can make your walls and everything sticky or so I've heard anyways learning to do the sap Shuffle as we call it as the sap evaporates and becomes more concentrated we will start to combine pans so that we can keep adding new sap and keep things rolling and like always goes with like don't pour new sap into a pan that has almost syrup in it instead combine pans that are of similar dness and add the new sap to an empty pan and be careful when you do this it's obviously very hot we use heavy duty oven mitts or sometimes even welding gloves let me talk about the sap shuffle a little bit more so Carl always starts with fresh sap in all of the pans of course and once those boil down he combines them all together in two pans that opens up a lot of pans for fresh sap so he fills those with fresh sap again and then once those boil down he combines those ones and by the time those boil down the original ones he combined are ready to go in the off pan we'll talk about the off pan in a second here he keeps cycling through the sap like this until it's all on the fire the goal is to get as much sap on the fire and as hot as possible for as long as possible to keep the evaporation maximized if if you are only working with one or two pans you should let it boil from fresh sap to almost syrup and then pour it into your off pan start over with fresh sap again and repeat the process until you work through all of your sap one word of caution sometimes when it's vigorously boiling all of a sudden it'll start to foam up and we use a long- handled spider strainer to skim the foam otherwise it keeps boiling over and you'll lose sap which by the way this is just a simulation this isn't actually what it looks like when it happens sorry I couldn't capture that on video but if you're getting this a lot or often you might have your fire just a little too hot we use maple boiling as a nice time to relax in nature and sit by the fire and soak up the sun and putter around the yard the fire though and the boiling sap should be watched carefully definitely don't go out of ey shot from it but do feel free to make the most of your time when you're outside you've officially made maple syrup when it's 7.5 de above the boiling point of water which for us is 219.50 De of course you'll want to adjust this for your elevation it is difficult to bring maple syrup to the exact correct finish temperature over an open fire so we do the last part in the house on the stove where there's a lot more control we've done this enough now that we just go by color and what it looks like kind of like this but if you want a temperature i' take it off the heat when it's around 5° shy of your maple syrup Target it'll be darker in color like this but it'll still have the consistency of water okay the off pan we keep one of my big soup pots out next to the fire and we pour the ELO syrup in it as it becomes done once a pan is closed to syrup Carl pours it in and we keep adding to it all day and this is what comes in the house to be finished on the stove and maple syruping is a lot of fun but it gets to be a bit of a long day when you do this much at one time so it's always a great feeling when you're down to the last few pans don't forget to pop out your Taps as soon as you decide not to collect any more sap so that the tree can heal oh and one more tip don't forget to hunt for sapic you can do this even if you aren't tapping trees this is where the sap drips from a small wound on the tree and it freezes at night or when it's cold my very favorite treat they are slightly sweet and they're incredibly refreshing and just fun to find now the second leg of the race Carl is in charge of the outside boiling and I am the finisher and we like to make this a 2-day process so what you're looking at here is the off pan which we brought in and has been sitting on the stove cooling overnight at this stage I call it almost syrup because it's really really close but not quite and you can see it's a bit watery yet it will have debris and sediment that needs to be filtered out and a lot of people filter once the syrup is finished but I prefer to filter it in in this stage it just makes more sense to me and here's why we're usually tired from boiling outside all day and this is a nice natural breakpoint anyways because this is cooled it's safer to filter and most of the gunk that you want to filter out is now settled very nicely at the bottom of the pot here are the filters they're actually made for Maple syruping and they're very similar to filters that are used for filtering cooking oil they feel like a thick coffee filter or like some kind of hybrid between paper and cloth for many years though before I got these I just used a clean kitchen tea towel and that worked fine although I will say these do work much better okay I'm getting to the bottom of the off pan here and I'm being very careful not to disturb the sediment that's at the bottom and I want to show you this this is something I learned after a lot of experience here's what the filter looks like after filtering the bulk of the almost syrup look at all of that but that's actually nothing compared to what left in the bottom of the pot it's kind of a sludge and I'm pouring it into this bowl so I can show you what it looks like you can try to filter this but a lot of it will go through the filter and Cloud up your beautiful clear syrup even with a good filter like this here's what the filter looks like after most of that went through instead of filtering this sludge stuff from the bottom of the pot I just toss it but that's up to you if you don't boil over an open fire it likely won't be this bad and by the way these filters are reusable they rinse right out and you can use them over and over I've been using this one for like 3 or 4 years now I've got my beautiful clear almost syrup here ready to finish and we're starting around 214 so we've got a ways to go here my goal is 219.50 and I want to make sure that it's a solid 29.5 so I usually boil it until I see the thermometer start to flirt with 220 if you go short of your target temperature there will be too much water and your syrup can mold and if you take it too far past this point your syrup can crystallize so we're really looking for an exact goldilux temperature here and how long this last part takes really depends on how much you have and how watery it still is yet I expect that this will take between 1 and 2 hours for what I have here how do you store maple syrup well if you only have a small amount you can just put it in a jar and stick it in the fridge if you have a larger amount or want to store it for a longer time maple syrup can be canned or frozen there is some mixed information out there on canning maple syrup some say that it causes it to become darker and that it's just not necessary well I've been making and canning maple syrup for 12 years now and I have never found canning to affect the quality and we put up a lot of syrup every year usually around 2 gallons and it's very precious stuff as you've probably gathered by now from the amount of work that goes into it and I like the added insurance and the Peace of Mind knowing it's very shelf stable in these jars I use a steam canner but you can also use a water bath canner and I can both quartz and Pints for 10 minutes some people recommend open kettle canning which is when you just pour the hot boiling syrup into hot sterilized jars and screw on the lids and I have done it this way on occasion but I much prefer to actually run it through the caner and that's it congrats you've made maple syrup and I bet you a pancake it's the best maple syrup you've ever tasted I really want to encourage you to give this a try if you have access to Maple trees it is so so rewarding as always let me know if you have any questions there are resources Linked In the show notes and if you found this video helpful I would love it if you could give it a thumbs up and make sure to subscribe to my channel so that you are the first to know whenever a new video is posted

Channel: Whole-Fed Homestead

Views: 23,114

Keywords:

Id: 6ZBhORwKsoA

Length: 17min 51sec (1071 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 09 2024