Maple Syrup '24
Maple syrup was high on our list of things to try in our first year back in Maine.
We decided to start small scale and cheap with plastic taps run into 5 gallon buckets.
I ordered these taps online and picked up clear tubing from Home Depot. I read that the best type of line to use is this blue tinted PVC tubing (blue tint helps prevent the sap from heating in the lines), but I couldn't find any locally. We spent a morning identifying maple trees near the house. Maples are easy to pick out in the summer by their leaves, but a little tougher in the winter. The branches and bark are the key - branches are opposite each other and in pairs, and the bark tends to have distinctive rough vertical ridges. We picked 8 large mature trees near our house and drilled 1-3 taps per tree. I drilled holes in the lids of food grade 5 gallon buckets and ran the tubing down through the lids.
With our taps in place, the next step was to manufacture a cheap evaporator. We have virtually unlimited wood on the property, so I chose that as a fuel source. The two cheap evaporator designs I found both used full height stainless steam pans. The first design used concrete pavers/cinder blocks around an open fire. The cinder blocks were spaced to suspend the pans above the open fire, sometimes with a cinder block flue in the back to draw the smoke away. When cinder blocks get wet and then hot, they tend to crack and fall apart. I also couldn't see how this would hold much heat.
I opted to build the second design from a 55 gallon drum. I bought a couple of used oil barrels and a camp stove kit, cut the openings for the door and flue, fastened the kit components, and attached the legs. I laid the steam pans out on top and cut corresponding openings. To finish it off, I put some fire brick in the bottom and added a thin layer of sand to increase the thermal mass and help hold heat, improving fuel efficiency.
Mid build to first boil
Our first 20 gallons of sap reduced to a nice dark syrup - we boiled it to 219F on the outdoor evaporator. I'm waiting on a set of finer filters from amazon to finish it inside on our gas stove.
We've collected another 40 or so gallons in the last 2 days for a total of 60 gallons of sap. We're hoping the weather holds up for a few more weeks of good sap runs.
Brittany went on the hunt for more maples on the back of our property - looks like someone at one point doubled up barrels and built a huge evaporator! Looking forward to scaling up our syrup operation significantly next year.
