Maple Sugaring

  Sap run this year has not been as great as it could be.

    Normally a single *tap will provide over one gallon of sap per day and as much as 40 gallons a season. This then is gently boiled down to syrup. Typically we get about one quart of grade A syrup per tap by seasons end, sometimes a little more.

        So far here at the Actual Man cave we have 7 taps and have one quart of amber  maple syrup. sooo good, this stuff we use on french toast made with eggs from our chickens and bread made on our wood stove. Yes On our wood stove.We boil off the syrup on the wood stove as well. Candy is also made by further cooking the syrup.(see the post about making maple candy.

 (see the post about bread making.

 (see the post about raising chickens{coming soon})

A tap is a small tube inserted into a hole drilled into the side of the tree so the sap can run out of it...hopefully into a bucket that has been hung under it!

 There is a small hook under the tap to hang the bucket on.

 If you tapped the tree right, or even the right tree(ha ha), you should see a drip already.

    Tapping is easy. I used a ratchet and 7/16 wood bore (purchased for running electric lines in a rehabbed house in Ulster county) to do the job.  

     Here is the resulting hole for the tap to be hammered into. 

      And hammering...

         And finally a bucket!

  (Yes that is the world famous Shabby Streamside Studio in the background!) Guys, the lady in your life will love that blog and even you a little more if you turn her on to it!

          Some trees can take more than one tap. After retrieving the sap and boiling it down on the wood stove in the cabin, we got about a quart and a half of syrup. We chose to further cook a pint to make about a pound of candies.

    So from our early season efforts, we have a quart of deliciuos maple syrup and one pound of candy!