A few weeks ago after we tapped trees, I collected the first few gallons of sap. This wasn’t really enough to warrant the full blown outdoor burner setup, which wasn’t ready yet anyway (but is now – future post hopefully, if we get enough sap). Steve was gone for the weekend, so I decided to handle it on my own because I knew we wouldn’t be getting any more sap in the next couple weeks (upcoming forecast was below freezing for many days).
One thing I wasn’t anticipating was that the sap would be frozen on the top, so getting it out of the buckets was a little challenging. I ended up with part liquid sap and part bucket-size frozen disks, which I thawed in a tray on the wood stove.
I ended up with about 3 gallons of sap which I then boiled down. In an ideal world, with sap from sugar maples, it takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup! So, doing the math, my 384 oz. of sap would give me at best 9.6 oz. of syrup.
In the end I got a mere 2 oz., but it was a worthwhile (though very time consuming) practice round. It tastes sweet with a hint of vanilla, which I’ve read online is typical of the first batches of the season and also the lighter amber grades.
I checked the buckets yesterday and there was only about another 1 to 2 gallons out there. At this rate, I am not sure we will get anywhere close to a usable quantity, but it is building appreciation for the people who make mass quantities. We bought 3 gallons of syrup last year (a year’s supply for us at a quart per month) from a friend’s parents who make syrup about 2 hours north of here. Our hope is to make that much ourselves (in a perfect year), which would be at least 120 gallons of sap.
It was kind of cool to learn that pretty much all maple syrup comes from the northeast United States and southeast Canada, since that is the only location with both the correct types of maples and the climate needed (temp cycling above and below freezing) for sap to be collected.
(http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/04/07/geography-in-the-news-maple-syrup-time/)