Making "maple" syrup
- pmcgrady
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Making "maple" syrup
Never made before but I've got a couple huge sugar maples, and lots of silver maples.
I've started taps that are 1 gallon and 13 gallon containers. I'm thinking to drill taps will be second or third week of February. Also going to drill a few of wild cherry and black walnut.
40:1 40+ gallons sap to 1 gallon syrup
I've started taps that are 1 gallon and 13 gallon containers. I'm thinking to drill taps will be second or third week of February. Also going to drill a few of wild cherry and black walnut.
40:1 40+ gallons sap to 1 gallon syrup
- Nan6b
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Re: Making "maple" syrup
Can you make anything from cherry and especially black walnut? Birch works.
- worth1
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Re: Making "maple" syrup
Worth
25 miles southeast of Waterloo Texas.
You can't argue with a closed mind.
You might as well be arguing with a cat.
25 miles southeast of Waterloo Texas.
You can't argue with a closed mind.
You might as well be arguing with a cat.
- pmcgrady
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- pmcgrady
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- Joined: Wed Dec 11, 2019 6:43 am
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Re: Making "maple" syrup
Great article!worth1 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2020 4:49 pmOh yeah black walnut works too.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... Eny6EVUgIg
Unfortunately this property was log/logging for white oak and black walnut, half of the bigs walnuts already gone...
The white oak is going to make whiskey barrels (USA)
Last edited by pmcgrady on Thu Jan 02, 2020 6:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
- Tormahto
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Re: Making "maple" syrup
pmcgrady wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2020 4:07 pm Never made before but I've got a couple huge sugar maples, and lots of silver maples.
I've started taps that are 1 gallon and 13 gallon containers. I'm thinking to drill taps will be second or third week of February. Also going to drill a few of wild cherry and black walnut.
40:1 40+ gallons sap to 1 gallon syrup
Have you ever heard of Sweet-Sap Silver Maple (St Lawrence Nurseries)? It can be about 25 gallons of sap to 1 gallon of syrup. If I was young, and had the land...
To slightly change the subject, how about a story about "city folk". I know this woman, when she first got engaged, she and her boyfriend took a trip up north to Vermont. When she saw her first ever sap buckets, she asked him, "Honey, why do these people hang their garbage pails on trees?"
- pmcgrady
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Re: Making "maple" syrup
Sounds great maple!
Silver Maple are so thick, they need mowed...
Got a few nice cherrys and walnuts today.
Silver Maple are so thick, they need mowed...
Got a few nice cherrys and walnuts today.
- pmcgrady
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Re: Making "maple" syrup
The garbage pails might be removed soon to lead in galvanized buckets.
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- pmcgrady
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Re: Making "maple" syrup
I've been making a few of these
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Re: Making "maple" syrup

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- Shule
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Re: Making "maple" syrup
Can you just drink the stuff strait from the tree (right after it's collected, I mean)? How does it taste that way?
Apricot trees seem to make a lot of sap. I wonder if you can make syrup similarly there, and if it's toxic or not. Apricots and cherries are in the same genus. Apricots seem to get big trunks fast, too, and they can live up to 150 years. It'd be nice to make use of them in areas where the frost kills all the blossoms some years.
I'm not sure what breed our one with the most sap leakage was.
Apricot trees seem to make a lot of sap. I wonder if you can make syrup similarly there, and if it's toxic or not. Apricots and cherries are in the same genus. Apricots seem to get big trunks fast, too, and they can live up to 150 years. It'd be nice to make use of them in areas where the frost kills all the blossoms some years.
I'm not sure what breed our one with the most sap leakage was.
Location: SW Idaho, USA
Climate: BSk
USDA hardiness zone: 6
Elevation: 2,260 feet
Climate: BSk
USDA hardiness zone: 6
Elevation: 2,260 feet
- Shule
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Re: Making "maple" syrup
If you can tap apricots, that would be great to breed them specifically for sap content. (Or it would be great to breed other tree species like that, for that matter.) Just find a fast-growing kind of tree that isn't toxic, and breed away.
Location: SW Idaho, USA
Climate: BSk
USDA hardiness zone: 6
Elevation: 2,260 feet
Climate: BSk
USDA hardiness zone: 6
Elevation: 2,260 feet
- pmcgrady
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Re: Making "maple" syrup
Looks good! Are you tapping already?
- pmcgrady
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Re: Making "maple" syrup
Sap tastes like water with a tinge of sugar.Shule wrote: ↑Fri Jan 17, 2020 3:56 pm Can you just drink the stuff strait from the tree (right after it's collected, I mean)? How does it taste that way?
Apricot trees seem to make a lot of sap. I wonder if you can make syrup similarly there, and if it's toxic or not. Apricots and cherries are in the same genus. Apricots seem to get big trunks fast, too, and they can live up to 150 years. It'd be nice to make use of them in areas where the frost kills all the blossoms some years.
I'm not sure what breed our one with the most sap leakage was.
- worth1
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Re: Making "maple" syrup
Sweet things have been around forever but the affordability of them hasn't.
People went to extreme measures to make syrup from this tree sap.
And without me looking it up I can just about bet much of the sugars produced and or collected like honey were used to turn grains into alcohol.
I have read the sticky sap oozing from the mesquite tree is sweet.
People went to extreme measures to make syrup from this tree sap.
And without me looking it up I can just about bet much of the sugars produced and or collected like honey were used to turn grains into alcohol.
I have read the sticky sap oozing from the mesquite tree is sweet.
Worth
25 miles southeast of Waterloo Texas.
You can't argue with a closed mind.
You might as well be arguing with a cat.
25 miles southeast of Waterloo Texas.
You can't argue with a closed mind.
You might as well be arguing with a cat.
- Tormahto
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Re: Making "maple" syrup
The darkest of the darkity dark dark amber is for me. Light amber is the Yellow Pear of Maple Syrup. And go figure, I don't like most dark tomatoes.
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Re: Making "maple" syrup
Old photos...I get A1 grade here and we tap in the spring.
- pmcgrady
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Re: Making "maple" syrup
This morning, I made a test on 2 taps on a Sugar Maple. It is 34 degrees at 2pm and ran 5-6 oz already at this cold.
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- Shule
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Re: Making "maple" syrup
Do we have any tropical members?
I've read that a palm tree that I believe is the Palmyra palm outproduces sugar maples by a lot. It might have been another species, but you can tap Palmyra palms.
I've read that a palm tree that I believe is the Palmyra palm outproduces sugar maples by a lot. It might have been another species, but you can tap Palmyra palms.
Location: SW Idaho, USA
Climate: BSk
USDA hardiness zone: 6
Elevation: 2,260 feet
Climate: BSk
USDA hardiness zone: 6
Elevation: 2,260 feet
- Shule
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Re: Making "maple" syrup
Here's the link I saw about tapping 'Asian Sugar Palms': https://practicalselfreliance.com/trees ... tap-syrup/
I couldn't find a species commonly referred to as the Asian sugar palm, but I did find the Palmyra palm (Borassus flabellifer), which sounds like it might be what was intended.
I couldn't find a species commonly referred to as the Asian sugar palm, but I did find the Palmyra palm (Borassus flabellifer), which sounds like it might be what was intended.
Location: SW Idaho, USA
Climate: BSk
USDA hardiness zone: 6
Elevation: 2,260 feet
Climate: BSk
USDA hardiness zone: 6
Elevation: 2,260 feet