Kilpelän Luomutila ja Sen Ympäristö: Sap Season

This year I decided to boil sap again. My decision was based on the availability of two things - time and firewood. Now that I am retired I have more time to do things I enjoy, and unlike last year, we still had a fair supply of dry firewood on hand.

I built this evaporator with ten concrete blocks, and lined it with galvanized steel flashing. I had a laugh when I stopped at Superior Block to get the blocks. The salesman told me that he had dozens of customers stop in to buy blocks for the same purpose. Apparently the thaw gave a lot of us sap fever.

For a chimney, I laid one of the end blocks on its side and jammed a stovepipe elbow into it and tied it in place with a length of haywire, in accordance with all applicable state and local codes.

Once the evaporator was ready, it was time to tap some maple trees. Using a 7/16" bit, you drill a hole about two inches deep into a big sugar maple.

Next you tap in the spile.

A length of plastic tubing directs the sap into an old ice cream pail. I'm not a big fan of plastic but these are durable and can be reused for many years.

I am grateful to the people who owned the farm before us, who left these big maples standing behind the house. Widely spaced old maples with large crowns produce the most sap. I could tap dozens of trees with multiple spiles in each, but past experience has taught me that the sap from six trees is about all I can handle. If I had a commercial evaporator and an limitless supply of firewood I could boil up much much more, but then it would become a job, no longer a pleasant hobby.

I will admit that there is a greedy and acquisitive streak in me that tempts me to expand, but to what end? It pays to consider what the word more really signifies. It is not synonymous with better, it simply denotes a larger quantity. The unbridled pursuit of more is futile and destructive. We all know that, but strangely we find it hard to put into practice.

Fortunately sap is heavy, and hauling it for any distance on your back teaches you the virtues of restraint and moderation.

A six gallon plastic carboy filled with sap weighs over 50 pounds. Forty gallons of sap will boil down to about one gallon of syrup. It takes a lot of sap and a lot of firewood to make maple syrup.

This is the hard part. I have to sit in the warm sunshine with a cup of coffee in hand and make sure the sap keeps boiling. Note the piece of flashing sitting on the end of the stovepipe to control the draft. I don't want all the heat to escape up the chimney.

I ordered a stainless steel serving tray from Amazon for around 25 bucks. It is about 22x12x6 inches and holds around three gallons of sap.

I have to add sap as it boils down and wood to the fire as it burns down. This compares with other demanding pursuits such as watching the grass grow or watching cement harden. Not everyone is gifted with the requisite skills and temperament to handle it.

Yes, life is tough.

Boiling continues into the evening.

After boiling down about 12 gallons of sap to the right consistency (which I judge by the appearance of the bubbles on the surface) I pour it through a cloth strainer into a pot and finish it on a hotplate. This year I got a thermometer and measured the boiling temperature. Once the liquid reaches 219 degrees - 7 degrees above the boiling temperature for plain water - it is syrup.