Anyone Make Maple Syrup??

So i have been out of work for a little while and in looking for ways to make money i stumbled onto literally hundreds of red maple trees on my father in laws land. after a littler research i have concluded that it would be entirely thesable to make and sell maple syrup.

If there is anyone on this forum who has expired with maple sugaring i would love to hear some tips

You might want to double check this, but I don't think red maple is used for syrup. I think you need what they call sugar maple.

Uhhh No I think red maples are used to make maple syrup too. Hahahaha and lucky they are all over the east coast huh?

Here is a site that shows you how to tap maple trees to extract the sap, and how to make the syrup (the syrup part seems simple too simple) but it tells you where to go to find maple syrup suppliers for tips

http://www.umext.maine.edu/onlinepubs/PDFpubs/7036.pdf

sonar said:

You might want to double check this, but I don't think red maple is used for syrup. I think you need what they call sugar maple.

Click to expand...

red maple, black maple, and sugar maple will all do, from what i have read you can get syrup from Birch too.

Commander Rainbow Veins said:

Here is a site that shows you how to tap maple trees to extract the sap, and how to make the syrup (the syrup part seems simple too simple) but it tells you where to go to find maple syrup suppliers for tips

http://www.umext.maine.edu/onlinepubs/PDFpubs/7036.pdf

Click to expand...

yeah from what i have read this is pretty easy at the hobbyist level, it takes a lot of sap (10 gallons to make one pint of syrup), although the average tree can produce any where from 5 to 15 gallons a cycle (year)... i will be looking through the trees 2 marrow to see which ones are ready..

a dog named chico said:

yeah from what i have read this is pretty easy at the hobbyist level, it takes a lot of sap (10 gallons to make one pint of syrup), although the average tree can produce any where from 5 to 15 gallons a cycle (year)... i will be looking through the trees 2 marrow to see which ones are ready..

Click to expand...

i did my own syrup last year--i had 30+/_ gallons of sap & ended up with 48 oz of syrup--great for personal use but the back yard syrup maker is going to have a hard time making money

Theres a process of making it you gotta put it through a type of cooking mill. alot of ppl do this on sugar camps you ever see Dirty Jobs??? look it up they have a pretty common setup tho there are newer ways to do it. As for birch i know they put it in a soda called Birch beer (kinda tastes like root beer) and its good for upset stomach diereia n stuff my Forestry Instructor gave it to me when my stomach was hurting one day.

dude,look for a book called," back yard sugaring" it will tell you all you need to know about hobby maple syrup production.i made a gallon in a turkey fryer last year.if ya got any questions let me know i can prolly help you out.you can make syrup from any type fo maple tree.but sugar maples are the best because of the high sugar content in there sap.

My Grandmother used to boil the sap from just a few trees. When it's running you have to keep up and boil it all. In Vermont they stay up all night just taking turns boiling and keeping the fire going. But, with the cost of maple syrup these days anyone would buy that from you for less than the stores sell it.

I used to make maple syrup with my father and grandfather. We only tapped sugar maples. They never explained why, but they would not tap anything else. We collected sap from 15 trees with 2 taps each. Boiling it down took place in a custom fabricated pan that held approx. 20 gallons of sap. A clean garbage can was used as a resivoir that drip fed into our pan. We could leave the setup unatended for hours once we got the drip rate right. We usually netted 5-10 gallons of syrup a season, depending on the weather. Most was given to friends and family as gifts.

Couple of tips:
A slow boil is best. Sugar can burn. Using too much heat will result in a darker syrup and may affect its taste.

A larger pot will save you labor by reducing how often you have to add sap.

Once your sap begins to smell like maple syrup, try hard boiling some eggs in it. They pick up the maple flavor and are a great snack while you are busy tending your operation.

Producing enough syrup to make a profit is not easily done without a large up front investment.

Good info all, at this time i am prepping for next year, i will be thinning out the trees this spring and will pick out which ones i will tap next year. Love the turkey fryer idea, that was the one thing i was unsure of. I am not looking to make a fortune, i will be operating a road side produce stand this year and thought it might be somthing cool to offer, my aunt does honey along with produce and get a premium for her honey, i on the other hand am deathly allergic to bees so being a bee keeper is out of the question.

their is a guy here in grants pass who does this with regular maple trees in southern oregon, he does it all by him self and it cost him about 10 dollars to start for the milk jugs to collect it and the tubing, it is very cheap to do IMO. he makes quite a bit of it to and sells it, good luck man

You could probly just tap a couple of trees and boil that down this year for your own use and see how it comes out. 'Round here they start getting ready after "Town Meeting Day". ("hat's when ya start yer t'maters")

Just got two propane burners with built in regulators for free....i believe they are/ where turcky fryers, the person i got it from said the used to use them to boil corn for block parties

Give it a shot. Only thing it'll cost ya is a couple of tree taps and some fuel. You can hang anything to catch the sap (plastic milk jug, clean bucket)

That first stage when it's not yet syrup can be drizzled over clean snow for "sugar on snow" ...yum...

maybe i will tap 3 trees, worst case i know if its worth investing in.

Thats what i'm saying...you might like it, then you'll know what to change next year to make it better.

a dog named chico said:

maybe i will tap 3 trees, worst case i know if its worth investing in.

Click to expand...

this year it will be 3 trees.next year 20.the year after that 40 or 50.its addicting.