Producing Maple Syrup in Your Own Back Yard

Making your own maple syrup is a rewarding hobby with a very sweet reward. There are many romantic images of horses pulling tanks of syrup and people gathered around a pot of boiling syrup. Though those images defiantly grab the essence of syrup making, the reality is that there is a great deal of work involved. The process starts early in the spring and includes tapping, gathering, boiling and finishing.

To make maple syrup, you must have access to maple trees. Several different types of maples will produce the sap required for maple syrup. "Hard" maples are the most desired. The varieties considered hard maples include black and sugar maples. Hard maples have a considerably higher sugar content, resulting in less work. "Soft" maples will also produce sap that can be made into syrup. These varieties are silver and red. Though many producers consider this syrup inferior to the syrup made by the hard maples, most people wouldn't know the difference. Sap from these two types of trees may be combined. If you have no maple trees in your area, but you do have box elders or "Manitoba" maples, you may also make syrup with them. The sap from these trees should not be combined with sap from other maples as there is a significant difference in taste.

If you have a bush to tap in and you have a hard time identifying maple trees by their bark, you may want to take a walk during the summer with a can of spray paint and mark the trees while the leaves are still on.. Tapping an oak tree produces no sap, though it can provide no end of entertainment to neighbors coming to visit.

When determining what trees to tap, keep in mind that trees that are under 10 inches in diameter should not be tapped. Trees that are 16 inches or more in diameter may be tapped with 2 spiles, and trees that are 21 inches may be tapped with three. If the trees have been under stress due to drought, limb loss or defoliation, these numbers should be higher.

Tapping