School Me On Maple Syrup

[charles martel]

School me on tapping maples tress and the making maple syrup.

Thanks.

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[cmcrawfo]

You're only authorised to make maple syrup in Canada if you are French Canadian.

[XXX-er]

yes ^^ happy plaid wearing Quebecois singing songs and collecting maple syrup by horse drawn cart & sleigh

[Kenny Satch]

There are two schools of thought;

1. Vermont has better maple syrup
2. Quebec has better maple syrup - tabernac

[XXX-er]

Its really miles of plastic tubing going to a tin shack collected by guys in PU trucks,

According to a CBC feature I heard there is a huge surplus of maple syrup in the region of tens of millions of pounds

but a marketing board keeps the prices high with a quota system

and if you step out of line they will mess with you

[charles martel]

Its really miles of plastic tubing going to a tin shack collected by guys in PU trucks,

According to a CBC feature I heard there is a huge surplus of maple syrup in the region of tens of millions of pounds

but a marketing board keeps the prices high with a quota system

and if you step out of line they will mess with you

Syrip mafia?

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[BCMtnHound]

I've visited a few syrup shacks in Quebec. From the piles and piles of stack wood that they go through, you need to start collecting boiler wood now. Second, the timing of the tapping is a combination of luck of the season, and experience at reading the season to time the optimum time of flow/sugar content. That, and the long term management of your sugar maple stand.

Best of luck!

[The Tortoise]

You don't need tubing. I went to a private shack where sap was collected in buckets. Seems like a shit ton of work, but the owners were doing it right with wine by day and rum and syrup water (partially boiled sap) by night.

When the sap runs be prepared to not do anything else for a few days.

[cmcrawfo]

There are two schools of thought;

1. Vermont has better maple syrup
2. Quebec has better maple syrup - tabernac

Option 1, is only an option to people from Vermont.

and Anglo pro separatists

[Vt-Freeheel]

Quebec sugarhouses boil in lead soldered pans, use at your own risk.

[Vt-Freeheel]

Reverse osmosis.

[cmcrawfo]

Reverse osmosis.

Technology is amazing. Finally a process that makes Vt maple palatable.

[XXX-er]

Syrip mafia?

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Just another canadian marketing board to control agricultural products eh/

[BCMtnHound]

Quebec sugarhouses boil in lead soldered pans, use at your own risk.

What!? Are you saying Québécois culture can be partly attributed to an environmental toxin? Sacre bleu!

[Vt-Freeheel]

Pretty much ^^^

Technology is amazing. Finally a process that makes Vt maple palatable.

lulz

[RShea]

You don't need tubing. I went to a private shack where sap was collected in buckets. Seems like a shit ton of work, but the owners were doing it right with wine by day and rum and syrup water (partially boiled sap) by night.

When the sap runs be prepared to not do anything else for a few days.

But the tubing does make for less labor and having to monitor the buckets with the tubing to get the sap to the shack.

[XXX-er]

You don't need tubing. I went to a private shack where sap was collected in buckets. Seems like a shit ton of work, but the owners were doing it right with wine by day and rum and syrup water (partially boiled sap) by night.

When the sap runs be prepared to not do anything else for a few days.

70 % of the stuff is collected in Quecbec and the vast majority will be collected by miles of plastic tubing by producers who are assigned a quota by a marketing board and if you fuck with it they will mess with you

So If yer Canadian we all grew up watching them CBC vignette's of the lifestyle

but now its agri-business

[cmcrawfo]

[Afkpuz]

You sure you really wanna know OP? You think you can handle this fuckin game? Cartels, inside jobs, money, fame... some say you don't choose the syrup life, the life chooses you. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016...le-syrup-heist

[Peruvian]

40 to 1

[old goat]

A piece of advice a friend of mine learned the hard way. He tapped 40 sugar maples on his land in Ohio, of all places. He boiled it inside on his stove. Got it down to 30-1 when he noticed the drywall tape peeling. It still tasted damn good.

[ill-advised strategy]

My mom and her husband do this every year.

You know when to tap when it's starting to get above freezing. You don't need anything complicated, there are small-scale taps and buckets/bags...

They collect all the sweetwater, then have a day or two of tending a big outdoor fire with big steel vats boiling off. You don't have to make it thick if you don't want to, many people like a thinner style.

You'll need taps, bags/buckets, a way to store a lot of sweetwater, some big boiling vats of a stable material, firewood for a few days of ongoing bonfire, a good rack for your vats and a decent system to move them around when they're hot and pour and whatnot, canning supplies--jars, lids, whatnot, and the ability to generate copious free time for this when the weather dictates it.
They usually have 3 different vats going over the fire at once, because it takes so long to boil down and you want to use all your fire efficiently. It's important to pay attention to how much went in and how much has boiled off so you get your ratio to what you want....ratios are a personal preference. I really tend to like it thin, probably because that thinness used to signify, to me--regionally, in my youth--homemade syrup. Thinking on it now, that was likely because people didn't have the fucking time to sit for eons waiting it out by the bonfire and just called it good enough. Anyway, thin is good enough for me, but it's your show, so you make what you like; that's the beauty of it I guess.

It's good to have friends come over for company and stuff when you're boiling, because standing around tending a fire in the cold for days gets old all by yourself....and yeah, like the post above, the folks do it outdoors probably more because it takes some scale of fire and many gallons of boiling liquid to get some yield, but also because trying this indoors just seems like a guaranteed clusterfuck.

[ill-advised strategy]

the masters of this manage to combine it with some other outdoor project...working on the tractor or graveling the driveway or whatever. You drift back over and check on the fire and look at your fluid levels. You walk the dog and check all your taps and bags/buckets....etc.

[Timberridge]

If nothing else, by doing this you'll realize that paying $30 for a half gallon is a bargain.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

A piece of advice a friend of mine learned the hard way. He tapped 40 sugar maples on his land in Ohio, of all places. He boiled it inside on his stove. Got it down to 30-1 when he noticed the drywall tape peeling. It still tasted damn good.

Where's the advice in these observations?