Long Days. Lots of buckets. Unpredictable. While sports fans would consider this a synopsis of the ongoing NCAA basketball tournament, this is a fitting description of our maple syrup season. For us, the buckets are washed and put away, and we can reflect on a winning season.
This was the year that everything came together. In past years, I built a homemade evaporator and vacuum filter. I bought a reverse osmosis (RO) unit to reduce boiling. We bought a 35-gallon tank to store sap. And of course, lots of buckets were accumulated. With the purchase of a UTV last year, we were finally able to tap trees in our back woods and get the sap back to the house.
I also thought I had learned my lesson about tapping too early. However, when you are looking at weather forecasts and the list of other things to do, it is hard not to jump the gun. We tapped 15 trees on February 25, which was at least not the earliest we have started.
The first weekend, we only got about 35 gallons of sap. While that again seemed like a lesson on starting too early, the volume matched the size of our tank, and it ended up being a good shakedown weekend. We ended up with about a half-gallon of syrup. The next two weekends, the buckets were full and we ended up with about 75 gallons of sap each weekend. We usually pull taps by the third weekend, but weekend number three had all sorts of obstacles. Boil day was cold, as was the day before, so the sap buckets had plenty of ice. The RO unit froze, so I ended up processing sap in the basement, and running the concentrated sap outside to boil. It was also cold enough to affect our outdoor spigot, which prevented us from taking things down and cleaning up for the season. I managed to forget where one of the buckets was by week two, so we ended up gathering from only 14 taps. Henry came back from school on spring break, and it was nice having him help gather sap.
That led to week four - the latest we have ever sugared. In past years, it would get so warm by the end of March that I could watch the tree buds open overhead as I worked the evaporator. This week, we had 45 degree days interspersed with more snow. But, we once again had full buckets! I emptied buckets into the tank, went back to pull the taps, and set the empty buckets along the trail to get later. It was a warm weekend, and a pleasant one to spend outside. I also found the missing tap - the bucket was full and it still had ice from the previous weekend, but I dumped it out as I did not want to take a chance and spoil a whole batch. The bees emerged from their hive, and a couple managed to find the house and promptly drown in buckets of water. It was a long day of boiling and cleaning, but we were rewarded with more syrup.
The grand total for 2023 - 3.29 gallons! We bottled 13 pint jars, 17 12-ounce bottles, and one 8-ounce jelly jar. By far, the most syrup we have ever produced. At the grocery store today, I saw that real maple syrup was running about $0.75/ounce, so we made over $300 worth of syrup. A lot will be given as gifts or for bartering - we owe the Amish neighbors for manure they placed on our garden last fall. While putting away this year's bottles, I found four bottles from last year. We also have a couple in the refrigerator, and I recently used the last bottle from 2021 to make maple-pecan fudge. We may take next year off if we still have bottles kicking around, but it is hard to think about giving it up. Sugaring is a lot of work, but a lot of what we produce is savory, so it is nice to make something sweet.
I burned through a lot of firewood that will need to be replaced. As usual, there are several trees down on the paths and hayfield from winter storms, so that will be an upcoming project. For now, time for some pancakes.
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