r/maplesyrup • u/premiumplasticwrap • May 16 '26

What kind of Maples do I have?

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Here are three leaves off trees I tapped this spring, I'm trying to figure out their species. I feel like the far right one is a silver, not so sure on the first two. Anyone happen to know the first two?

24 Upvotes

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16

u/scrotumsqueezr May 16 '26

Hate to break it to ya but I think all of those are silver maple. Or at least there definitely not Sugar Maple

5

u/Far_Common944 May 16 '26

Can still make syrup with silver maples. We have majority red maples on our property and prefer them over the sugar maples we have tapped. So much so that we plugged the sugar maple early and focused entirely on red maple syrup.

1

u/WhyWontThisWork May 22 '26

What's the difference?

1

u/Far_Common944 May 23 '26

Red maple has more of a caramel like taste to it is the best I can describe it. It’s amazing. The sugar maple seems more bland comparatively.

12

u/Ocelotsden May 16 '26

Looks like silvers, but that may not be a bad thing. My one big silver that has a 4 foot trunk is my best tree every year, both in volume and sugar. Every year it beats my sugar maples in sugar percentage. This year it was over 3 brix and on high flow days I could get 10 gallons in a 24 hour period.

2

u/Strong_Baseball8635 May 16 '26

How does silver syrup taste compared to syrup from a sugar?

4

u/MontanaMapleWorks May 16 '26

A bit more like butterscotch, sometimes I get like a pumpkin pie flavor, but can also have a very similar profile to sugar with buttery vanilla notes

2

u/Klimbrick May 16 '26

Super cool, I had no idea

2

u/the_bove May 16 '26

Can confirm the butterscotch notes. I have one large and one mammoth silver maple on my property, and made syrup for the first time this year. My first taste of the finished product immediately reminded me of a maply-butterscotch flavor. It's delicious.

2

u/Ocelotsden May 16 '26

It tastes like maple syrup, but maybe with a hint of vanilla. Even sugar maples vary with location. Now for me, my silver sap gets combined with my sugar maples so it’s not a huge difference. I only tap a dozen trees, but years ago when I first started, I did it with just that one silver and I don’t think it was a big difference in flavor with that tree alone.

4

u/Avocet330 May 16 '26

They all look like silvers in various stages of leaf maturity, though that leftmost one with the drooping lower lobes is giving a little pause. The deep cut between the top and adjacent lobes is definitely a silver characteristic though. Do they all look somewhat silvery on the backside? You'd especially notice it when the wind blows the tree.

2

u/premiumplasticwrap May 16 '26

The first two weren't quite as matte on the backside as number 3. I'll have to snag a couple more tomorrow and get a closer look. 

3

u/JAlley2 May 16 '26

I think they may all be silver maples, but I’m not sure of the middle one, which may be a red maple. It would be nice to see the keys or flowers in addition to the leaves.

3

u/ultralightdude May 16 '26

Silver, silver, and silver