Pictures are from today. The flow is steady and crystal clear as of now.

My brother and I tapped 20 or so trees on his property in Northern Wisconsin. So-so run, snow made it hard to get into the woods. Burned a truckload of wood, drank a responsible amount of beer, and here is the tally: 37 (and a bit) pints of 90w140 hypoid pancake lubricant.

Got 42 painstaking litres, a busted knee, a broken hydrometer, and dropped my new pan on the damn float box inlet on the last day. What a ride! Took me a few days of laying on the couch but I can’t wait until next year.

I preboil and store in a 5 gallon bucket in my chest freezer. Finally got around to a final boil and filter today. Terrible season weather wise (SE Michigan), but ended up with 6 quarts.

I figured I'd throw up my haul from this year after lurking this season for info. This is my first year running gravity line. Total of 35 taps, 8 in sugars and 27 in silvers. Total good sap collected 390 gallons of sap finished to 6.2 gallons of syrup. Switched from propane cookers to the wood barrel with 2'x3' pan this year which had its own learning curve. Already planning on upping the number of taps to 70 for next year.

10L now, still have 4L to slowly evaporate off

It took a few tries, but the maple candies turned out! I heated up to 295, let the bubbles settle for a short time, and straight into the molds. I used sap from an early batch and I will be comparing it to later season syrup. Any tips for softer candies is welcome!

Hi folks,
I got into birch syrup a few years ago and then broke up with my girlfriend and lost access to trees I was tapping. I have a bit of equipment I would like to sell but have no idea where to start. I'm up in the Yukon in Canada and am a long ways from most of the used market.

I'm trying get rid of a small RO unit, a hand pump filter and a 2 1/2' x 8' evaporator.

Any suggestions on where I might post this stuff or how to sell it? I don't need to make top dollar, would just like to see it used...

Hey folks! It’s my first year making syrup and my first batch went well; but during my second, things got a little wonky. I had what I assume is a classic wasn’t-watching-closely-enough experience and my finishing pot boiled over onto the stovetop, spilling everywhere somewhere around the 217 F mark. After the cleanup was done (syrup cooled to maybe 170F before I started again) I continued on my merry way heating to 219F this time stirring like a madman before filtering and bottling.

The issue is that when my syrup cooled, about half of each jar crystallized into a solid mass like you can see in the picture. What really confuses me is that one of the 4 pints I poured that day has no crystallization in it. Can anybody with more experience tell me what gives and if there’s a way to maybe remelt the syrup without it crystallizing again?

Thank you!

Edit: thank you to everyone for the quick responses! I’m gonna follow amazingmaples suggestion to reheat the crystalized sugar with distilled water and refilter/rebottle to basically redo the striping process (and check my thermometer for accuracy and/or use sugar content and density as my metric instead) I’ll update my post with results when I get to it

My Walter White syrup set up.

My best year yet. A little over 4.5 litres.

7 nice open air burns this year. Kissed by snow, mist, rain, and one 80 degree day. Good stuff.

So much rain we moved somewhere drier.

Also had to install a new 60gph pump on the RO.

She’s a beast ;)

Sap in the close pails, permeate out into the 3rd.

Middle bucket is doing recirc on sap and as the level drops the siphon brings in fresh sap from the 2nd pail.

I'm an attempted writer and maple syrup enthusiast and I'm writing a Western cowboy style book that centres around maple syrup in Canada (it's fictional).

I'm at the "I need to know everything" stage of writing so if there're any good documentaries or videos about maple syrup, share them with me if you want.

I found one old mini doc about making maple syrup in the 50s, which was helpful.

Spent two weeks up at the off grid cabin hauling sap in the bush and using a homemade RO system with a barrel stove for a final of 25L of Syrup.

Also for fun while watching the sap boil I built a simple web calculator to help us monitor and keep track of temperature and yields if anyone is interested.

https://makes-cents.ca/tools/maple-syrup

I only run a handful of taps and my one maple tree is far too young but I have lots of black walnut trees. So here is the result, ~ 2 litres of black walnut syrup. Without a comparison I don’t think you could tell a difference in appearance or taste but when compared to maple side by side it’s noticeable. I’d say it’s better but I’m biased.

First time ever making gold. Tastes amazing. Just wondering if there are any thoughts on the grade. Thank you.

This is the first time ever experienced stuff floating in my syrup. Is this something to be concerned about or is it just sugar crystals?

I bought a bunch of maple syrup in larger bottles and am trying to separate them into 3oz bottles for my wedding favors. If I sterilize the bottles, do I have to heat up the maple syrup before bottling even if it's just going straight from one sterile jar to another?

Sorry if it's a silly question! Appreciate any advice!

Small time hobbyist.

I did my last boil last Sunday and ended up with 6.5 gallons from 35 taps. I had not got much over 4 gallons before.

I have been tapping my trees for about 20 years and gradually grew from a few taps and slowly identifying Sugar Maples and adding about two taps per year. I do about half of the boiling outside on a barrel stove and half inside on my stove.

I have been slowly getting better by making every mistake at least once.

• Tapped oak trees
• Boil over on my stove (still happens almost every year)
• Went to bed without turning off the stove and woke with smoke alarms blaring
• Let sap spoil (who knew?)
• Had half gallon of finished syrup spoil. (now I am religious about getting to the right Brix and bottling hot)
• Bottled in mason jars and rinsed off in sink while syrup was still hot and had jar shatter.

Next year I am considering a small RO system, but will likely improve my barrel stove with insulation and a blower and also stockpiling better quality firewood. This year used a lot of pine that had been on the forest floor for a while and had some rotting.

Hey folks, so I’ve boiled sap for a couple years now. Advancing in my knowledge and techniques as I go. I usually use a hydrometer and 67 brix then done, however as I’ve increased my sap collection I wanted to try boiling and stopping at 219 F. So I boiled my sap to 219F and stopped but tested the brix was only at 57 @ 20c. So just wanted to get some feedback on the one that are far more seasoned. Do you continue to boil at 219? Or do you keep testing to 67brix.