Tree ID please...

Hope it's Maple...only have a few in my area and was hoping to make maple syrup when the season comes around...no leaves left...many on the ground but could've been carried by wind...

I would say yes but I can't say if it's a sugar maple.


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Sure looks like a sugar maple to me.....and I've been making syrup for many years now. Best way to tell is to look even for one or two leaves that are "hangin' on"......I think I see one or two on the tree and they look like sugar maple to me. You can also drill a small hole where you plan to put your spile. Don't do it until February when you plan on tapping. Taste the sap, it'll be sweet...

Thanks, that's what I was hoping...there are a couple of Silver Maples near me and I read that you can make the syrup from their sap also although it doesn't yield as much...I read up on the process and plan to get my supplies including hydrometer, boil it outside till I want to test and get it to temperature on the stove...may be more pain than it's worth but it'll be fun anyway...thanks...

Hard(Sugar) Maple for sure.

Albert, I've thought about tapping some soft maple just to see how it would turn out. Also would like to try birch some day.

Just wondering how far up you put the spile in the tree.. was thinking of doing this wityh the kids.. would be fun

Only around two or three feet off the ground. Get some plastic tube-type spiles off of the internet. You gotta wait.til late.winter/early spring to do it, though. Get in touch with me then, I'll be tapping around 170-200 trees this year if all goes to plan .....

I searched the information and Scotty confirms what I found...I'll tap whatever trees I find, maybe 10 if I'm lucky just to try out the process...170-200 trees sounds like a lot but I guess you need that many to get a decent amount of syrup since it boils down so much...I saw all the equipment on Ebay...I like the one that joins the spiles to one tube...

Albert, a forum I would recommend for any help is sugarbush.info
Whatever you do DONT boil the sap in the house, you'll have so much moisture on the walls!
Hopefully we have a normal spring warm up. Last year I tapped the first week of February which was about 3 weeks earlier than usual. Just dont know what mother nature will do?

right...have a fire pit to do the real boiling then when I have it cooked down all the way was thinking about putting it on the stove and get it to temp then test with the hydrometer...

My first couple of years I used a mix of red maple, silver maple and sugar maple. worked out fine, but as I got access to more land and more sugar maples, I quit using the silvers and reds. Noticed a lot more yeild out of a gallon of sap when I went to all sugar maples. I'm getting roughly a gallon of syrup per 40 gallons of sap with all sugar maples. Some pics of my different cookers and tap set-ups....

This is the way I started out with it......Used the kettle from 2006 to 2010. Love to do it this way, but the wind steals alot of the heat from under the pan....




Came up with the barrel stove in 2010, which worked good (kettle in the barrel), but needed more of a stove so I could boost production.



Came up with my current set-up in 2011. 275 gallon oil tank for the stove, and welded in an angle iron frame to accept the approximate 5' x 3' custom stainless steel pan I built. This stove is amazing. I can boil off around 25 to 30 gallons an hour in this stove if I am there to stoke it...



Start out small to see if you like to do it, and if you like it get bigger and bigger each year. I made around 25 gallons of syrup last season in just three weeks of cooking. It was a horrible season, way too mild, way too early. here's a sample of one of my tap set-ups, too. bucket with spiles all teed into one tube. Works great.

And a very sticky moisture at that!

Most will go 3 feet. Hey, that also saves the back while drilling!

that's a fine example of what a good home process can be...I'll do as much as I can this year...seems like it would be easy enough and fun to get even a moderate amount of product...

yeah, we started out small and we really enjoy it, so we grow it a little every year. We have plenty of syrup to last us all year long and then some. not to mention I made around 10 pounds of maple sugar a couple years ago and we still have some of that left, it's great on sweet taters and carrots. Not to mention she makers snickerdoodle cookies out of that maple sugar and they are out of this world good!

Not necessarily easy, but can be fun. If you do this Albert, do try some maple syrup and snow if you get some good fresh snowfall, which you usually will do during that season.

I will...sounds good...