The Sap Run

I know, I know.....some of you folks are wondering what in the world is she talking about now?   Sap, as in the sap in trees.   To be more specific, I'm talking about the sap in maple trees.   And as for the "run" part, that just means the sap is coming from the ground and being drawn up into the trees.  

During the most frigid months of winter the sap is very slow to move inside the trees.   But when the temps rise above freezing during the day after being below 32 degrees at night, the sap starts to be drawn up into the trees.   Thus, the term, "run".   Ok, it's not running with legs, but it's traveling at a pretty good pace as you'll soon see.

Two years ago I had read how you could tap black walnut trees.   Yes, I was surprised about that too.   I had always had the impression you could only get syrup from Sugar maple trees.   Well, there are more than a dozen varieties of trees that can be tapped for their sap and then cook it down to create syrup.  Who knew?!?   Well, we bought taps from a company in Canada and after some trial and error we made syrup from our black walnut trees.   And was it ever yummy!   It tasted just like maple syrup and nutty at the same time.

Now, why, you ask, didn't we tap our maple trees that winter?   Duh!   We hadn't been living on the farm that long and without the leaves on the trees I couldn't tell which trees were maple, oak, beech or shagbark hickory.  (Yes, we have quite a few of those.)  I made a point of watching all of our trees close to the house this year during late summer and fall to clarify in my mind which trees I wanted to tap this year.   Oh, yeah.  And I missed the "run" last year because the weather warmed up so fast and the run was done before we had a chance to catch the sap.

And so last week Joel and I decided it was time to tap the maples and give them a try this year.   We had been saving milk jugs since early December.   Yes, they are the stars of our Exclusive line of Sap Collectors.  Very chic, indeed!  

And the core hardware used in sap collecting is these little beauties.   They are well made metal tap, and hollow inside which allows the sap to run from inside the tree down into our collection containers.

These taps are made in Canada(they do a lot of syrup making up there) and are designed to be driven into the tree after a hole is drilled.  If you don't drill the hole first, and simply drive the tap into the tree, the wood clogs up the tap.  And then there would be no sap coming out of the tap.

First you drill the hole "up" at an angle and a little over an inch into the tree.   Don't worry, this doesn't harm the tree and the holes seal up on their own once the tap is removed.

Then you "tap" the tap into the hole with a hammer, leaving enough space behind the ridge on the tap for the milk jug, er, um, our Exclusive Sap Collector to hang.

Before you start running around tapping trees, though, you need to make sure the tree is at least 14" in diameter so as not to harm a younger tree.   This particular tree is inside the fencing of the potager garden.   Late this fall we moved the swing into the potager so I could sit there and look down over our valley.   The swing made a great place to hold all of our equipment while we drilled the holes.

Then Joel cut a specialty hole.....ok, so it's just a triangle, but that took some skill.  Tee-hee.   Not too big or the jug will blow off the tap in the almost constant winds we have here.

See the drip getting ready to fall off the tap?   Yes, well, that was after less than 30 seconds of being in the tree.   Oh, yeah, baby, we hit the timing just right this year.  Notice the ridge at the top of the tap.   That is an integral part of this simple operation.   Great design by those guys in Canada, by the way.

My Tree Tapping Expert lines up the hole in the jug with the tap and slides it on, making sure the edge of the milk carton is over the lip of the ridge at the top of the tap.   And that's all that holds the carton onto the tap until we come out to empty the contents twice a day.   We've only had one carton that has blown off so far, dumping it's liquid on the ground.

See the sap at the bottom of this jug?   That was what had collected in the time it took us to drill the four holes and install the jugs on this much larger tree out in our front yard.   It's really surprising how fast the sap runs.   If you put some on your finger and taste it, it mostly tastes like water with just a hint of sweetness on your tongue.   Sap is somewhere in the range of 94-95% water which is why it needs to be boiled down to evaporate the water and what you are left with is syrup.

Since this tree in our front yard has a diameter of somewhere in the neighborhood of 20" we could put 4 jugs on it.   Oh, I forgot to mention that the idea is to put your tap somewhere above a large root coming out of the ground.   This tree had so many large roots that we could put a tap almost anywhere around the tree.   We noticed there were old holes made by a bird called....wait for it.....a Sap Sucker.   Some of those holes were actually seeping sap down the sides of the tree.  Yes, we hit the run at just the right time.

So this year we are only tapping the maples and only two trees, at that.   Remarkably, the sap has been running so fast and furious that I have had to empty the jugs twice a day.   And where do I empty them?    Into the largest pots I have that will fit into our spare refrigerator down in the pavilion.  

There is just one problem.   We have collected so much sap in a week that the refrigerator is full with the largest pots I own, each of them filled to the brim with clear sap.   Sigh, such a good problem to have!    The sap needs to be kept cold so it doesn't get moldy, which means I can't just set it out in the open because our temps have been fluctuating into the 50's here lately.  

You know what that means, don't you?   Yes, we had to start boiling down the sap yesterday to make room for more in the refrigerator.   Here's how it works.   You sit outside, get the biggest burners you have and put the pots on top and sit and watch for hours as the sap boils down.   The 94% water in the sap evaporates from the pot and as it does the sap turns from a clear color to a soft yellow to an amber.

The pots need to be watched so they don't boil down to nothing which would ruin the batch.   Once the liquid in the pot boils down to about 2" more sap is added and the process begins all over again.   Wash, rinse, repeat.  For hours.    Like 4-6 hours.   On a dreary, damp, windy day.   While we drink coffee and sit in our comfy lawn chairs and read a book.  

Every once in a while I take a fine meshed sieve and scoop out any froth that collects on the surface of each boiling pot.   Our goal this weekend is to cook down the almost 15 gallons of sap we have collected in a week so it fits into a small pot which will go back into the refrigerator.    We will repeat this process every week as long as the sap is running clear in the trees.   Once the sap collecting in our jugs turns cloudy the run is over.

The very last step in this process is to take the amber liquid we have spent hours cooking down and bring it into the house where we will refine the final stages of creating syrup.    I'll post more on that in the weeks to come, complete with pictures for you to see our progress.   And now you know what we are doing this weekend.  

I'm sure it won't be long before I can show you pictures of the final stages of our syrup making process.   Until then, we'll keep on collecting sap and boiling it down.   It'll be interesting to see how much syrup our work yields this year.

Sticky fingers,
Debbie