The Sugar Shack

Ok, it's spring (FINALLY!) and with it comes the flow of sap. Last year was the first year I boiled sap for syrup and I'm doing it again this year.

I take my electric boil kettle and fill it with sap and turn it on (220V, 5000W element). I turn a fan on to blow the steam out the garage door. When it starts to boil down to the level of the element I top it off with more sap.

I have a small stand of BoxElder trees that I tap, and my sister has a couple of large maples in her yard. I tap the one tree with several very large trunks and collect the 4 spiles into 2 buckets.

One of the guys at work is letting me tap a couple of his trees, like his neighbor did before he moved away. I'm tapping 4 trees into 3 buckets.

These buckets are all at least 5 gallon and a couple are my primary buckets. The boil kettle is a 15 gallon keggle. I tend to boil after work and on weekends when I'm home, but it's flowing so good now that I have to fill the kettle to the top and let it run while I am at work all day. This is the time where I could use a float switch to shut the juice off when it gets low!

So far I've boiled down just over 1 gallon of syrup, and it's just starting to flow good now. I don't know how much longer it's going to run, but I'll keep collecting and boiling until it's done.

I really only do this for the fun of it and to give syrup out to my friends and family. I bought some nice glass bottles this year and filled 12 of them so far with what I finished boiling in the house. Last year I boiled too long and it made a dark syrup. It tastes ok, but it tends to sugar pretty easy.

It's a pretty easy process if you have an electric kettle ready to go. The only downside is that my main kettle is out of action for beer when I'm boiling sap, but I have backup equipment so I could brew if need be.

 

Sounds like fun. I kept waiting for your post to turn to the subject of using the the sap or the syrup in a brew vs sugars/fermentables.

I have a maple in the yard with about 6 trunks growing up out of one. I have thought about tapping it, even bought a few taps and small buckets last year. I'm in Atlantic Canada, and after a nasty cold spell, I suspect the sap is running now.

Have you tried any sap in a brew recipe?

 

No, I have not. I have thought about it, and I might later this year. I'm thinking about a maple porter, or a smoked maple porter. I'll need to see how much syrup I have when I've given it all out. I will have no idea how much I'll have till the season is over. I am new to this and don't know for sure how the weather will play out once it gets warmer.

I've heard that maple syrup flavor doesn't come through well in most beers. I know that using sap for brewing water is a big waste of time since the sugar and flavor elements are so very miniscule compared to the volume. It takes a while to cook down the syrup too. If I had a better boil kettle and access to a lot more trees I could see boiling enough syrup to make a maple beer a regular rotation. But it's pricey as I'm doing it now.

If I find enough trees to tap I can see building a shallow boiling pan to speed up the process. This keggle doesn't have the surface area to really boil it down quickly.

 

Next year I plan on gathering a bunch of sap to make a maple imperial porter. I will have to play some with it. I have access to lots of syrup as it is. So for me I'd hope to get a ton of sap to run a few experimental brews.

 

What does box elder syrup taste like?

 

I was thinking the same thing, never heard of tapping a box elder tree. I had a couple huge ones at my old house, didn't realize they were good for anything, except lose a few limbs in high winds.
Homercidal, I use to live in Howard City, I was in Big Rapids atleast once a weekend, made it to Reed City to pick up steel scrap pieces at the scrap yard there. I recently moved to Vestaburg, but now have more acreage, so I may have to start boiling for syrup too some day.:rockin:

 

I don't know what Box Elder tastes like as I generally mix it in with about 4-5 times maple sap. The maples are various, I may be tapping red or Silver maples for all I know!

Unfortunately I had a memory lapse while boiling and forgot to check it. It was getting really thick and boiled down past the electric element in my kettle. I don't know if the element is burnt out, but it did burn some of the sap/syrup.

I tasted what was in there and it's really thick and tastes ok, but taste like caramelized syrup. I think it would go well in a smoked porter or something, if it's not good enough for pancake syrup. I added a bit of fresh sap and heated it up to thin it back down and will try to get it in the house to filter and make a decision on. I was too busy that day to get all of that done.

I'm hoping the recent cold snap will jump start the sap again and give me another chance to boil a few quarts more of syrup. Got to get that stuff out of the kettle and clean the kettle first though. Maybe tonight.

 

when i lived farther up north we use to tap white birch trees. syrups was pretty nice.

 

Birch was on my agenda early on, but I don't have access to any good trees.

 

With that much sap you should look into making an Acerglyn.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/acerglyn-61136/

 

To be honest, the thought did cross my mind and it was brought up at my homebrew club. I never got around to actually looking online for recipes and information. At the club meeting we briefly talked about boiling sap down to a desired OG and using that.

I'm leery about using this burnt syrup, as I don't think it would make a very nice acerglyn. I might try it if the sap starts flowing again and I get a decent amount boiled down to a good OG.