title: Let's Catch You Up!

This time last year David and I ventured into making maple syrup from the trees on our property. We learned a ton about what to do and what not to do. I didn’t document the process that much, but here are a few of the highlights:

started March 1st
20 taps (our buckets, spiles and lids were a gift from David's parents)
collected ~250 gallons of sap throughout the season; most we collected in one day was 50 gallons
lost/wasted probably 80 gallons due to spoiling or burning the syrup in the final stage
stored sap in 5 gallon buckets, a trash can and a 55 gallon drum
used 2 gallon buckets with lids and handles to collect the sap
first attempted evaporation with a portable double burner…bahahaha! That idea lasted a whole hour, the sap barely even steamed, it was returned REAL quick
second attempt was a wood fire; couldn’t get it hot enough so the sap barely boiled; also extremely messy with all the soot and a pain in the a$$ to clean the pots and pans
next bought a stove top off of craigslist, wired it to plug into an outlet, then set it on top of David’s busted table saw (kitchen reno killed it); this process worked decently well
the stove top allowed us to boil down about 5 gallons every 2 hours using 3 large pots and a small dutch oven
made a little over 2 gallons of syrup for the season

Materials cleaned Buckets hung

1st attempt at evaporation - straight up pathetic!

2nd attempt at evaporation

3rd attempt at evaporation As you can see the winter takes a toll on David

Storage containers...we're pretty classy up in here

Finishing up on the stove Sweet, delectable, liquid gold

Once we concluded our season I told David we either figure out a better way to evaporate or we use fewer taps. The process we had just couldn't boil the sap quick enough with the rate we were collecting. I wasn't a fan of hauling that sap up the hill just to throw it out once it started to smell like rotten eggs.

Well it’s 2015 and David accepted the challenge! He’s definitely one to research so after countless hours of the internet and YouTube, the following are pictures of his process to build an evaporator that will hopefully boil 13 gallons an hour!

bought a large tank on Craigslist used for heating oil storage
bought bed frames at Habitat resale store to use to hold the containers filled with sap
one of David’s buddies, Alan, came over and helped him cut the top off, flip it over and tack weld in place
bought two 4’x8’ pieces of metal from a local metal shop (pans we were looking for were either not big enough or WAY too expensive so the next logical step would be to make them!)
many hours have been spent experimenting with what will work and learning it doesn't, but in the end after much collaboration we land on a solution