Making Maple Syrup

Our home is surrounded by 9 large maple trees that we guess to be around 100 years old. We enjoy their shade throughout the summer months and now we're enjoying homemade maple syrup made from their sap.

Last spring we boiled sap for the very first time. We had purchased a dozen metal spiles (taps) at a yard sale the summer before. A real find for a couple of bucks! The spiles were the only maple syrup making tools that we owned. We used milk jugs to collect our sap and run of the mill roasting pans found in almost everyone's kitchen to boil it. Our video below will show you the process.

We really enjoyed making maple syrup. This project gave us a reason to get outside and have fun before the cabin fever set in!   :D   The process is time consuming but simple enough. Our only real cost was the purchase of the spiles. We collected sap for about 3 weeks, spent 3 afternoons outside boiling and ended up with 1.5 gallons of delicious maple syrup.

We will be tapping trees again this spring. Stay tuned for more videos!

P.S.  We've been doing a little research and found that there are several different types of trees that can be tapped for syrup. There's a lot of information available online. We've shared a few pins on the subject on our Backwoods Knowledge Pinterest Board.