Winter time. Things are generally pretty slow on the farm. But when the conditions are right (cold wintry nights and warmish days), the maple syrup runs. What better thing to do than to tap some trees and make some maple syrup!
In late October, I looked out and took notice of a lovely grove of big leaf maple trees. Being in Washington state, we do not get the sugar maples from back east. The maples here still yield syrup, but at a rate closer to 1:80 rather than the sugar maple's envious 1:40 ratio.
I purchased some cheap plastic spiles off of Amazon, because I was not sure this experiment would work. I think in the future, I will probably try more durable metal spiles. Nonetheless, I took a 5/16" drill bit and drilled between 2 to 2 1/2" in depth on the sunny side of the tree. I basically drilled until the wood started to get this appearance of wet frothiness. When I pulled back, lo and behold, little drips started coming down! I inserted the tubing into one end of a spile (note... having hot water really helps soften the tubing so it becomes easier to slip onto the spile). The other end of the spile went into the tree. I used a rubber mallet to tap in the spiles, as a regular hammer had a tendency the shatter the plastic (ask me how I know this). I drilled a small hole on the top of my food grade BPA free 5 gallon buckets, inserted the tubing and waited for 3 days.
After three days, 5 buckets yielded about 20 gallons of sap. Time for the boil down! I would strongly recommend boiling the sap down outdoors, or better yet, in your own sugar shack. 20 gallons of sap boiled down to a little over a quart of syrup. So, unless you want a bunch of water vapor in your house, do this activity outdoors. Also, nothing quite like watching sap boiling off while snow drifts down around you.
Finishing off the syrup. Once the temperature probe hit 219 degrees F, we were ready to filter and bottle.
After dispensing the syrup into bottles, I pressure cooked them for 45 minutes for good measure. Overall, I was quite pleased with the final product. It did not taste exactly like maple syrup from the east coast sugar maples. There was a slight tinge of a grassy/sugar cane taste. We will keep the taps on until the taps run dry. It's a great feeling to know we no longer need to buy maple syrup! Pancakes and waffles for breakfast anyone? :)