It is almost that time of year for Rutty Buck Syrup! March is officially Maple Syrup Month in Minnesota. We are only one of 14 states that produces Maple syrup in the USA. The great thing is, you can tap trees in your own yard and make the best maple syrup you have ever tasted. It is nothing like the mass produced stuff you buy in the store. Plus, just like homemade BBQ, the process makes it that much better.
Over the years a group of my friends and I (Rutty Buck Syrup Co.) have steadily improved our process. We are currently using a 25-Gallon barrel evaporator we built two years ago. The evaporator has a 25-Gallon 304 Stainless steel evaporation pan that sits over a fire in the barrel. The inside of the barrel is lined with fire brick to help retain heat and create a larger thermal mass. This past weekend, I added two 3-gallon pre-heater pans to the back of the evaporator. This will help us by adding hot sap to the evaporator pan, speeding up the process and making the whole boiling process more efficient. This year we are also going to be using our new reverse osmosis set up. This will help to concentrate the raw sap out of the tree by removing some water before it is sen to the preheater. This should make the whole process more efficient overall.
Here are a few shots of some of our taps from last year. The sap flows from the tap, into 5-gallon buckets. (The lids are removed here so you can see the raw sap inside) It takes about 30-40 gallons of raw sap to produce on gallon of syrup! (Think of that the next time you complain about how expensive REAL maple syrup is) How do we know when it is time to collect sap? We wait for the daytime temperatures to be above freezing and night time temperatures to be below freezing. This cycle gets the sap flowing in the tree and allows us to collect the sap for processing. As many of you can imagine, this is a bit of a guessing game int he upper-midwest. If the temps drop considerably, the sap will stop flowing and the trees lock up. Luckily, they will resume flowing when temps rise again. Once things are in full swing, it is not uncommon to get 5-15 gallons of sap per tree on a really good day! We will put 2 taps in our big maples, but the rest of them only get on tap. We usually tap the same trees each year, but we make sure to move the taps to allow the tree to heal.
This season, I will post the processing on this thread for those that are interested in seeing how it all goes down. We always make a ton of food and BBQ during our weekend boils as well, so there will be plenty of food pictures to add as well. This is a great time every year and a really good reason to get together with friends and family after the long Minnesota winters. Stay tuned!
If anyone else is in the syrup game.....I would love to see your set up, taps and process.
Over the years a group of my friends and I (Rutty Buck Syrup Co.) have steadily improved our process. We are currently using a 25-Gallon barrel evaporator we built two years ago. The evaporator has a 25-Gallon 304 Stainless steel evaporation pan that sits over a fire in the barrel. The inside of the barrel is lined with fire brick to help retain heat and create a larger thermal mass. This past weekend, I added two 3-gallon pre-heater pans to the back of the evaporator. This will help us by adding hot sap to the evaporator pan, speeding up the process and making the whole boiling process more efficient. This year we are also going to be using our new reverse osmosis set up. This will help to concentrate the raw sap out of the tree by removing some water before it is sen to the preheater. This should make the whole process more efficient overall.
Here are a few shots of some of our taps from last year. The sap flows from the tap, into 5-gallon buckets. (The lids are removed here so you can see the raw sap inside) It takes about 30-40 gallons of raw sap to produce on gallon of syrup! (Think of that the next time you complain about how expensive REAL maple syrup is) How do we know when it is time to collect sap? We wait for the daytime temperatures to be above freezing and night time temperatures to be below freezing. This cycle gets the sap flowing in the tree and allows us to collect the sap for processing. As many of you can imagine, this is a bit of a guessing game int he upper-midwest. If the temps drop considerably, the sap will stop flowing and the trees lock up. Luckily, they will resume flowing when temps rise again. Once things are in full swing, it is not uncommon to get 5-15 gallons of sap per tree on a really good day! We will put 2 taps in our big maples, but the rest of them only get on tap. We usually tap the same trees each year, but we make sure to move the taps to allow the tree to heal.
This season, I will post the processing on this thread for those that are interested in seeing how it all goes down. We always make a ton of food and BBQ during our weekend boils as well, so there will be plenty of food pictures to add as well. This is a great time every year and a really good reason to get together with friends and family after the long Minnesota winters. Stay tuned!
If anyone else is in the syrup game.....I would love to see your set up, taps and process.
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