Hello All,

I was wondering if anyone else has experience collecting sap from Maple and Walnut trees during sugar season? I have a dozen or so trees on the property and have all my Dad's old taps plus some new buckets and figured I'd give it a shot. Might as well make use of them since I have to deal with their leaves they can give a little back.

Any advice would be appreciated.

A number of years ago there was a few threads about doing so. Tony (sprkplug) started one. I found it, here it is. Making Maply Syrup

I have a few taps and made it one year, it's a LOT of water to boil off to get syrup. Best time to tap trees is when daytime temps are above freezing and night time temps are below freezing. Stop collecting when the buds start to show on the trees - the sap will get bitter.

Thanks esshup, I barely remember much about the process as me and my brother basically sledded all day while Dad and his pals cut wood and made syrup. I dimly recall it took a lot of Miller High Life before they produced a final product

Walnut syrup? That's a new one.

We know a couple of serious maple sap collectors here; the use vacuum tubing instead of buckets for collection. Greater volume.

Yea, they always tapped black walnuts as well as Maple and boiled it separate (or at least they said so). I don't remember much of a difference between the 2 but we are talking 40 years ago and about of bunch of then mid-40's guys who knew more about logging, building fires and fermented beverages than just about anything else when gathered together.

Shoot, I can still hear the barrel of homemade sauerkraut gurgling in the basement - them dudes liked "projects".

Weird. My wife and I just returned from the sugarbush about an hour ago, been tapping trees most of the day. Then I hear someone on Pondboss is asking about the process.
Yes, we've tapped black walnuts. Syrup is incredible, process is much the same with a couple of notable differences. Our first year I boiled 10 gallons of sap, now we produce 6 types of maple syrup. I'll help in any way I can, but a few years ago I agreed to stop posting on the forum. If you're on Facebook, look us up at B&B Farms Maple Syrup. If not send me a pm and we'll work it out. I'll keep an eye on this site for a couple days. Good luck with your sugaring, it's VERY addictive!

Hey Tony, good to hear from you, even if you are just passing through.

Ditto

Hello.

We can make Syrup with Birch trees, but with Walnut tree WOW.

How many gallons of water from the Walnut tree, to make a gallon of Syrup.

A+

Hello 4 corners, howdy Scott. Nice to see some names from the past. I nosed around the forum a bit, but things seem pretty subdued. Hope everyone is well.

We ran almost 90:1 ratio sap/syrup for black walnut.

Off topic reply - but I am enjoying this discussion (and others) about people rekindling "old-time" pursuits.

My grandmother used to make delicious sand plum jelly. My brother collected 5-6# of sand plums at our property this year. His jelly was excellent. (But still not as good as Grandma's!)




P.S. Thanks to everyone that posts these types of projects on Pond Boss. I always learn something new, and if it is too far "off topic" for those who only come here for the ponds, then it is easy to skip these posts.

I hoped not to offend with "off topic" FishinRod but have learned so much here you don't find in a book from people who have actually done things it was worth a shot.

Seems a waste not to check in for real world experience from such a vast group of folks with know how.

STP,

I ENJOYED the thread you started.

I was marking my "sand plum jelly" reply as off topic - since your thread resulted in a lot of really good discussion for everyone regarding making syrup from sap!

We humans can certainly fail to communicate when tone and body language are not included with the words. Sorry I didn't write more clearly in my reply!

Tony:

Check your PM's.

Good to know FishinRod, we can certainly use more human inflection that simple print does not provide. I've never heard of sand plums, perhaps not native to Ohio? As for giving syrup a whirl, might as well learn and have a little fun in these 3-4 months of gray skies until the ice melts on the pond plus - who doesn't like building a fire? I don't know a man woman or child who doesn't like snow on the ground and a hot fire going, now we'll just boil sap on it as we go!

I have a few black walnuts at our farm, so we may try walnut syrup at some point in the future.

We do have thousands of invasive Siberian Elms at our farm. I always clear some in the winter after multiple hard freezes, yet they still run sap like a faucet.

Unfortunately, some of my neighbors call them "piss elms" - and the sap does smell like that at certain times of the year.

If someone would invent a valuable product made from Siberian Elm sap, I could retire as a multi-millionaire and just have fun improving my ponds all year!

All joking aside, what other types of trees have sap that can be rendered down to tasty syrup?

Hello.

Site with several species that produce syrup.

https://practicalselfreliance.com/trees-species-tap-syrup/
A+

Thanks azteca, that is a great link!

We do have a few boxelders. I didn't know they were maple trees, but one look at the seeds should have been a good clue.

The article says you can also tap elm trees. If we ever set up to boil sap, then I will have to try some of our elm trees. I think I could fill a bucket in about five minutes!

Great website, azteca, I'm just learning and making this up as I go along but it sure has the family excited.

Update, the Black Walnuts are running like crazy. We are going to boil off 8-10 gallons over the weekend - should be fun while we wait through the endless Super Bowl coverage before the game.

Be well!

They really should be running next week. Here we will have a few days in the 40's with night time temps at or below freezing.

I'm hoping so, we had 3 great days with the right weather but now a couple cold days then right back to perfect weather. It's all about learning and being outside some.

Hey esshup, we boiled down 8g of black walnut sap to syrup. keeping to the math that turned out to be 5 8oz bottles of syrup finishing at 218F, filtered twice (once off the outdoor stove and the second into the bottle indoors using doubled over cheesecloth both times).

One could boil farther, more water than what I thought but I stayed to the temps and holy cow get out the vanilla ice cream, it's butterscotch. Maybe a hint of walnut but, it's butterscotch.

Enjoy the rest of the season.

Solving the pectin problem with walnuts: skim the foam, double up your cheesecloth when it look like "this is about to go down" filter into a second pan for another 30 minutes outside, double up the cheesecloth (meaning fold a piece over into a metal colander) again into the final pot and do the rest on the stove. Zero cloudiness in my experience but if you don't skim you'll really see the pectin build up.

Fun ride, if you have them - use them!

Has anybody made syrup from pecan trees? They are part of the hickory group (Carya genus).

When this post first went up, I contemplated which trees at our farm could be tapped. Just today I realized that I have one large pecan tree and three small ones at our house. That would certainly be more manageable for me to monitor the collection buckets!

It appears you're in there like swimwear if you can to give it a shot FishinRod. I'd go for it, Pecan syrup sounds really good on a pancake or on ice cream!

https://www.instructables.com/How-to-make-Maple-Syrup/

My burn time on the walnuts turned out to be around an hour a gallon before pulling it indoors to finish at 219 degrees. Maybe someone else knows better about pecan but I imagine it's around the same. It is fun if you have the time on the weekend and don't mind keeping an eye on the pan, i went with one of those rectangular pans they use in catering for maximum surface heat, (maybe 10 bucks and "stainless steel - right). It is possible someone with think you're cooking meth in the backyard though, it's a lot of boiling!

I hope you go for it.

Hey Tony! Great to see you posting here!
Miss ya, man!