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I made my own maple syrup!

And not just anywhere, mind you: I did this in a Zone 8B with only one day of running sap! You're not supposed to be able to sugar here in Charlotte, but if you've known me for a while, you know I don't believe that half of the rules out there apply to me, so I made it happen, LOL.

I used my silver maples (Acer saccharinum) because we don't have sugar maples this far south. We typically don't get the sub freezing nights to make the sap run either, except for maybe a day or two out of the year, and by now, the buds are already opening on some of the trees, but I decided to give it a try anyway! This tree is huge (see compared to my lawn mower), so I put four spiles in it. The others all had two.

I tapped five maples and two pecans for a total of thirteen spiles. Five were dripping at 30 dpm, and the others much less or not at all. All in all, I got 1.5 gallons of sap. I used my camping stove to boil it all down. Nothing fancy or high tech. Took about three hours.

The result was about two ounces of syrup. Not much, but it was a learning experience and I am now ready for years with good runs. I at least now, know what I'm doing. It's a slightly different flavor than sugar maple syrup, but still Grade A amber and delicious! The cats licked the pans clean, LOL.

Re: I made my own maple syrup!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snarkie (Post 351786)

Sweet!
It's amazing you did that.

Re: I made my own maple syrup!

There's more subfreezing (barely) temps forecast a week out for five days or so, so I may be able to try again. One tree is already budded out, so it's off the list, but hopefully the rest will run again before they flower.