How to Collect Maple Syrup for Eating in Your Kitchen

If you wish to make maple syrup at home, the first thing you must accomplish is to collect some fresh sap from a maple tree.You can do this by finding one or more maple trees. The maple tree with the most sugar in its sap is the Sugar Maple. Nevertheless, the other types such as Ash-leafed Maple, Silver Maple and Red Maple can also be used, although you will not be getting sap as sweet as that of the Sugar Maple tree. The Sugar Maple is the best to use for making maple candy or maple syrup recipe. Furthermore, you need to be certain that the trees you pick have at least a diameter of ten inches and a height of four and a half feet.

The next thing you should do is to drill a hole in the trunk of the tree. A depth of two to thee inches and a diameter of 7/16 inch must be the dimensions of this hole. If there are some loose wood, clean it out of the hole. Once you have done this, use a hammer and lightly tap a spout into the hole. A spout is available in hardware shops, feed stores and farm supply stores.

Get a clean bucket and hang it onto the spout to catch the maple sap as it drips out. This bucket must be rust-proof. It is also advisable to use a container with a lid because this prevents insects, rainwater, wood shavings and bits of bark from falling into the sap.

If you are done gathering a sufficient amount of sap, refrigerate it until you are ready to boil it and convert it into maple syrup. Note that if you want to make a lot of maple syrup, you also need to collect more than a lot of sap. This is because only one gallon of maple syrup can be made from 40 gallons of sap!

You need to boil the sap fresh from a maple tree because it contains only about two percent of sugar while the rest is water content. Thus, it needs boiling until much of its water content evaporates. For boiling, use a large stainless steel pan or pot. It is better to boil the sap outdoors because there will surely be intense steam.

The sap with better quality is the sap that boils faster. When the sap first begins to boil, determine its temperature and take note of it. You will use this initial temperature later on. Go back indoors and complete the boiling there once the sap starts to become thick. Measure the temperature of the sap from time to time. You will know that it is ready when its temperature is already hotter than the initial temperature by 7 degrees Fahrenheit.

Once the syrup is ready, use a food-approved filter, strainer, or clean cheesecloth and strain the syrup so that any trace of debris and crystallized sugars can be removed. And there you have it; you have created homemade maple syrup! You can even make different maple syrup grades.