Early Boxelder (Maple) Sugaring, I Make My Own Spiles.

Looking at the weather forecast last week I saw the upcoming week's temperatures would cycle in the range that is good for sugaring maples.  I have been procrastinating buying spiles for about a month now, and last Thursday I decided I would try to make my own out of some scrap tubing I had lying around.

Here is what I came up with.  I would say it was better than paying a couple dollars each but I broke my bandsaw blade in the process.  A bit of scrounging and 4 extension cords later I headed out to the treeline and installed it in a boxelder tree growing out back.

After installing it I promptly forgot about it until Sunday morning.  I headed out to check the pail.  It had collected a quart of sap, not much but enough to see if there was a decent sugar content.  I boiled it down on the stove until it was very thick and then stuck it in a 250° oven to drive the rest of the water off.

There was my yield out of that first quart, 3/8oz.  This would work out to 1.5oz/gallon of sap.  The Lohman's maples yielded 2oz/gal in previous averages, and the previous time I sugared this particular tree I got an amazing 4oz/gal, though reading through previous posts I only yielded 2 gallons of sap (and I can't remember if I got more after that post.)  I suspect the yield was low because it is so early in the season.  In the 2 intervening days I found about a quart each day, and that little jar is now full to the top of sugar.  I have yet to weigh that but I will give weekly totals as this season goes on.

I personally prefer to take the sap all the way to sugar because the first time I sugared maples some of my syrup got moldy.  In a sugar state it is a lot more shelf stable, and I could always rehydrate it into syrup if I wanted.

Oh, and for Sharon who asked about bird poop getting in the bucket, it seems ants are a bigger problem.  Filtration is still the solution.