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Thread: Maple syrup!

  1. #41
    naturalist primitive your_comforting_company's Avatar
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    Thank you for all this information. Good stuff RWC. I have bookmarked this thread for future reference.
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  2. #42

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    You're welcome!

    I had french toast this morning w' fresh maple syrup. MMM MMM! This stuff is tasty and it's not real strong like some of the stuff you get in the store. Mine is not very thick. I don't kn ow if that is normal or what, but it's definitely syrup.

    I carefully poured off the clear stuff last night into a new jar and the sugar sand that was settled stayed right in the bottom of the old jar. I was worried it would get all stirred up when I tried to pour it off, but it didn't. I only lost about 1/8 of a cup, a few tbsp., of syrup that was left in the bottom with the sugar sand or nitre as some call it. I tasted the syrup with the concentrated nitre/ sugar sand and couldn't tell no difference. It wasn't gritty or anything, just cloudy.

    I'm no scientist or nutritionist, but from what I gather the stuff that makes up sugar sand is good for you anyway. People just filter it out to make the syrup pretty and clear.

  3. #43
    Senior Member Ted's Avatar
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    Great thread RWC! Congatulations on your success!

    I tapped one huge one in my front yard, and I mean huge 3 and a half to 4 ft in dia. Not sure what kind but deff a maple. Got about 3/4 a gallon the 1st day and then it just stopped. Got it in the freezer. Just going to thaw it and drink it up!
    I'm a simple man, of simple means, turned my back on the machines, to follow my dreams.

  4. #44

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    It tastes pretty good straight up.

    Easy way to tell the sugar maples, black and sugar, have smooth leaf edges/ leaf margins, whereas the red and silvers have tiny sawtooth pointed edges. They all have big main points where the veins run out to the tip though. It's easy to find the leaves cuz they shed so many. Those are the main 4 used for tapping, but there are others. Sugars or blacks are easy to spot because the bark curls on one side out from the trunk. Some people think they crossbreed too, I might agree. I can't yet tell the difference between a silver and red or a black and sugar, but I can tell the difference based on leaves and bark between the sugars and the seconds. Black and sugar are the sugars and red and silver are considered second choices by most. Of course if a sugarbush farmer farms reds he'll probably disagree with that.

    I checked the maples at the boy scout camp today, they're sugars or blacks, and no one has tapped them this year. As I said they are very old, 18 in all running on both sides of what used to be a road, but is now woods. I looked around and found some old taps 10' up on the tree. They probably ran higher too. They've healed over completely and you could barley tell they were taps, and even the taps from last year have begun to fill in. It appears as someone has stuffed a piece of wood in to plug the holes, but it's actually the tree itself doing the plugging. There were more than thirty old taps on one tree that I could make out and the majority of the trees still look quite healthy. They've got to be getting near the end of their lives though.

    I found about 12 more sugar or black maples hidden off the beaten path, might tap those next year.

  5. #45
    Senior Member ClayPick's Avatar
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    This is a cross section of a tap hole, it’s used at the local sugar camp to show how the tree repairs itself.
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    Here are some of the spiles they used years ago. It’s way different today!
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  6. #46
    Senior Member Ted's Avatar
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    Thanks RWC! It has smooth edges,as does the one in back yard, sweeeeeet! The drawings in my Peterson guide were of red and sugar, new it wasn't red. The sugar didn't have as pronounced points as mine. So now I'm thinking may be a black,thanks again!
    I'm a simple man, of simple means, turned my back on the machines, to follow my dreams.

  7. #47

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    Thanks claypick, I wonder how long it took to heal over that much.

    You're welcome Ted. My maple ID is not the best. I seem to forget them year to year and end up going back to the books.

  8. #48
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    Default hey, Its about Maple :)

    Tapping of Mass. cemetery maple trees gets bad rap

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    SOUTH LANCASTER — Maple syrup producers are under fire for tapping maple trees in Central Massachusetts cemeteries. The Worcester Telegram reports Monday that at least two cemeteries in Lancaster and one in Petersham have sap buckets on trees that stand along side rows of tombstones. Athol Public Works Director Douglas Walsh said a recent investigation of tapped trees in Chestnut Hill Road Cemetery found that the culprits were neighborhood kids.

    In Lancaster's Old Settlers and Eastwood cemeteries, the Lancaster Cub Scout Pack 9 tapped trees as part of a project after receiving permission.

    But Lancaster selectmen said they didn't know cemetery trees would be tapped and they received several calls about it.

    Walsh said tapping trees along roads is normal, but in cemeteries it's "a little tacky.
    http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2010/0...s-gets-bad-rap

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    Okay. I don't know about you but I don't think I want the title of Head Athol. Just sayin'....
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  10. #50
    reclinite automaton canid's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Justin Case View Post
    Tapping of Mass. cemetery maple trees gets bad rap

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    SOUTH LANCASTER — Maple syrup producers are under fire for tapping maple trees in Central Massachusetts cemeteries. The Worcester Telegram reports Monday that at least two cemeteries in Lancaster and one in Petersham have sap buckets on trees that stand along side rows of tombstones. Athol Public Works Director Douglas Walsh said a recent investigation of tapped trees in Chestnut Hill Road Cemetery found that the culprits were neighborhood kids.

    In Lancaster's Old Settlers and Eastwood cemeteries, the Lancaster Cub Scout Pack 9 tapped trees as part of a project after receiving permission.

    But Lancaster selectmen said they didn't know cemetery trees would be tapped and they received several calls about it.

    Walsh said tapping trees along roads is normal, but in cemeteries it's "a little tacky.
    http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2010/0...s-gets-bad-rap
    i, and several other people i know get dirty looks hunting mushrooms in cemeteries.
    i don't care if it's a battlefield and people actually died there, if i see a morel or a porcini, i'm picking it. period.
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  11. #51
    Administrator Rick's Avatar
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    And it ain't like those folks are gonna eat them.
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  12. #52
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    Wild Mushrooms scare the hell out of me,

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  13. #53

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    Mushrooms, Maple syup and cemeteries go hand in hand.

    I wonder if there's a possiblilty of sap contamination from the leaking caskets.

  14. #54
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    Thanks, Now I'm scared of maple syrup too now

  15. #55

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    There's a lot of sugar maples in our cemetery so I'd like to know.

  16. #56
    Senior Member ClayPick's Avatar
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    I was wondering the same thing. The sugar part was been made by photosynthesis and saved in the form of starch, but the water part of it? The roots run far and deep and most likely would mingle with a cadaver! Someone well healed in Botany might know how permeable the root membrane is? My guess is that it would be fine and for sure after boiling.
    The tree scar is 5 years old give or take.

  17. #57
    Senior Member ClayPick's Avatar
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    This is the local sugar shack. The building on the right holds a 1,700 gal. storage tank.
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    They bring the sap down from the hills on this sap line.
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  18. #58
    Senior Member ClayPick's Avatar
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    Here’s the business end of it!
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  19. #59

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    Thanks claypick. I saw a post on another forum where a guy cut an old maple and in crossection you could see old taps that had completely healed over. It left really neat "star shaped" growth rings in crossection.

    Nice to see how the big boys do it. i'll take the evaporator.

    I have one more pic to share and it shows the sugar sand that settled to the bottom after being filtered thru cheesecloth. http://s101.photobucket.com/albums/m...t=100_1934.jpg

    Might be some dead bodies in there, but I tasted it and it was good. LOL!

  20. #60
    hunter-gatherer Canadian-guerilla's Avatar
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    great thread

    another item on my " to do " list is tapping trees ( birch, maple )

    may start with a birch, simply for drinking water
    and may try boiling some maple sap
    .
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    and the second is the person who lives mostly on ( wild ) edibles

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