Making Maple Syrup... in KENTUCKY!
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- Parent Category: Homesteading Skills
When I told him to go ahead and give it a try who knew that we would turn into the maple monsters that we have become!! He found a few trees outside the house and tapped them with his arrows pieces. It wasn’t long until we had a gallon of sap and we just had to try and boil it down. So out came the barbeque! It seemed to take forever to boil that gallon of sap down to the tablespoon full of syrup that we got. Even though it was burnt a little it still tasted... like maple syrup and we all had visions of maple syrup dancing through our minds. It wasn’t long until we had over 5 more gallons of sap that we had to boil down. The barbeque wasn’t going to do so we went scrambling to grandma’s house to steal her wood stove! (She was in Montana at the time, so, why not? What was she going to do? Fly back to Maine and get us!)
She had an old parlor stove that she wasn’t using so we borrowed it. We set the stove up outside of our house with a big roasting pan that was about 4 inches deep. We filled the pan to the top with sap, started the fire, and then we sat there, and sat there, and sat there......... and nothing happened. We figured it was to much sap so we got a smaller pan and put less sap in it so it was not any deeper than a 1/2 inch of sap and when it finally started to boil we thought we were going to town! I think we got it to boil about one gallon an hour. Well, if we were going to town, we were going quite slowly!
We went on like that for awhile that year until we tapped about 20 more trees on another piece of land that we owned. An older gentleman in our church used to make syrup and gave us his old taps which enabled us to do so. It wasn’t long until we knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that we could not even think of keeping up. So we decided it was time to build a real evaporator. My wife went to the internet and found a design for one and the boys and I built it. We were on our way to the big leagues now! We were going to make syrup and we were going to make it fast!
This evaporator was a 50 gallon drum and it stood upright with a canning pot put into the top and a smokestack behind it. We made two of those and we got them to boil at about a rate of 4 gallons an hour each. We were so excited about boiling that much an hour that each drum got it’s own nickname. The one was dubbed ‘Ole Blue’ and the other one ‘Rusty’. They got there names because when we built them the one was blue and the other one was all rusty. (The kids are so creative with their nicknames!) So we finished our first season out with those and thought we did pretty good. We made about 3 gallons of liquid gold that first year and needless to say, we used it very sparingly throughout the year.
What we did not know, until the trees bloomed that spring, was that they were all red maples. The ratio of sap to syrup in the red maples was 60 gallons to 1 gallon of syrup. But that is not all we had also tapped alot of small trees less than 10 inches in diameter because we did not know that the trees should be 10 inches or larger. So in the end of that first season we figured we averaged about 80 gallons of sap to 1 gallon syrup. That is a whole lot of boiling and a whole lot of work! 
The second season we were going to be ready for! To begin with we bought the book ‘Backyard Sugarin’ and it helped us alot that second season. We bought more real taps and had about 2 cords of dead dry wood cut and split. We went from 2 liter soda bottles to gallon water jugs and we also built ourselves a "Sugar Shack” so we could boil even if it rained. ‘Ole Blue’ and ‘Rusty’ were quite pleased that they would have a roof over their smoke stacks this year! What a sight it was, it was a structure only the builders could be proud of, but, it worked and we were ready for the sugarin’ season to begin.!
We had about 125 taps out for the second season, all in trees about 12 inches or bigger in diameter. We had so much sap that year that the two 50 gallon drum evaporators could not keep up! So half way through the season my oldest son suggested that we build a three pan cinder block evaporator. (Why is it always the one without the money that suggests such things?) So, we went and bought cinder blocks and three 12 x 17 inch pans and built one. The first day we used the new evaporator we were glad we had it because the sap poured out of the trees that day. I think we ended up getting about 70 to 80 gallons! After that we just cruised along using all three evaporators, but we did have to cut up alot more wood! We found out during this second season that Ole Blue and Rusty were quite the wood hogs compared to our new cinder block evaporator which earned the name of ‘the pro rig’. It was a big chore for my three sons and I to keep up with the fires and to keep the sap at good levels in the pots and pans. But as the season wound down we were sad because we were not sure if we would be able to make maple syrup in Kentucky where we were moving to right after the sugarin’ season.
That second year we made about 7 1/2 gallons of that liquid gold! We were proud and thought we had done pretty good that year. We averaged about 55 gallons to 1 gallon of syrup. So that was a big improvement over the 80 to 1 ratio we had the year before. Our best sugar pecentage day of that year was a ratio of 48 to 1. It’s amazing how much work goes into it but it sure doesn’t seem like it at the time, especially when the whole family is involved. And it is a family adventure that includes all 5 children and both parents. I can only hope that in the future that the kids will stay close and the adventure in the spring will continue with grandchildren by my side.
As soon as that second season came to an end we were on the move to central Kentucky, the blugrass state, the horse capital of the world, and the home of Daniel Boone! But not known for maple syrup production. I didn’t even know if we had any maples on the property. I wasn’t thinking maple syrup when we looked it over and bought it! So after we arrived at our new home we go through the spring not even thinking about maple syrup. We were busy with other things on our new farm like tending to the chickens, cows, horses, geese and the garden. Then in the fall we went around our property and marked the Sugar Maples just in case we could make maple syrup in the spring. We were happy when we found about 40 trees. It wasn’t the 125 that we had in Maine but it would do just fine.
So we go along through November and December thinking sugarin’ season would not be till February. But out of the blue the temperatures were perfect in the middle of January. We tapped our first trees in Kentucky on January 20, 2008! We got 5 gallons of sap that first day! Now the only question that remained was, “would it turn into good tasting syrup?”
We found out that night that it would. We set up our little 3 pan evaporator and started boiling on a concrete pad. I thought it would be a good place but didn’t realize that concrete would explode under excessive heat and explode it did!! We were getting close to the end when the concrete blew up. It blew a piece straight up into the finishing pan and flipped it over ruining all the work. But we are thankful that no one was hurt and that we knew for sure that we could make syrup here in Kentucky! The Lord sure is good to us.
We put out about 55 taps this year, in all Sugar Maples!! We had the same type setup with the three pan cinder block evaporator that averages about 6 gallons an hour this year, plus a smaller three pan cinder block evaporator that averages 4 gallons an hour. So we totaled about 10 gallons an hour this year. We brought in about 520 gallons of sap and got about 12 gallons of syrup so far! Which made our average ratio about 44 to 1. We may get 2 or 3 more days of sugarin’ this year, which is amazing since it is already March, but it is pretty much over here! It’s sad to say but Ole Blue and Rusty didn’t make the trip from Maine as there just wasn’t room for them in the moving van but they will forever be in our memory.
I’ve had several people ask me about maple syrup. One older man wanted to know where he could buy a couple taps so he could tap the big sugar maples in his front yard. Well, let me tell you, you can’t just go down to the local feed store or hardware store and buy them like you can in the Northeast but there is always the internet! Also, a couple of the neighbors were suprised we were going to try to make it and were suprised when we could! It’s been funny watching all the cars come to a stop on the road in front of our house and just look at the milk jugs hanging on the trees. I wish I could know what they were thinking!
We have had a great year of sugarin’ this year and we will be better prepared for next year, with a bigger evaporator and maybe even a small building to put it in! My oldest son, who is now 18, is talking about us getting ‘big’ next year by making about 100 gallons of syrup and selling it, he is the son who loves making maple syrup and was the one who got the whole thing rolling! A hundred gallons might seem like alot but I know we will give it our best effort. After all, doesn’t everyone need a goal or dream to strive for?
Maybe we have begun a craze here in Kentucky! You drive around the area we live in and you see all over the place these huge Sugar Maples in peoples front yards that aren’t even being used! The homesteaders of years gone by must have planted these for maple syrup but with today’s lifestyles most people either don’t have the time or even care about making syrup. Maybe someday Kentucky will be known not only as the blugrass state and the horse capital of the world but, also as a producer of maple syrup! Is Kentucky the forgotten maple syrup state? You never know!!