Are you in Lockdown right now, stuck with a bit of cabin fever and looking for a new hobby to add to your quarantine bucket list? If you’re tired of making banana bread and sourdough bread, I have the perfect cure for the winter blues. You need to make maple…
2019 Maple Sap Summary
When is the best time to tap a maple tree in Southeastern Pennsylvania? That was my number one question when I first decided to get started in this hobby. When do you put the tap in the tree? Unfortunately, when I searched around, all I found about the topic was…
Today I made maple syrup at home (and a giant mess)
Well, it’s official. Today, I made maple syrup at home. Take a look: It tasted delicious. But I did make a huge mess and a few mistakes. I’ll share the full adventure with you here, so you won’t make the same mistakes I did. Making maple syrup at home from…
Two good days in a row
In my second big day in a row. Weather has been great. Check this out: In less than 24 hours, I collected 2.75 more gallons of sap, almost all from Tree #2. There was a small amount (3 cups?) from Tree #1 and the rest from tree #2. I ran…
Big days for sap collection
The weather has been amazing for collecting sap. Sunday, the temperature went from the 20s to the 40s. Like the obsessed psychopath that I am, I checked the taps every few hours to look for sap dripping. When I first tapped the tree, I could literally see the sap dripping.…
Week of January 28th update
It was bitterly cold for most of this past week: Sap ran early in the week and then the temperature got too cold. Tuesday delivered 3/4 gallon of sap again, for a grand total of 1.5 gallons of sap. I boiled it down on Saturday, to save some room in…
The sap is flowing
January 24th, it’s the second day in a row that the temperature was above 40 degrees Fahrenheit and I can officially report…the sap is flowing. Tree # 1 started flowing – I collected 1.75 cups, which is pretty close to the 2.25 cups I collected on day 1 of the other…
Does maple sap flow immediately after a hard freeze?
It was C-O-L-D the last two days. The temperature was in the single digits. On Monday, it went down to 6 degrees. On Tuesday, the high was 30. Today, the temperature got up to 44 at 9 pm with the temperature still rising. My hope was that today would be…
Maple Syrup When to Tap the Tree
Interested in making your own maple syrup but aren’t sure when to tap? Let me share with you what I’ve learned about maple syrup when to tap. When is maple tapping season? Maple tapping season varies slightly based on local climates and weather, but it generally said to run from…
First sweet taste
Report on day 3. You can find Day 1 and Day 2 here. Well, the temperature dropped quickly yesterday. It was 38 degrees Fahrenheit at 11 am and was 24 by 4:30 pm. That stopped the sap from running in tree # 2 (tree # 1 never got started). So…