A reader: I just started sugaring this year. I have looked at library and have a “maple mentor” but can’t seem to filter out the sand on the bottom on my own. One book from library said to make filter/cheesecloth hot with water before filtering and then filter/can. I did this with one batch and [...]

Yesterday warmed, and today we should be getting a good run, provided the wind doesn’t come up and knock down the sap. We took advantage of the slow flow yesterday to do some more sugarhouse fiddling, including getting the water going (more below) and arguing about how we should move maple syrup from the evaporator [...]

Last year we drove ourselves a little crazy by introducing a lot of new elements into the maple syrup operation. We introduced ourselves to filter presses (which take more sediment out of raw maple syrup), reverse osmosis (pre-concentrates sap before boiling), line vacuum (extracts more sap from trees), blowers (makes fire hotter) and pre-heaters (uses [...]

This overview shows how people take the fluid in the veins of trees and concentrate it to make maple syrup. You can search this site for more specific articles on each aspect, but here it is briefly all in one place. For some unknown reason, sugar maple trees produce much, much more sap and much [...]