A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

We are almost done with                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           We are almost done with mud season here...............cant wait!!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

In Sacramento California Today - Fair today with a high of 75 °F (23.9 °C) and a low of 49 °F (9.4 °C).
Sunday - Partly cloudy today with a high of 76 °F (24.4 °C) and a low of 51 °F (10.6 °C).

Originally posted by jato Leo, people in your neck of the woods are probably in the thick of "sap season" for making maple syrup; they sure are here and loving this weather, it extends the season, thus more sap and more syrup.  Last year I hit it pretty hard with 80 taps, collected 700 gallons of sap and ended up with 16.25 gallons of syrup.  Mmmm, mmmm good! But also used 3 face cord of wood.  Not doing any this year, it is a LOT of work.

Oh oh JandL, forecast is really "cool" as we are to receive 6 more inches of snow today and tomorrows forecast is for a high of 21 F (-6 C) and a low of 10 F (-12 C), yippee.

originally posted by techntrek
The last few years I've considered tapping the 1-2 dozen red maples we have on our property.  No sugar maples here but they are in the area.  It always comes down to time and wood.  We are always busy this time of year and it takes a lot of work to cut/section/move/split/stack a cord (or money and then I still have to move and stack it) and a lot of time to tend the boil.  A lot easier and cheaper to buy a gallon at Costco...   

Believe it or not they even tap white birch and make birch syrup around here, I don't think it has the rich taste of maple syrup, but it does have a taste all its own.  Never had syrup from red maples, would think it would be similar to what you get from sugar maples, including the sugar content of the sap.  Best sugar content is early in the season with the sugar at 2%, from there it will drop to 1.5% or even less.  Once the temps stay above freezing at night the sugars begin to turn to starch (for leaf production), then you are done, the sap turns cloudy and bitter.

Leo, ask your son what the ratio is for birch syrup.  Under good conditions it is 40 to 1 for maple sap when it is flowing at 2% sugar out of the tree.  In other words, 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup.   Is birch sap the same ratio?