Tapping season is just around the corner and all over the north woods people are starting to get their sugar bush in order. The big time operations are putting up lines taken down by windfalls and fixing all the spots squirrels chewed. Small hobby syrup makers like us are getting our gear in order too. We have built up our inventory of equipment over the years which has led to quite an assortment of taps. Here are four different ones, the plastic one being the newest type. These are designed for use with tubing such as the big producers use but they work fine for us too. I use to run a section of tubing into a bucket with a lid.
On a large tree that had several taps they could all go into one bucket through a small hole near the top of the bucket. That method also works well when there is a clump of maples with several taps. The closed bucket keeps the sap nice and clean.Unless you tap a lot of trees a hand auger with a sharp bit will do a fine job. We put in up to 300 taps with this auger and a hammer to tap them in. We used every type of plastic bucket we could get our hands on for years but last year we added sap bags to our collection. I had wanted to use them for years but the holders were to expensive for me.
Last year I made a bunch of holders from pvc pipe. You will find two post about that in the archives so I wouldn't go over all that again.One article is a how to for anyone interested. I like the fact that the bags keep the sap clean and are relatively cheap.. The biggest problem we have had is that the bark sometimes rubbed holes in the bags.This seemed to be related to poor quality bags but I don't know how to judge that until it is to late. At least I can afford to go in and buy more bags when they are needed. New buckets are expensive and in a area with lots of hobby syrup makers used buckets are
scarce. Here is our sap pan, an entirely home made affair.The pan is 3 foot by 7 foot by 6 inches deep and bent from a 4 by 8 piece of sheet metal. The fire box is a frame of steel tubing enclosed with pole barn steel siding. The fire box area is indicated clearly by the areas the paint is burned off of. The rear sloops up towards the top to keep the heat against the pan. The floor of this area is steel siding with a couple inches of sand on it. Hopefully this will be a better year than last. I have a few repairs to make on our sugar shack so I better get to work. Tapping season will be here soon.
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