#Tapping big leaf maple trees free#

Nonetheless, it clogs up the works in commercial operations, making silver maple the 4th choice, well behind the three listed above. It’s delicious, and I tell myself that it’s a great way to get my minerals. We let it settle to the bottom of the jar and then I eat it with a spoon or on toast. Yields will be lower, and the finished syrup is a bit lighter colored and thinner.īeyond that, silver maples produce a lot of “sugar sand” which is excess minerals that need to be filtered out of the final syrup. Silver maples also have a lower sugar content, rated at roughly 1.7% sugar in the sap on average (as compared to 2% to 2.5% in sugar maples). Take care to stop tapping as they begin to break bud to avoid grassy syrup. Like red maples, silver maples tend to leaf early in the spring, cutting the sugaring season short. The leaves also take on a silvery hue as they’re blown in the wind. Silver maples are a particularly beautiful tree, with leaves that are pointier in shape than the large maple hands on sugar maple trees. Sugar makers consider this “green” syrup inferior, but it’s still perfectly fine for home use. Once a tree “breaks bud” or begins to leaf in, the sap begins to take on a “grassy” taste and is less desirable. Unfortunately, red maples tend to break bud early in the spring, cutting the sugaring season short. Red maples tend to grow on wet and waterlogged soils that are marginal for sugar maples, so they are used for maple syrup production in a pinch. It’s reported to be roughly 1.5 – 2% sugar (as compared to 2% to 2.5% for sugar and black maples). Red maples have a high sugar content in their sap, but not quite as high as sugar maples. Unless you’ve marked trees in the fall, it can be hard to tell the difference between a red maple and a sugar maple. Black maples have a more limited range and are found further west throughout Illinois and the great lakes states. It’s nearly as sweet, and the trees produce at about the same time. On average, sugar maples will produce for 20 days across a 6 week season and produce roughly one quart of syrup for each tree tapped.Ĭommonly confused with sugar maples, black maples produce a very similar sap. They have the highest sugar content, the best yield and the longest sugaring season. Sugar maples are by far the first choice for use in maple syrup production.

#Tapping big leaf maple trees free#

At home, feel free to experiment with any of these 10 syrup-producing maple species. That means that no two maple syrups are exactly alike, each has its own unique qualities in much the same way that regionally specific fine wines boast.įor the most part, commercial sugar makers only use densely planted sugar maple stands for syrup production. Regardless of the maple species, the syrup flavor will be determined largely by your unique climate, the weather that year, and the time of the season when it was boiled (early v. The differences are subtle, and the species has less to do with the final flavor than other seasonal and local factors. Each produces a syrup with a slightly different flavor profile. There are 10 different species of maple trees that can be tapped for syrup. Tapping Maple Trees for Syrup (Acer Species) I’d love to hear your experiences tapping any of these trees. I’ve tried to include flavor profiles, when to tap and any other information I’ve come across. Thus far, I’ve found a total of 27 different tappable species. I intend this to be a comprehensive list, so please do comment below if you know of any I’ve missed. Most are available locally, and this spring I hope to tap linden and ironwood to put them to the test. I later found that you can tap a lot of trees other than maple, dozens in fact. I remember seeing an off-hand mention of tapping black walnut trees a few years ago, and it blew my mind? You can tap that? We love syrup, we love tapping, so why limit it to maple?

Walk into any gift shop in Vermont and you’ll find shelves of maple syrup, alongside t-shirts that boast “ I’d tap that” with a maple tree front and center.