Aunt Jemima's maple syrup envy. Vol #1 - Tappin' sap.

"I happen to know everything there is to know about maple syrup! I love maple syrup. I love maple syrup on pancakes. I love it on pizza. And I take maple syrup and put a little bit in my hair when I've had a rough week. What do you think holds it up, slick?"

- Vince Vaughn as Jeremy Grey in "The Wedding Crashers"

That grand old tree above is a 180-year-old maple my brother tapped. This was taken late in the day which would account for the bluish tinge...great picture. Jas first became interested in making maple syrup last year. As is true in many instances, his approach to the art has been fine-tuned over the past year. I was lucky enough to become involved with it so stay tuned for several blog posts entitled "Aunt Jemima's maple syrup envy".

I spent the last weekend of March in a cabin on 1,000 acres of woods somewhere near Dodgeville, WI with my brother collecting maple sap and burning it into syrup. This series of blog posts outlines our weekend together (along with his dogs, Molly and Zol) and the labor intensive hobby of making your own maple syrup. Quite the process, I must say.

I went up to the cabin the weekend before last to help Jason collect sap while he was working out the kinks in his homemade still - I mean, evaporator (I'll get to that later). I already posted a picture on the cabin we stayed in (friend's of Jas') and a picture collection on an abandoned hunting shack on the property. This particular post will outline some of the in's and out's of sap collecting - I suggest you check out the video below as I take you through one sap collecting outing.


Click on READ MORE! for more pictures on all the prep work before you start making maple syrup

NEXT POST: Vol #2 - A cabin in the woods.

Jas makes meticulous notes on where each maple tree is located, what time of day he collects sap and how much sap he gets from each tree (see notes below). I can't tell you how many hours he spent researching the "making maple syrup process" in order to perfect last year's endeavors.

Sap is collected from the bags hanging on the trees (you can use a bucket as well), then poured into these 5-gallon jugs. They're a bitch to carry through the woods, especially since most of Jas' trees are located in little valleys that makes walking akin to running a marathon (see video above). One particular walk is about 400 yards into the woods and uphill.

This is your typical tap. Below you can see a tap from last year that's "repaired" itself.

Over the course of two weekends, I believe we collected (guessing) 150 gallons of sap from 40 trees. That'll make at most 4 gallons of maple syrup. As I mentioned, it's "the journey" that really matters.