On the tapping of trees, the processing of sap and pancake breakfasts

Bucket and lid on a maple tree after drilling a hole for the spial

Guest Blogger Joanna on urban tree tapping!

To follow up on a previous post about Flint’s “untapped resources,” here’s an entry about our syrup-making process. In late February, a small group of us decided to go about tapping Maple trees within the city. We purchased 50 spials and buckets and went off to identify urban Maple trees. While other trees like Box Elders and Walnuts can be tapped, sugar content is highest (around 3%) in the Sugar and Black Maple. After spending a couple of hours in the urban wilds of Flint, we identified and marked 48 trees we believed to be Maples. During the winter, when there are no leaves on the trees you can ID them by the bark, leaves on the ground and organization of the branches.

When tapping a tree, you want to make sure the diameter is at least 12 inches. With a drill and drill bit of 5/16, drill a hole about 3 inches in aiming upwards so that when sap is running down the trunk, it will come out of the spial. You want to do this when there are sunny days with above freezing temperatures and cool nights below freezing to promote sap flow.

After tapping our trees, we made a schedule to check the buckets every other day. We made it out when we could, emptied the buckets into plastic five-gallon tubs and stored them in a root cellar. As long as its kept below 38 degrees, it should be fine.  As days and nights got warmer (up into the 60’s!) sap stopped flowing as easily and the mosquitos came.  We built a firepit with concrete blocks to contain the warmth and started boiling our first batch of sap. With Sugar Maples, usually around 40 gallons of sap will boil down to one gallon of syrup. Make sure you don’t burn it! You may want to take the sap off of the open fire and finish it off on your stove. There is a lot of steam generated by the boiling, so make sure there’s adequate ventilation in your house beforehand. You are looking to finish the boil when the temperature is seven degrees above the boiling point of water (219 degrees F here in Flint).

The sap was flowing!

To boil, we used galvanized steel tubs but have heard that this is not the best material, as it interacts with the sap in high heat. Make sure you taste the sap at all points in the process, not only to detect off flavors or sourness if something went wrong, but because this is the best liquid I have ever tasted in my whole life.  Despite all of the problems we had with high temperatures, infrequent collection, mosquitoes, an inappropriate evaporator pan, the syrup is delicious and perfect. I would recommend this to anyone and everyone wanting to experience a bit of wild-crafting, self-sustainability or urban foraging. This was so rewarding and fun that we were thinking that next year, we’d explore options of marketing wild Flint edibles like maple syrup, mushrooms, mulberries and wild raspberries.

Until next time, food and love

Joanna

First drops