Here’s How to Tap & Make Your Own Maple Syrup

If you have maple trees on your property, or legal access to a local sugar bush, you may want to try your hand at making maple syrup this year. Tapping maple trees or “sugaring” is a great winter activity for the whole family. It’s fun, it gets you outdoors, and you can make yummy maple syrup for your pancakes and waffles.

Where to Tap Maple Syrup Trees?

Before you can get to tapping maple trees, you’re going to need to find yourself the right tree. Sugar Maples are the best, but you can also tap Black, Red, and Silver Maples. Check online or find a local expert to help with identification. If you have maple trees in your backyard you can get right to work. If not, you can ask permission from someone who does, or find a local sugar bush or maple syrup farm that’s open to the public. Keep in mind, you can’t tap trees on city or municipal property, or anywhere where you don’t have express permission.

When to Tap Maple Syrup Trees

Maple trees produce sugar over the summer and store it as starch in their roots during winter. Warmer temperatures create pressure in the tree, so it starts to convert the starch back into sugar, kicking off sap flow. Depending on where you live, maple syrup season can generally start as early as mid-February and run through early April.

Selecting the Best Trees to Tap

Look for mature, healthy trees that have good exposure to sunlight. Tapping a younger, smaller maple tree may kill it, so choose trees that are at least 30 cm in diameter. The size of the tree also determines how many taps you can drill into it and how much sap you can expect to collect. Here’s what you need to know: 

• Use one maple syrup tap for trees 30-50 cm in diameter

• Use two taps for trees 50-65 cm in diameter 

• Use up to three taps for trees over 65 cm in diameter

Maple Syrup Tapping Tools & Supplies

Once you’ve chosen your trees, you’ll need the right equipment for tapping maple trees. It’s a good idea to get your maple syrup supplies well before the season starts. Here’s what you’ll need:

• Unscented bleach, soap, and hot water 

• Cordless drill with 5/16 and 7/16 drill bits for use with different size spiles 

• Sap buckets with lids 

• Maple syrup spiles (also called taps or spouts) 

• Hooks to hang buckets from the spiles (unless your spouts include hooks) 

• Rubber mallet 

• Cheesecloth 

• Food safe collection pails

How to Tap a Maple Syrup

To avoid contaminating the sap, give all your gear a thorough cleaning with soap and water. Then soak them in a light bleach solution (1/20 bleach to hot water) and triple rinse with plain hot water. Now you’re all set:

1. Orient Your Tap: Identify the south-facing side of the tree for drilling.

2. Place Your Tap: Choose a tapping spot that is between 60-120 cm from the ground and either above a large root or below a large branch. Ensure your tap hole is at least 6 inches away from any previous tap holes. 

3. Drill Your Tap Hole: Drill your hole 5-6 cm deep at a slightly upward angle to allow downward flow of the sap. 

4. Examine the Wood Shavings: Light brown indicates healthy sapwood whereas dark brown can mean unhealthy wood so choose another spot. 

5. Insert Your Tap: Clear away the wood shavings, insert the spout into the hole and tap it into place with your mallet.

6. Install Your Bucket: Hang your sap bucket from the hook and close the lid.

Collecting & Storing Your Sap

You’ll want to check your pails daily. Some days you may only collect a few centimeters of sap, and other days your pails will overflow. Here’s how to collect and store your sap:

1. Sterilization: Wash your food safe collection pail with a 1/20 bleach solution and rinse thoroughly. 

2. Filtering: Cover the pail opening with cheesecloth to filter out any solids or debris. 

3. Sap Transfer: Pour the sap from your sap bucket through the cheesecloth into your collection pail. Tap the pail lid into place with your rubber mallet.

4. Storage: Your sap should be stored in an area that is 3°C or colder, and used within seven days of collection

How to Make Maple Syrup

Now that you’ve collected and stored your sap, it’s time to make maple syrup! It takes 40 parts maple sap to get 1 part maple syrup, so make sure you have enough sap to process or manage your yield expectations accordingly. Here’s what you’ll need and how to do it:

• Outside grill, cooker, fryer or a fire pit 

• Large flat-bottomed pot 

• Cooking gloves or BBQ gloves 

• Smaller pot for finishing the syrup 

• Food thermometer 

• Maple syrup bottles or mason jars

1. Find a Heat Source: Because boiling sap produces a lot of steam that can damage your kitchen walls, it’s best to do most of the boiling outside. A fire pit is great but an outdoor grill, or fryer will also work. 

2. First Boil: Fill your pot 3/4 full of sap and place it over your heat source. Let the sap boil about halfway down the depth of the pot before adding more sap. Tip: get another pot going so you can preheat your cold sap before adding—this helps to keep your sap at the boiling point. 

3. Second Boil: Once the sap has taken on a golden colour, you can transfer it to a smaller pot to finish off indoors. At this point, you’re boiling the golden sap down into syrup. 

4. Syrup Check: The easiest way to test if you’ve got syrup yet is to dip a spoon into the boiling sap and watch how it drips. If the sap comes off in droplets it still needs to boil more; if it comes off in a sheet or a stream you should have syrup! Take the pot off the heat to cool and confirm the final thickness and taste is indeed syrup. Alternatively, you can use a food thermometer to check the sap. Once it reaches 3.94°C above the boiling point of water, you have maple syrup. 

5. Filter the Syrup: There will likely be a bit of sediment in your syrup. You can filter the cooled maple syrup through a food grade filter or a coffee filter if you’re willing to work in smaller batches. Press the syrup through the filter into a clean container. Repeat batch by batch, using a new filter each time. You can also let the syrup sit overnight in the fridge to allow the sediment to settle to the bottom. 

6. Bottle the Syrup: Sterilize your bottles and caps in boiling water then pour the syrup into the bottles, cap them, and refrigerate. For long term storage, you can pour your syrup into sterilized mason jars and process them in a water bath canner.

Other Great Maple Syrup Treats

Maple syrup is great for topping off pancakes and waffles, or for pouring over snow to make for snow candy. But there’s a lot more you can make with it too, including: 

• Maple candy 

• Maple sugar 

• Maple butter

• Maple fudge 

• Maple wine

Tapping maple trees to make maple syrup is fun and educational. Making your own maple syrup from the sap is an even sweeter reward. All it takes a small investment in gear and supplies, and you’ll be ready for maple syrup season every winter.