Tapping Trees for Syrup

I live in Kansas ... the last thing I ever thought I'd be doing is tapping trees to make syrup! Notice! I did NOT say MAPLE syrup. Nope, I'm tapping Black Walnuts of all the crazy things. I have lots of walnut trees, granted a lot of the big ones were sold for lumber right before we bought the place. Upwards of $8000-10000 worth of large trees taken. I can understand though... the guy was trying to pay doctor bills.

There are some maples down here and people do tap them but you just don't get the sap flows like you do up north. Kind of comes in fits and spurts. But I happily have some friends who've been doing a little sugaring the last few years so I at least had someone to ask basic questions. The taps I made are based on what he did. Super cheap! I use a 6" length of 1/2" PEX. I added the screw to hang a bucket from, he stuck a 1 gallon milk jug over it with just an X cut in it to slip over the tap end. The jug is oriented upside down so you just unscrew or pop the cap to empty it. I don't have milk jugs in abundance ..  I don't buy milk. I did have a bunch of ice cream buckets I was given recently and also discovered grocery store bakeries are a source for free to cheap buckets 2 gallon and up. So I used what I had. I even had the PEX and screws amazingly enough. But mathwise, PEX is about $0.25 per foot so 2 taps plus a couple screws and a little tape (seals the tap in the hole better; use duct tape or first aid tape) you're looking at probably $0.20 per tap.

I used a carpenter awl to drill the holes with an appropriately sized bit. Takes a little muscle but you drill approximately a 2" deep hole, clean the debris out, use a hammer to tap the tap in and hang your container on it. Violá! You're collecting sap!

Now, there is a minimum tree diameter you can tap. Tap nothing less than a 10" diameter (31" circumference at chest height). Bigger trees can handle more taps. At a 20" diameter (64" circumference) a tree can handle two taps; at 25"+ (79"+), three.

Something I learned, because I don't have a book, is to tap the anything but the north side of the tree; south and east being the best.
After collecting enough sap, 50-60 gallons will produce approximately 1 gallon of syrup, you boil and boil and boil in a flat pan with no more than a sustained 2" of liquid in the pan. Do this outside over a fire or propane camp stove (the stove, however, is not economical for the amount you need to burn). Why outside? Too much humidity in the house even burning a wood stove. Learned that one too. There's more information on the web about the boiling aspect than the tapping so I'm not going to get detailed about it here.

So far I've made around 1 gallon of syrup. My first attempt at the sugaring aspect ... I nearly had sugar! Too far! The flavor is dark and nutty but nice and sweet. Very different than maple syrup.

Where did I get the idea to tap walnuts? Plants for a Future at http://pfaf.org/user/Search_Use.aspx?glossary=Sap. (Sorry, the blogger app has issues.. otherwise I'd link it.)