CADILLAC — Here in the mitten it’s officially maple syrup season and what better way to kick off the season with a demonstration on how you can extract sap from any maple tree on your property with the goal of turning it into pure Michigan maple syrup.
“If you have a yard with a handful of maples on it, you can tap them yourselves and create your own syrup,” said NanBop Farm Director Jason Abraham.
The process isn’t necessarily hard, but you will need a few tools, a drill and a hammer are the primary ones.
“What we’re going to do now is we’re going to take our drill with our 5/16 drill bit. And that 5/16 drill bit is standard for the home kits that you can buy in the tractor supply stores and online” said Abraham. “Everything’s going to be a five, six, five, 16 size spile. So, we’re going to go ahead and drill in about 2 and a half Inches. What we’re going to do is get into the tree, cut through the membrane to get us where we can get into where the sap actually does flow. The first thing I’m going to do is measure my distance from the tree down to my bucket and how long my tube is.”
Abraham said you’ll want to drill in about two and a half inches.
“That’s going to get into the tree, cut through the membrane to get us to where the sap actually does flow,” said Abraham. “I’ve already measured my distance from the tree down to my bucket and how long my tube is. I’m going to put my hole right there.”
After that you’ll want to go in reverse with the drill so you can pull out any pulp material that you have created inside that could stop the flow of sap.
Here’s the next step.
“Gently tap it in and it’ll stop when it goes in far enough that you don’t overdo it. And then we’ll go ahead and tap in our second one really quick. And I like to stand to the side and actually look at the spile as I go ahead and hammer it in,” said Abraham. “Because these are just plastic, and they will crack and break. You want to make sure you’re hitting it at the right angle to make sure you don’t break your stuff.”
Now you can flow the tube right through the hole, if your holes are too large, you can wrap tape right around the base of the lid of the tubing to hold it in place and keep it from pulling out.
“This tree is now set up, and all you do now is wait. We will visit this tree every week for the next month or so and continue to harvest whatever sap comes down,” said Abraham.