Fun for all ages and a great way to spend time with friends and family, collecting maple sap and making your own maple syrup is easier than you think - especially with this helpful Guide to Maple Tapping. Filled with step-by-step instructions and photos, this book walks you through the entire process from tapping a tree to enjoying your first stack of pancakes. Whether you're a beginner or a lifelong sugarmaker, you'll find essential information including: - Identifying and selecting the best trees. This updated Second Edition also includes a chapter on tapping and making syrup from non-sugar maple trees such as boxelder, birch, and walnut. - Assembling your supplies and prepping your very own sugar shack - Drilling the taphole and multiple ways to collect sap - Filtering instructions and advice on storage - Complete directions and tips for boiling sap into syrup - Recipes and cooking ideas for using pure maple syrup - Interviews, anecdotes, and advice from professional sugarmakers and lifelong hobbyists - Interesting facts, tips, and much, much more!

Presents a beginner's guide to the process of making maple syrup, from tapping the trees to cooking and bottling the syrup, including cooking with evaporators, grading the syrup, building a sugarhouse, pricing, and marketing.

Sweet Maple is an instructional book on backyard sugarmaking that’s also the story of one family’s connection to the past on a small New England sugar farm. Throughout its pages, Michelle (the “sugarmaker’s wife”) gives advice on: the 22 different kinds of trees that can be tapped. the process of making syrup, to help you decide what level is right for you. how to make alternative treats, such lilac syrup. the health benefits of maple products, which contain more than 40 antioxidants. substituting processed sugar with all-natural maple syrup in any recipe. the 3 steps to making maple sugar. how to make irresistible maple cream and how to enjoy it. While learning the art of sugarmaking alongside her husband, Michelle guides readers through every step of all-natural syrup production, with directions for tapping one tree or dozens, while detailing the life-changing benefits of using maple syrup in the kitchen.Interspersed with sugaring techniques, tips, sidebars, and storytelling, Michelle shares more than 30 of her family’s tried-and-true maple recipes—from scones to salads.

Sugaring is the act of collecting maple sap to make maple syrup, an early-spring endeavor that takes place in the Midwest and Northeast United States, and in neighboring areas in Canada. It is a time-honored tradition with Native Americans origins. Sugaring is a beautifully rendered narrative about this soulful activity that slows down time. Interspersed throughout the book's lyrical story are instructions to guide the novice sugarer through every stage of sugaring, from selecting trees and hanging sap buckets to finishing off the syrup. For anyone with an interest in taking up sugaring, everyone who has a maple tree, and all those with nostalgia for the rural landscape, Sugaring will be a joy to discover.

Explore the fascinating history of maple sugaring in this informative guide to all things syrup. From the tap on the tree to the pancakes on your plate, Tim Held explains every nuanced step of the sugaring process. Learn to identify different kinds of maple trees and get inspired to tap the sugar maples in your backyard. Held also includes tempting recipes that use syrup in old-fashioned treats like maple nut bread, maple eggnog, and pecan pie.

The Sugarmaker's Companion is the first guide of its kind addressing the small- and large-scale syrup producer seeking to make a profitable business from maple, birch, and walnut sap. This comprehensive work incorporates valuable information on ecological forest management, value-added products, and the most up-to-date techniques on sap collection and processing. It is, most importantly, a guide to an integrated sugaring operation, interconnected to the whole-farm system, woodland, and community. Farrell documents the untapped potential of American forests and shows how sugaring can turn a substantial profit for farmers while providing tremendous enjoyment and satisfaction. Michael Farrell, sugarmaker and director of the Uihlein Forest at Cornell University, offers information on setting up and maintaining a viable sugaring business by incorporating the wisdom of traditional sugarmaking with the value of modern technology (such as reverse-osmosis machines and vacuum tubing). He gives a balanced view of the industry while offering a realistic picture of how modern technology can be beneficial, from both an economic and an environmental perspective. Within these pages, readers will find if syrup production is right for them (and on what scale), determine how to find trees for tapping, learn the essentials of sap collection, the art and science of sugarmaking, and how to build community through syrup production. There are many more unique aspects to this book that set it apart from anything else on the market, including: - A focus on maple as a local, sustainably produced and healthy alternative to corn syrup and other highly processed and artificial sweeteners; - The health benefits of sap and syrup in North America and throughout the world; - Attention to the questions of organic certification, sugarhouse registration, and the new international grading system; - Enhancing diversity in the sugarbush and interplanting understory crops for value-added products (ginseng, goldenseal, and mushrooms, specifically); - An economic analysis of utilizing maple trees for syrup or sawtimber production and the market opportunities for taphole maple lumber; - The value of sap as a healthful and profitable energy drink; - Detailed analyses on the economics of buying and selling sap; - Lots of great information on marketing to create a profitable business model (based on scale, interest, and access), and more. . . . Applicable for a wide range of climates and regions, this book is sure to change the conversation around syrup production and prove invaluable for both home-scale and commercial sugarmakers alike.

Learn how to make syrup the old fashioned way with the help of a friendly bear and her amusingly unhelpful accomplices Dog and Squirrel in this informative comics-style picture book. Did you know that it takes forty gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup? "How many pancakes can I eat with that gallon?" wonders Dog. Every step of the process of making maple syrup is covered in this sweet (but never saccharine) informational picture book by Maxwell Eaton III, the creator of the popular "Truth About" series. It begins with Bear assembling the tools she'll need for the project, continues with a discussion of the types of maples found in the area and why sugar maples are best for tapping, then on to drilling, tapping, evaporation and at the end of the process, real maple syrup and best of all, PANCAKES! Along the way there are hilarious asides from increasingly ravenous Dog and Squirrel, making this a book as funny as it is informative. Helpful back matter and suggestions for further reading complete the package. A Junior Library Guild Selection

Written especially for the young sugarmaker and filled with photos, illustrations, and activities, this book takes the reader from tree to table. You'll learn what trees to tap, how to collect the sap, how to make syrup, and the science behind this age-old process. The book also includes a special section for adults with step-by-step instructions on home sugaring.