Harvesting Maple Sap at the Julian Farm with Draft Horses

Joe visits Jason and Katrina Julian at their horse powered diversified farm in Medford, WI. He films them their three sons, dog and draft horse team as they tap, collect and cook maple sap to make maple syrup for their year.

Katrina demonstrates the assembly of the bags, holders and taps.
Jason explains the best tapping procedure for his area.
Tap the south side of the tree as it warms more quickly
Tap at the height of our "belt buckle"
Tap at a slight upward angle into the tree to get a boost from gravity
Use 5/16" bit drilled 1 1/2" into the tree.
Insert the taps and hang the preassembled bags.
Trees should be 10-12" in diameter at breast height before tapped.

They have a combination of hard and soft maples. They have 3-4 acres of woods and tap between 65-100 trees.
Hard Maples bud later and have sap with a higher sugar content.
Soft Maples but earlier and have sap with a lower syrup content.

Weather is a big factor in tree output. Jason says there are many theories.
Trees are tapped while the night temperatures are still below freezing and the days warm. Once the trees start budding and the syrup gets cloudy, taping season is over.

Normal maple sap:syrup ratio is 40:1. They have been getting 20-30:1. One theory for this increased sugar content is that they pasture the woods so the additional manure may help the trees.

When collecting the Julians take the whole family out int he wagon pulled by their draft horse team. They boys empty the bags into 5 gallon buckets and then the buckets get emptied by Katrina into tanks on the horse drawn wagon.

Investment - estimate
Stove ad SS pan - $1100
Taps, tins and bags - $700-800
Everything is reusable including the bags. They need to be washed and dried thoroughly.

Next we go to the sugar shack to watch cooking.
Wood is loaded into the stove and an placed on top. The syrup is emptied into the pan and cooked down, all the while skimming foam from the top. Once cooked down quite a bit it is moved to an electric stove for the final condensing. When it reaches the proper sugar content it is put into sterilized jars.

The syrup is filtered 3 times. Once before it is put into the pan, once in skimming foam, and a final time as it is bottled.